Window-box Allotment

You can make your own wooden wormery (Chase Organics provide instructions – see page 170). Or you can buy one or enquire whether your local council will give you one free (or at a reduced rate), this being the council’s attempt to encourage people to recycle and cut down on the landfill-waste problem. This is an excellent initiative but has its drawbacks: I have tried two council plastic wormeries and neither worked, the result in both cases being a swamp at the bottom of the bins from which the worms, quite understandably, were constantly trying to escape. I also bought what appeared to be an airier version of the council’s wormery. Result: third swamp. Conclusion: worms don’t like living in airless plastic containers. Who would? I have yet to meet a worm composter who has had any success with plastic – or at least with this particular design. I am sorry for those people who have given up worm composting because of failure, because wormeries can work.

The most successful wormery I have had was called a Tiger Worm Compost Bin and was made of recycled newspapers and cardboard. It allowed air to enter and excess moisture to leave and evaporate. Owing to its composition, it won’t last for ever, though mine lasted for several years. At the moment I am experimenting with what might, or might not, turn out to be the simplest and cheapest design of all (see page 104).

In the meantime, while making your own wormery or waiting for an ordered one to arrive, here are a few worm biographical details.

The species generally used for vermicomposting are the red worm (Eisenia andrei) and the tiger worm (E. fetida), so called because of its dark reddish colour and buff stripes. The reds and tigers are not from the same family as common earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris), which live deeper down in the earth and do different work, burrowing and aerating the soil. Reds and tigers live in the organic mulch on the earth’s surface and spend most of their time eating and producing nutrients for the soil. Without worms there would be no plants or trees.

Read about saffron’s long and interesting history (for a potted version and a description of a visit to a Spanish saffron festival, see page 109).

Chitting potatoes

This means placing potatoes in an egg box and leaving them in a cool place to start sprouting (chitting) in time for planting in April.

Second parsley check

After only a few hours on the windowsill, the seedling stems will have straightened. When the sun reaches them, all members of the ensemble will lean towards it. Keep turning their tray clockwise (clockwise because it is easier to remember), so that all sides receive equal light. If seedlings respond in this way to the sun, do they respond nocturnally, too, to the moon? Some gardeners believe so and sow at night. If the moon changes people’s moods and pulls tides along, surely it influences seeds, too, pulling them out of their cases.

Scented plants

Although my ‘allotment’ consists mainly of vegetables and fruit, it was formerly a scented roof garden, so naturally there are still a few members of the scented congregation left, such as Persian lilac, Wisteria sinensis, vanilla-scented Clematis montana, Rosa ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’, freesias, a portable indoor-outdoor orange bush, Viburnum x burkwoodii, lavender and Lilium regale, which have been living contentedly in the same 8in (20cm) pots for many years. There are also three different honeysuckles, two jasmines and Trachelospermum x jasminoides ‘Japonicum’, which specializes in autumns, having two each year – the first a private one in spring, when the leaves turn bright red, and the second with all the other plants in autumn, when the leaves again become red.

Apart from the residents mentioned above, night-scented stock (which must be one of the smallest flowers to produce such a huge scent) can also be grown. It doesn’t object to being brought indoors for the evening to scent a room. Also sweet peas and mignonette, that old-fashioned-looking, grandmotherly plant. If a choice had to be made between vegetables, fruit, scented plants and plants for colour, I would put them in the above order.

For brilliance and cheerfulness there is the confetti-like Virginia stock, nasturtiums and impatiens, the last because of their clashing pink-reds and because they are supposed to be difficult to grow (or at least the F_l hybrid is). Their germination boosts horticultural confidence.

However, growing solely vegetables need not result in a colourless, flowerless garden. There are red and white bean flowers, yellow cucumber, purple aubergine, beige rocket, pale yellow pak choi and white basil flowers, to mention just a few.

Third parsley check

After a short time the first two seedling leaves will unclasp each other and stretch out horizontally. When they are all outstretched, there will be very little standing room in the seed tray. Possibly a few other seeds (generally known as weeds) will also have enjoyed the incubation period. Remove them and any weak or overcrowded parsley seedlings. This can be done either with agile fingertips or tweezers.

Do not discard the parsley seedlings – eat them. These slim, elongated leaves are unidentifiable as parsley (it is the third leaf that reveals what the plant is), except in their taste, which could be nothing else but parsley. It is astonishing that something so diminutive, which is just a few days old and has only a stem and two leaves, can be filled with its own unmistakable taste, many times more pungent than its size but occupying only a minute portion of the mouth.

