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

of Christmas gifts. My main present from the kids is a portable gas stove. MJ tells me that it is for making tea, but I have bigger ideas. We will carry out ‘from earth to pot’ experiments with all the vegetables we grow by eating them as soon as they are picked.

      My gifts on the other hand are seriously ‘correct’. I have done most of my shopping on the Centre for Alternative Technology website. MJ is the main beneficiary of this environmentally aware shopping spree and I shall always remember her joyful expression as she unwrapped: her new water siphon especially designed to remove ‘grey’ water from the bath to use on the garden; a reusable J cloth; a notepad made from elephant shit; and a (reusable) string bag for shopping – in local stores obviously. She just looked so happy.

      When it comes to the allotment itself, the truth is that, since we got the keys, we have not found, nor made, the time to visit. MJ is retraining as a teacher and I am at the pre-production stage of a TV series called Ever Wondered about Food…, which will be filmed during February. We are both simply too busy, and are perhaps slightly daunted by the task ahead. To compound the situation, the temperature has plummeted to minus two degrees and the thought of digging in this weather is too much to bear.

      The trouble is that we are constantly reminded of the allotment. Each time we drive down Boston Road past the gates that lead to Blondin, one of the kids will call out, ‘that’s where the allotment is’ (or ’lotment, as Richie calls it). MJ and I just grimace and mutter empty promises that contain the words ‘next weekend’. It is now two months since we inherited our plot and it’s hard to ignore Keith’s echoing words about eviction after three months of neglect.

      That cold November morning we had been filled with so much hope for the future – a future full of vegetables – and I had worked hard over Christmas convincing MJ that my allotment project, including a supermarket ban and a book of our achievements, was a good idea. She had only come around when I had received a positive response from HarperCollins about publishing a book – she couldn’t bear to crush my excitement, I expect.

      In early January I had gone to meet a lady at HarperCollins called Jenny who had bowled me over with her enthusiasm for my book. She fully agreed that a supermarket ban should take place and I had confidently told her that I would start right away. This had been somewhat foolhardy as we hadn’t lifted a single nettle, let alone planted anything, and now, another month on, I am beginning to envisage a cookery book with no recipes and no story.

      Our weekly trips to the supermarket are carrying on unchecked. At first I had refused to go myself, but now even I am resigned to the fact that, until we get the allotment up and running, the supermarket is our only hope.

      Towards the end of February, we have Dilly and Doug over for lunch (no prizes for guessing where the ingredients came from). As we sit around the table, the conversation drifts into choppy waters when MJ mentions the allotment. It comes as a huge relief to learn that they have also not visited their half of the plot and are wrestling with the desire to pack it all in before they start.

      At meetings like these, you need a leader, someone who stands up and bangs their fist in defiance of the gloom. I’m not about to lead anyone anywhere, but my wife is made of sterner stuff. She leans on the back of the chair and makes a stirring speech along the lines of, ‘We will conquer this patch of land. Paul’s even going to write a book and he’s never going to a supermarket again – ever. And we are behind him one hundred per cent.’ It does the trick; all of a sudden we are four gardeners around a table ready to dig at a moment’s notice. We all agree that we will get down to the allotment and show our mettle … next weekend.

      It is March – and still bloody freezing – when we take our first visit to the allotment. We have now had the plot for over three months and have failed to scupper a single weed. Dilly and Doug, and their children Eddie and Sylvie, join us so that we can divide the one very big plot into two smaller ones as per the original plan. Standing, shivering, in the middle of a frozen jungle that we have been silly enough to pay for, we agree ends and decide that a shared shed shall be the dividing line.

      Our plot is so overgrown that it’s difficult to know where to start; the whole area is a mass of tall grass, brambles and nettles. I feel the best way forwards is to go home, make a nice cup of tea and sit down in the warm to devise a plan of attack, but MJ counters that meetings simply get in the way of progress. We have brief words before she grabs the only shovel we own and starts randomly digging like a woman possessed.

      As this is really the extent of our garden tool kit my choices appear to be limited to standing in one spot and shivering, or standing in another spot and shivering. Eventually I decide to make a fire with the kids. One of the points of this mad folly is to give the kids a bit of outdoor life, so we collect as much wood and dried grass as possible and are soon all standing, hands held out, around a blazing fire like some 1970s workforce at odds with our employers.

      As the day wears on, it becomes increasingly obvious that we need some sort of plan if we are going to defeat this tangled, weedy corner of Ealing; even MJ, when she joins us around the fire, has to admit as much. MJ, Dilly, Doug and I decide to concentrate on a small area that will eventually be the spot for our shed. The next two hours are spent pulling up brambles and digging down six inches until we have a relatively flat space.

      A shed is a vital addition to an allotment; everyone who has an allotment has a shed. It means we can begin to buy some tools and store them on-site, and also that we will then have somewhere to shelter from the more extreme weather.

      Sheds, of course, are joked about as some last domain of male authority, a place where a bloke can go when everything gets too much. I have never thought of myself as the shed type but, as I look at the patch of cleared ground, it is easy to get excited about the structure waiting to stand there.

      We are the allotment that is furthest west so our shed will be like an outpost in the other west. The wild one. I start to ponder the whole shed thing and realise that I could really get used to having a shed. I then consider the five things I need in my shed:

      1 A radio – for football results, the Today programme and Woman’s Hour

      2 A kettle – for making tea

      3 A camping stove – to boil the kettle (to make that tea)

      4 A chair – well, you can’t stand during your tea break; it might have to be collapsible

      5 A barbecue

      The other thing every allotment worker has is a compost heap. These come in various guises. Some are simply piles of vegetation left exposed to the elements; others are elaborately constructed from old wooden pallets; some are even the more modern type – a green plastic drum with a removable lid.

      We have the latter variety – MJ had accepted the council’s offer of a subsidised compost bin and had given it to me for Christmas (ooh, lucky me!). After some discussion, we decide to put the compost bin at the outer edge of our plot. MJ feels that it might pong a bit during the summer, so we shouldn’t put it too near to where we will be working.

      It’s worth mentioning that, as well as a shed and a compost bin, there is something else that marks a gardener out from the crowd – his or her wardrobe. It includes: stout sensible boots; lightweight practical trousers with lots of pockets; thermal shirts (preferably with a checked pattern); waterproofs for wet weather; and thick socks. This is the type of clobber you will find yourself wearing should you take up the challenge to ‘grow your own’. Incidentally, this is also the sort of clothing over which I seriously considered divorcing my parents when I was young, so I have tried to avoid it at all costs!

      The following Saturday, nursing a monster hangover, I go to watch Brentford crush Barnsley (3–1). Over a Friday night beer, Chris, his wife Stella and I discussed all things horticultural, and I awake to find not only that I have a serious headache but also that I have in my pocket a list of tips on: growing tomatoes, killing slugs, types of weedkiller and building sheds. It seems that I can’t escape the allotment, even while drunk!

      As the haze