Mystic Veg

Liquid Gold

2008-07-01T05:48:00.018+01:00

As June drifts gently into July, thoughts on our allotment turn to the yearly awards for the best turned out vegetables. For many years, our members have entered a great deal of competitions in the area and I am pleased to say that our trophy cabinet is the envy of every grower for miles around.
We have managed to corner the market in giant vegetables with particular attention being focused upon our impressive marrows, pumpkins, cabbages and leeks. Such is our success, that several companies involved in vegetable production on a mass scale have approached us for advice. I have had to carefully sift through the various letters we've received in case they breach our strict code of practice regulations, as financial or other incentives contravene rules 59, 60 and 76a.
A certain company, who I am afraid I'm not at liberty to divulge the name of, was very interested in the success we've had with courgettes and I willingly agreed to conduct a trial using various fertilisers.
As you can see from the picture on the left, the three courgette plants are of differing sizes, yet they were all put in the ground at the same time on the same day.
The plant at the top of the picture has been fed with an organic fertiliser available at most garden centres.
The next one down has been fed with a chemical fertiliser also widely available.
The plant in the foreground has been fed with Mystic Veg soil improver™ .
Clearly, the one in the foreground is the largest (and it has nothing to do with the camera angle before anyone mentions it) showing that the methods employed on our allotment are far more successful than those using commercially available products.
Naturally, the unnamed company were desperate to know more about our courgette success but they were more than a little surprised when I told them how it was done.
Using knowledge passed down from my ancestors in ancient Egypt, I regularly 'water' the plants with an 8:1 mixture of water and urine. Before you all rush off to piss on your plants, I think it is important to point out one or two things.
Firstly, it only works with male urine. I've no idea why but it may have something to do with aiming.
Secondly, whatever liquid you've been drinking makes a great deal of difference also. It appears that tea, coffee and soft drinks aren't suitable but a decent bladder full of best bitter is ideal.
Finally, you need to direct the liquid to the roots of the plant which I do with a plastic bottle with the end sawn off (right).
The commercial growers were so keen to see this method in action that they erected a small bar on the allotment and we packed them off to the nearby Poachers Brewery to keep us in supplies.
I'm not sure if the experiment was a successful one or not as the growers and their bar had disappeared when I woke up amongst Joe Branston's celery this morning.
Still, we were all more than happy to have helped in a scientific experiment and I have been urged to point out that the flatulence produced after a lengthy session on Hopshackle Special Bitter does wonders for tomatoes grown in a polytunnel.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-06-18T04:37:00.004+01:00

A rare sighting of someting the cat didn't manage to drag in.

Lost

2008-06-12T11:05:00.015+01:00

I'm not the best of travellers. I listen with interest to those who recall their trips to far flung shores but when it boils down to it, a caravan, forty miles away in Chapel St Leonards, with enough sound proofing on the roof to enable conversation to take place when it's raining, is good enough for me.
It's not really worth travelling far if you're going to be worried about your veg being neglected but I was persuaded by Mrs MV that a six day trip to France would not signal the demise of my carefully tended crops.
My hectic lifestyle and social calender is such that I must occasionally slow down and relax so I accepted an offer to join Bill and Dick on a 'writing' holiday in Bergerac. I have no desire to relate the full story of the disaster that befell me for Bill cunningly got his version in before I arrived home but needless to say, as I sat in the cafe adjoining Bergerac airport for two hours, that caravan in Chapel St Leonards was inviting indeed.
I would go so far as to say, that the shed I was forced to shelter in from the rain whilst Blunt was miles away meeting the wrong plane had its merits and I did consider spending the next five days in a hermit-like state under its roof, if only to avoid the Pastis-fuelled grovelling apologies from Blunt.
It would be pleasant at this point to announce that all ended well but my torment was to continue when I attempted to return to these shores.
It appears that a certain airline is happy to cancel flights at the drop of a hat (or in this case a whiff of fog) and leave their customers to their own devices. Once again, dear reader, I was forced to study the architectural majesty of Bergerac airport for several hours and share my concern at the lack of Health and Safety measures of the men working on the new extension with my fellow, abandoned passengers until I could return to the UK some 12 hours later than I intended.
It was an anxious Blunt who spoke to me as I prepared to board the train for the last leg of my journey home after I'd told him of my latest setback.
His only concern I suspect was that I may have had problems 'smuggling' the three packets of seeds into the country that I purchased in the beautiful village of Issigeac.
I had no such problem as I am well versed in hiding a variety of objects on my person from my days as a 'mule' for the Oldham Cactus Society.
I have recovered from my ordeal you will be pleased to hear and the only thing that keeps coming back to haunt me is a song. One that I'll probably not forget in a hurry.

