The fantastic blight-resistant Mountain Magic tomatoes are still ripening in the greenhouse. Conventional wisdom suggests that these should have been cut down a month ago on the basis that they would no longer ripen properly. I’ve always ignored this and … Read more
Earlier in the season this greenhouse tomato plant (v. Akron) collapsed under the weight of fruit on the vine almost snapping the stem. Optimistically I hauled it back upright and secured it again in the hope of salvaging some of … Read more
One of Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes from the cookbook called ‘Plenty’, this was made almost entirely with produce from the allotment. Not our peppers which aren’t quite ripe yet but the hens supplied the eggs and included are our cherry tomatoes, … Read more
The Potato Famine occurred in Ireland in the years between 1845 and 1849 when the potato crop failed in successive years. The Irish famine was the worst to occur in Europe in the 19th century and the crop failures were … Read more
The smell of newly cut wheat and barley in the fields in August transports me back to my late teenage years; harvest time and those long days working on the farm, carting grain and then straw from the fields; days … Read more
Chapter three of the Old testament book of Ecclesiastes contains a well-known passage which lists 14 “opposites,” a common element in Hebrew poetry; “a time to be born and a time to die”; a time to weep and a time … Read more