Electric Green

Squashes ready for battle I am annoyed. Annoyed and frustrated. Annoyed frustrated and thoroughly vexed. “By what, Best Beloved?” I hear you ask, concern in your voice, your gentle brow lightly furrowed (and having evidently recently re-read the Just-So stories). I am sick and tired of the continual battle against couch grass on my veg plot. I pull it up. It comes back. I double dig. It comes back. I cover it up. The sheet blows away in the wind. Like I said. Vexing. So I have a plan. An ambitious plan. “And what is thy scheme of redoubtable cunning regarding the aforementioned productive location, Best Beloved?” I hear you ask (being possessed of ‘satiable curiosity and having spent a bit too long in the company of a Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake with a scalesome, flailsome tail, I can only presume). Aha. It is this. For each squash or courgette I have dumped two thirds of a heaped wheelbarrow of well-rotted horse manure, unceremoniously on top of the offending weed. ...

It is cold, drear and can barely be bothered to get light. It is a struggle to get to the allotment and the packets of broad beans and sweet peas that should have been in weeks ago glare accusingly from the shelf. Yet I am finding the handsome row of squash and pumpkins on the mantelpiece is acting as an enduring reminder of the year’s successes. When veg keeps into winter it is a pleasure akin to mainlining The Good Life. An intravenous shot of joy and smugness that warms the cockles like no other. The baby gets creamy squash puree that has been nowhere near a packet. We get squash and green pea risotto. Yum. I have been saving the seeds of the handsome gunmetal blue ‘Crown Prince’ squash and, assuming they don’t get lost, forgotten or otherwise destroyed, I plan to plant them in the spring. But they were grown fairly near the butternut ‘Cobnut’ and a pumpkin (I think it was ‘Mars F1) so it will be interesting to find out how promiscuous they are. Some plants, like foxgloves and helle...