Attack On Manure Mountain

The Allotment

Last year, friends of ours obtained an allotment, with the price of food rising, this made good sense. Like us, they are keen amateurs and their allotment is an oasis of calm in the middle of the city.  It is a pretty big space though, especially for a busy family with kids; so they asked us and other friends, if we would like to join in and make it a communal effort. 

Lovely Weather For It

The first job was defining where the beds were going to be and removing as much of the weeds and rocks as possible from the ground. While doing this preparatory work, late last summer, we caught a slow worm and brought him home so that he could be released to feast on the ants and slugs in our garden. When I was a boy, I had a pet grass snake but he kept escaping and scaring my mum.

The next stage was to thoroughly dig all the beds over and weed them. This is really hard work, especially if you don’t have much spare time and are not used to it. So it does pay to have a few extra contributors who will help when they can. Once the beds had been roughly turned over, we left them to allow Jack Frost to break the ground up a bit further.

Attack On Manure Mountain

Then, in a fit of enthusiasm, Pete recklessly ordered a trailer full of manure from a local farm in Rownhams. The tractor duly arrived and delivered the pile of poo/straw; the job now, was to spread it over the various beds to nourish the ground before planting.

Another Barrow Load

The mountain of muck looked a daunting task when we first arrived, but the sun was out and we soon put a significant dent in it. Using our forks, spades and a wheelbarrow, we distributed it about the site while the kids worked to help spread it out.

Looking Better

Then, reinforcements arrived. Fortunately they came bearing banana cake, our fig-roll and doughnut supply was running dangerously low at this point.

A Pretty Good Effort So Far

After all the hard graft, the fun part is thinking about what to plant, I’m definitely having some raspberries and blueberries in my plot, I love being able to eat the tastiest fruit straight off the plant.

The Full Team, Hard At Work

I think a nice little tree makes sense too; something that gives us luscious fruit early in the season seems a sound idea. We’ll also be planting some exciting root vegetables; so we’ll have something to bring home for the Head Chef.

Of Course, It's Not All Hard Work...

Wasp Wars & Purple Wine Explosions

One of my earliest attempts at creating foragers wine involved wild damsons, and they turned out to be very wild indeed.

As young lads, we often used to play in the local woods, which involved a quick trip across the local railway branch line, fording the Monks Brook, walking through a cow field and hopping over a style - there was our place of boyhood adventure. There we built dens and tree houses, frightened pheasants with home-made spears, caught lizards, slow worms and grass snakes (we all now know that you should never do this) and fought wars with crab-apples and catapults.

A Lovely Grass Snake

Late one spring, we discovered the foundation ruins of a small building, we called it the Gravediggers cottage; it was probably just a couple of bricks left on the ground.  Next to it we found a damson tree bearing unripe fruit. We planned all kinds of ways to use this purple hoard once it had ripened; including, giving them to mum to make stuff out of, and inevitably… Damson wine of our own recipe.

As spring crept toward summer and we watched for signs of ripe fruit dropping, other, uninvited guests came to join the party, WASPS! The stripy blighters had deliberately built an underground nest, right beneath our tree.  To make matters worse, they were eating OUR damsons. 

Yellow Jackets at Four 'O' Clock!
 That's OK, we've got 2 hours then.

Despite the striped no-fly-exclusion-zone the insects established around OUR tree! The next day we declared war and visited teenage shock and awe upon the wasps, I think we all got stung at least once but we did manage to liberate our tree in the end.
The Damson wine did eventually get made and it cleared to a beautiful pinkish-purple hue, somewhat akin to methylated spirits. Fortunately, it tasted better than meths. I admit that it may have tasted sweeter due to our recent victory but it was sparkling too, fizzing with Champagne like bubbles. If only we had had the foresight to store it in Champagne bottles…

Looks Explosive...

Luckily for all concerned the explosion occurred at night; glass shards embedded themselves in the plaster of the dining room walls and ceiling, and the mess was very messy. You live and hopefully, you learn from your mistakes but my interest in wine making did not stop with damsons; I went on to make others including ginger, elderberry, rice and even water wine. The latter was purely to satisfy my curiosity and personal messianic complex, using only tap water, sugar, and yeast. Needless to say, it tasted quite vile and I never did manage that other thing with the loaves and fishes either.

I should point out that this terrible tale of anarchy, chaos and destruction occurred about 35 years ago, I am now older and wiser. We know, for instance, that wasps play an equally important part in the role of ecology as butterflies and we should not attack or kill them (even to protect a fruity purple hoard).

Summer Fruit Liqueur - Beware!

Now, back to the future and last year I made green walnut schnapps, which now tastes lovely despite looking like used engine oil. I also made a summer fruit liqueur, employing vodka, raspberries, blackberries and other foraged things - it is a beautiful red colour and is dangerously delicious...