The Allotment Chef: Home-grown Recipes and Seasonal Stories. Paul Merrett

and Vegetable Gardening and written by Michael Pollock. It contains detailed information on plants as well as diagrams on pruning and general tips. This will definitely be a much-thumbed book. On the other hand, one is now on my ‘books to be avoided’ list. It is by Robin Shelton and is called Allotted Time. The book is basically a journal written by some bloke who has never gardened before (sound familiar?), and he takes the reader on a month-by-month journey through the gardening year. I only read about three pages before I begin to think that the book I am struggling to write has already been written. I realise that, if I read any more of it I will be become despondent, not least because his seems to be so much funnier than mine. Recent news has featured a legal battle between Dan Brown and some chaps who claim they have already written The Da Vinci Code. The case is threatening the release of a film of the book. Will a similar scandal hit the gardening world with allotment holders taking sides between me and Robin Shelton? While we sling organic manure at each other in court, a host of actors led perhaps by George Clooney (set to play me, of course) await the go ahead to release the blockbuster Brassicas Quest. My saving grace is that, as far as I can tell from the book, Mr Shelton is no cook, so at least I have him on that one. The book is now hiding in my sock drawer.

      Photograph by Mary-Jane Curtis

Chapter 5 | iPods and Asparagus

      As a chef I am lucky enough to go to some really interesting foody events. Not long ago I was invited to Dorset to present the Dorset Food Awards and give a small talk on regional cuisine. The evening was a big success and afterwards, the organiser, Fergus, suggested I might like to return for the World Nettle Eating Championships. Unfortunately, I can’t make it to this important event, but it has given me an idea.

      Despite having cleared half our plot, we are yet to eat anything from the place and this is a constant source of frustration to me. I have considered stealing vegetables from our allotment neighbours but this really isn’t in the spirit of things (and anyway they would all find out when I publish the book). But one thing we can eat that is growing in profusion is stinging nettles.

      A few years ago, while head chef at The Greenhouse in Mayfair, I put nettle soup on the menu and it was a huge hit. What is a little embarrassing to acknowledge about this, however, is that I bought the nettles from a vegetable supplier. Nettle soup is actually a well-loved dish on the continent, but it is obvious that, if I am caught at home cooking nettles for human consumption, my children will be on the phone to Esther Rantzen at ChildLine quicker than you can say ‘dock leaf’. However, if I am careful to knock up the soup when no one is home, then I can probably pass it off as pea soup, and no one will be any the wiser.

      One morning, therefore, I go down to the allotment with a pair of rubber gloves and a dustbin bag and start collecting nettles. They grow mostly along the borders of the allotment against a wire fence. With my Marigolds on, I am able to sift through and choose only the youngest, tenderest nettles; back home I turn them into a brilliant green creamy broth that everyone agrees is the best pea soup they have ever tasted. Sensing my moment of triumph, when the last spoonful has been eaten, I proudly tell them the truth – at which point Ellie bursts into tears and says her mouth is ‘sting-y’. Who cares about mouth ulcers when we have just eaten our first allotment meal? I wonder what cooch grass is like?

      I quite enjoy my solo trips to the allotments, and during the week the plots are relatively quiet. Our most immediate neighbour there is Andy, who seems to spend days on end at the allotments but never on the same plot. While we have nodded a hello in the past, I have not ever had a chat with him, so, when we pass on the path one morning, I make a quip about which plot he might be working on today.

      Andy explains that he is the Vice Chairman of the Blondin Allotments committee and, as such, he regularly checks the entire area and looks over plots that seem to be falling behind in terms of maintenance. I had never realised that our closest fellow gardener is part of the Blondin secret police.

      Although we have moved the plot forwards in the past two months, I am aware that our initial start has been anything but convincing, so I ask him if we have violated the rules by not coming to the plot from December to March. He, surprisingly, replies that quite the opposite is true and that, in fact, they are all rather impressed with our efforts. Furthermore, Andy lets slip that one of the adjacent plots to ours is on the hitlist and, if the owner is evicted, we might be offered a plot extension. This faith in us should be heartening but, having worked so hard to get to where we are, I am not sure if I could start all over again on another bit.

      We say our goodbyes and walk off in opposite directions. It’s good to get to know a few people at the site because a day’s digging can be a lonely life. At first, although Sheila and Keith had been friendly, few other people acknowledged us as we walked to our patch but, now we have proved ourselves as hardcore, green-fingered regulars, we have been accepted into the clan.

      Sheila always calls hello as we come through the gate and invites the kids over and Keith will come over for a chat, and John – a plot away from us – is also a friendly chap, and there is the most charming West Indian woman who always stops me and asks when I’m next on the telly. My standard response is to joke that she should forget all about that CCTV appearance on Crimewatch and not say a word to anyone; every time she laughs as hard as the first, which is very kind.

      On the other hand, several of the plot holders have erected large fences made of poles and bits of wood around their plots and these guys tend not to be the ‘good morning, nice day’ types. They appear to have barricaded themselves in. Then there is Mr iPod Man, who sings out loud while he works. He is usually bent over planting or digging and, while I have never worked out who he’s listening to on his iPod, it is obviously a band that he knows well, because he is always in full song whatever the time of day.

      I have yearned for an iPod for ages. Every birthday for the last three years, I have hoped in vain to spot the Apple logo as I tear back the recycled wrapping paper. So far, no joy, but now I am head gardener I feel it might be time to treat myself.

      I once heard John Major describe writing his memoirs as a cathartic experience. Frankly, I am finding writing my book completely frustrating. Digging, however, now that is truly cathartic. Some of my best times at the allotment have been spent with just my rambling imagination and a shovel for company. One morning, having nodded a hello to the iPod man, I take my shovel and start to dig rotational bed number three. It strikes me that, if I were to get an iPod, I could spend many a happy hour listening to what I please as I dig and sieve the land. The trouble, I have found, is that, as your children get older, they start to complain about the music that’s played in the car – ‘Dad, is “White Riot” really appropriate for us to be listening to?’ – and then, worse still, they demand music of their own. Ellie now insists on the Black Eyed Peas (at least it’s a vegetable reference) or some blokes called McFly, and she inevitably gets her way. Suddenly the allotment offers me a way out of this musical rut – if I were to buy an iPod I could cycle down to the allotment and listen to Neil Young without someone calling ‘this one sounds the same as the last one’ from the back seat.

      iPods are a wonderful invention and, as I ponder the possibilities, it strikes me that there could be a vegetable version of this wondrous gadget. Just imagine this. You desperately care about the environment. You also wholeheartedly agree with the environmental issues surrounding food production, such as the air miles it is flown and the use of pesticides, but you are simply too busy working to play a ‘hands-on’ role in the environmental movement. Perhaps you are a long-haul pilot with a busy schedule or a lumberjack working away from home in the Brazilian rainforest, or simply someone who doesn’t like dirt under their fingernails. If this is you, then you need iPlot.

      The investors and I buy a huge patch of land (perhaps Wales) and we carve the entire area into allotments, each with its own shed, compost heap and water butt.

      You, the ethical wannabe, contact us and we assign a plot of land exclusively