Germination summary

Sown 28 January

First appearance 6 February

First two leaves 19 February

Third leaf revealed 21 February. This is the tiny, trifoliate leaf that announces what the plant is: not dill, wild strawberry or basil (these look completely different) but Italian flat-leaved parsley.

Observing a dried pea ‘hatching’

For several weeks the pea lay submerged in water in a little glass cup, covered in minute diamond-like bubbles. Was the pea releasing air to create these bubbles? Or where do they come from? After a time I thought the pea might rot, so I removed it from the water and placed it on blotting paper.

Pea has rather anaemic-looking beige skin which makes it resemble a stone, giving it an unyielding appearance.

I keep watching it. What, I wonder, is going on inside it? Has pea put on weight?

Finally, while I was looking in the other direction, the stone-like skin relented and split. It wasn’t a random, haphazard splitting. It was a neat little incision, as though made by a tailor. As the split widened, it looked as though a size eighteen person was trying to squeeze out of a size fourteen waistcoat.

After few more days, a minute Roman-nose-profile beak appeared between the split.

Hatching is almost complete.

Bird Café

In the winter, when my cat died and nothing much was happening on my roof garden, I decided to concentrate on feeding wild birds, hoping I would have more success with them than the wildlife garden experiment.

From a wooden washing line – i.e, a broom handle suspended horizontally – I hung a selection of feeders, including a suet ball, a globe distributor for small birds, a fat ball guardian for larger birds, a classic seed feeder and a goldfinch starter kit. To prevent pigeons stealing the ground feeders’ food, on the ground I installed a feeding tray plus a protector which resembled a high-sided cot with lid. (My adept pigeons eat from every food source they can reach.)

The menu consisted of sunflower hearts, premium peanuts in a nylon Aertex ‘sock’, black sunflower seeds for chaffinches, nyjer seeds for siskins and goldfinches, and high-energy suet sprinkles. For a treat there was a peanut bird cake. As far as possible there was something to suit all tastes and sizes of beak and throat. I resisted buying the Cooking for Birds book.

Also suspended from the broom handle was a ceramic birdbath-cum-drinking trough. I did not buy the Grecian, neoclassical or terrazzo birdbaths or the pagoda bird table.

The Bird Café was now open. Several weeks passed. Not even a pigeon appeared.

Remembering a friend’s enviably successful relationships with a blackbird family, I followed her advice and added cheese, raisins and grapes to the Today’s Specials menu. Still no customers.

Only when I had almost given up hope did the first robin appear. Although I was longing for birds to appear, I was glad that my arms were not long enough to pluck them from the air. They came when they, not I, wanted.

The staircase leading to the roof garden was converted into a hide where I sat and watched the birds through binoculars. What other wild creatures bring so much instant, unexpected delight?

Day by day they became braver until one afternoon a blue tit flew triumphantly through my late cat’s cat flap, continuing its flight downstairs into the sitting room, where I was afraid it would crash into a window. Instead it landed on a potted stephanotis, which it examined thoroughly before flying out through another window.

A robin hopped to within inches of my outstretched hand, seemingly compelled for some mysterious reason to move closer and closer. A daring ground-feeder pigeon hung from the suspended feeders resembling a novice circus artist. With admirable perseverance it tried repeatedly to solve the problem of food behind bars.

One day during spring I went to inspect my transplanted vegetable seedlings, all painstakingly reared from seed on my bedroom windowsill before being tucked comfortably into larger pots. The fragile plants had disappeared. Where were they? On the ground, wilting. But how had they got there? They couldn’t have clambered out of the pots.

Although I didn’t need any help with my 8 x 16ft (2.5 x 5m) roof garden, a blackbird had immediately appointed himself assistant gardener. Everything I transplanted he discarded, his beak flinging it and the surrounding soil on to the ground. At first I thought he might be averse to certain plants. This was not the case. Black disliked all small plants. It was like working with a delinquent adolescent gardener on work experience. When I was not trying to rescue the discarded transplants, I was sweeping up after him, our job descriptions reversed, I having become his full-time assistant. How, I marvelled and fumed, can such a tiny, yellow implement and two small feet do so much damage and how can something smaller than my hand contain so much persistence and strength?

To distract Black from his gardening activities I concocted a playpen, which I filled with fresh compost topped with leaves, having been told that blackbirds enjoy delving into them for worms while kicking them up and creating leaf fountains. Needless to say, Black ignored the playpen, just glancing at it sharply over his shoulder before continuing his determined digging. His reaction was similar to my cat’s when I bought a toy for her, her expression one of condescension, as though enquiring who I imagined was going to play with it.

After completing his clearance work, Black turned to archaeology. With his legs apart and his head lowered in concentration, he plunged his beak yet further into the soil, excavating it. He was assisted by his two fledgling offspring, though there was nothing baby bird-ish about this couple. They were large, untidy and had squeaky voices. It was impossible to imagine they would ever develop into soloists. They stood close together on their spindly legs, absorbed in watching their manic father.

The last straw was when I discovered that the bedroom window-box, which was planted with basil, dwarf beans, dill and tomatoes, had been ransacked, the young giraffe-like dill plants left gasping for soil. I keep the window wide open all summer so that the tomatoes can be plucked from the bed and made into basil and tomato sandwiches. Not only were all the plants wrenched up but soil was spattered over the white duvet. The only solution, I concluded reluctantly, was to cover the containers with plastic netting.

I began by making individual container covers. As this required the skill of a tailor, which I don’t possess, I changed the design and made a series of multi-container hairnet-like covers. But even these had to be gathered at the bottom and, using a needle and twine, tied with a bow. Although the hairnets kept some of the birds out, they also kept the plants in, distorting their growth, particularly the raspberries, which struggled against the netting like prison inmates.

There had never been any trouble sharing the roof garden with cats; none of them had ever mistaken the tubs for litter trays. Now I could barely see out of the bedroom window and, covered in this bridal netting veil, the roof garden resembled something designed by Miss Havisham.

A day after installing the ‘prison’, who was happily digging away on the inside of the high security net but Black? How had this Houdini-in-reverse managed to get in? And equally important, how was he going to get out without panicking and injuring himself? To tempt him away from his digging and to compensate for the now-forbidden garden, I made him a Special Menu order of pre-soaked and chopped raisins, waiting until the hot soaking water cooled because he was apt to stomp about in the bowl.

While Black ate the raisins, feeding some of them to his now outsize dishevelled ‘babies’, I searched for his secret route into the prison. It was then that I discovered some mysterious molehills on the surface of the soil. Had Black progressed from archaeology to constructing cairns? I never saw him working on his new hobby, and it was doubtful that he did it during the night. I flattened the molehills. Mysteriously, the next morning there they were again.

It was at this time that I had planned to go on holiday. At least, I had assumed, with wild birds there wouldn’t be the worry there was with cats when leaving them. I filled all the feeders to their brims and left.

On my return the feeders were empty. But where were the birds? Although the garden was bursting with growth, the birds’ lively presence had been replaced by an emptiness far greater than their size, and a silence so loud it was almost a sound in itself. I felt bereft, realizing that one should never take wild birds for granted. I rattled the seed tins, grated cheese, soaked raisins and diced bread. Nothing would induce them to appear. Apparently some people’s cats sulk when their owners return from having been away. Mine never sulked. Were the birds sulking? It is not an emotion one associates with birds.

Eventually they relented and gradually started to return. Where had they been, what had they seen and what had they been doing? This time, though, they were accompanied by another form of wildlife, the makers of the molehills: ‘field’ or ‘wood’ mice, I called them, because I couldn’t bear to think that they might be house mice.

As gardeners they were as bad as Black. The molehills were in fact entrances to a metro system they were busy installing inside the containers. I tried flooding them with a hose but they immediately brought in a metro maintenance team and dug new tunnels. Fortunately their burrowing activities were nocturnal, so although I knew they were there I never saw them, until … One warm summer evening I saw a ‘field’ mouse doing a tight-rope walk across the broom handle en route to the Bird Café. The following evening a mouse slid down the metal feeder guard as though it was practising in a gym.

Before becoming totally panic stricken by the arrival of the mice, to which I am hyper-allergic, I tried to find out what sort they were, naively believing that field and wood mice were preferable because they have large ears, emotional eyes, are vegetarian and prefer to live outdoors. I rang the Natural History Museum, hoping that they would say they were anything but house mice. They suggested I should look them up on the Web and compare the pictures. I didn’t like to admit that I can’t even bear looking at mouse pictures, let alone dwelling on their differences. The museum quickly put an end to my field/wood mice preference by saying that they are not fussy where they live as long as it is warm. Equally disturbing was to be informed that their tails are probably even longer than those of house mice. If mice didn’t have these long, generally semi-naked, trailing tails they wouldn’t be so bad. Also, if they could only amble or saunter along instead of dashing everywhere, it would be a great improvement.

I then rang the RSPB. Was I the only person running a café for birds and mice? Were the two inseparable? Surely I wouldn’t have to do anything as drastic as closing the café. What did other people do?

They advised cutting down on the catering, i.e. reducing it to a one-course meal once a day, preferably an early breakfast with only one sitting. What was essential was to clear up thoroughly after breakfast, leaving nothing for the mice. I followed the RSPB’s suggestions.

I then had to go away for a fortnight, which I knew would involve the initial bird sulking period on my return, but at least the roof garden should be mouse free.

Fourteen days later I returned late at night after a long flight. Fortunately I pulled back the duvet cover, rather than just plunging into bed. Curled up comfortably in the middle of the bed was a very surprised, half-asleep mouse, which had obviously been using the bed as an en-suite bedroom. But this wasn’t the only place the mice had visited.

I tried various methods to encourage them to leave. But they, like the blue tits, were now using the cat flap and no longer darting about, but just strolling around. Unfortunately, the only solution was the council’s pest control department. They brought little cup-cake-size saucers of bright turquoise poison, which they distributed round the flat. The mice ate the poison as though it was a dessert.

A couple of weeks later the problem resolved itself: I was adopted by yet another cat-flap visitor. I was busy cooking and looked down to see a stray cat looking intently up at me, as though at a cookery demonstration. Since then we have been happily mice-less but sadly bird-less.

Seeds to sow now, indoors

Apart from all-year-round parsley, and possibly tomatoes, there are a few other seeds that can be sown this month, though don’t be tempted to do this too early. Seedlings don’t like the cold, or standing around on a windowsill becoming leggy before being taken outside. Those who live on the Shetland Islands will start sowing later than those on the Scilly Isles.

Garlic chives (February–April)

Basil, bush (Ocimum minimum) (February–April)

Basil, sweet (Ocimum basilicum) (February–April)

Alpine strawberry (Fragaria vesca ‘Semperflorens’) (February)

Busy Lizzies (Impatiens walleriana) (mid-February–April)

WHAT TO EAT NOW

Ten-minutes-to-prepare Roman bread

This recipe is a good way to exercise hands in preparation for all the work they will be doing during the following months in the allotment. It is called Ten-minute Roman bread because this is the time it takes to weigh out the ingredients, mix and knead them. The rest of the work (apart from the rising which the dough does on its own) is done by the oven.

1 lb (450 g) organic Spelt flour

(Triticum spelta, an ancient precursor of modern wheat varieties)

1 x ¼ oz (7g) sachet Easy-Bake or Fast-Action yeast

1 tsp (5 ml) sea salt

1 tbsp (15 ml) sunflower or olive oil

¾ pint (425ml) warm water – ¼ pint or 150 ml of boiling water from the kettle, the rest from the cold tap; this mixture gives just the right temperature

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas mark 5. Oil a baking tray measuring approximately 13 x 9in (33 x 23cm). Place the flour, yeast, salt and oil in a large bowl. Mix gently. Add the water bit by bit while stirring with your hand. Some flours are thirstier than others. When the dough ball leaves the sides of the bowl, turn on to a flat surface and knead until the dough feels springy. Form into a ball – or any other shape you like. Place in the centre of the tray. Cover with a clean cloth and leave to rise in a warm place (i.e. near the oven). The rising will take 30–45 minutes. Bake in the preheated oven on a middle shelf for 30–35 minutes. A cooked loaf will sound hollow when tapped underneath. Cool the loaf on a wire rack. Resist slicing the bread until it is completely cold.

Variations

You can try different flours, using half white and half brown, all white or all brown flour, adding rye flour, cornmeal or other grains. A whole variety of seeds, nuts and fruits can be included when mixing the dough. These include: poppy seeds (black and white), pumpkin seeds (with or without a tamari coating), sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, sunflower hearts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, almonds, walnuts, brazils, raisins, currants, sultanas and olives (black and green). Nuts and seeds can be toasted or untoasted. A generous handful or two will be sufficient. The surface of the loaf can be left bare or, just before it is put into the oven, sprinkled with flour or painted with egg yolk or white. The surface can also be quickly and gently wetted with warm water – just sufficient to make seeds or grains stick. It can then be sprinkled with sesame seeds, poppy seeds, polenta, soaked wheat grains, cracked wheat or golden linseed.