Brooooce!!

2008-05-31T10:20:00.004+01:00

I think you will agree that it is relatively unknown for me to stray from the world of vegetables but I will make an exception just this once to share news of a rare night off I had this week. Regular readers will have realised by now that my twin passions are the allotment and Oldham Athletic, so it would no doubt surprise many of you to learn that I found myself outside the home of Manchester United during the week.
Normally, if M********r U****d were playing in my back garden, I would close the curtains and let the dog out but I was at Old Trafford for an entirely different reason. Thirty-odd years ago, I heard Bruce Springsteen's 'Born to Run' album and I have harboured plans to see him perform live ever since.
Just as those jobs you always intend doing get done eventually, my appointment with Springsteen was kept on a rainy, windswept (is M********r ever anything but rainy and windswept?) evening. Sat in the car park eating our sandwiches, (I had no desire to sample a Rooney burger or whatever) it soon became obvious that the average age of the audience was going to be in the mid to late fifties.
This suited me just fine, as teenagers high on cider and pot noodles tend to spoil the listening experience for us older rock 'n rollers.
I did think that many of the audience looked like they might grow their own veg but the almighty hike to our seats in the clouds at the top of the North Stand meant that any attempts at conversation once we got there were impossible.
I didn't know every song Springsteen played but I can vouch for the fact that he put his heart into every number. A true professional.
One of my favourite Springsteen songs is 'Hard Land' which begins with the line:
"Hey there Mister, can you tell me what happened to the seeds I've sown"
Bruce Springsteen has an allotment? I wouldn't be surprised.

Where's Popeye when you need him?

2008-05-23T16:15:00.006+01:00

Those of you who have followed my progress in attempting to educate the local youngsters to embrace the joys of growing veg are due an update I feel.
I have been squeezed into the school timetable on a Friday afternoon and I'm pleased to say that the number of children who would rather weed the school garden than tackle prism's and parallelogram's shows no sign of waning.
I still have to answer a variety of questions, most of which have nothing to do with gardening and I have also been educated on the complicated world of computer gaming but I feel I am now suitably knowledgeable about the difference between a Nintendo DS and an XBox 360.
I have been impressed that the school encourages the children to drink plenty of fluids during this hot weather but it does mean that they continually need the toilet. I've lost track of the number of times the children have said "I want a wee".
The garden is filling up with plants fast and I decided to introduce some vegetables that the children may not have tasted before. A packet of spinach that I've had lying around for ages was the obvious thing to try and I wondered if the kids would find it as disgusting as I did at their age. Remembering my youth, I asked one group today if they knew who Popeye the Sailor man was. I was met with 4 blank faces.
"Surely you know the song?" I added. It appeared they didn't and I felt it was my duty to give them a version of the classic song.

They were unimpressed with my singing voice and seemingly less impressed with Popeye, who I had to point out was not a Super Hero, Ninja Turtle or Power Ranger.
If the children of today spent less time swimming, playing football, cycling and running around and more time in front of the TV watching the likes of Popeye, the world would be a better place I'm sure.

Rhubarb

2008-05-08T17:15:00.011+01:00

I stopped buying newspapers the day after the blatantly biased match report of Oldham's narrow 7 -1 home defeat by Cardiff in the South Wales Tribune and Herald in March 2002. By all accounts, I haven't missed much and knowing that I would be unable to give a positive answer to "Did you see that story in the paper?", my good friend Bill often drops me a line to draw my attention to any gardening related stories he thinks I might want to cast an eye over.
The latest missive from Bill concerned a story in The Independent who have jumped on the 'grow your own food' bandwagon in a big way.
Alarm bells should have rung when I saw the headline 'Grow your own veg - you'll dig the savings' but I soldiered on and was stunned to discover that Kate Hughes, the writer of the piece, claimed that 'a standard allotment can yield about a ton of vegetables'. Now I don't know what size allotment the lass had in mind but unless you're growing giant pumpkins around the clock, on a plot the size of a football pitch, you're not going to need industrial-sized scales.
I stopped reading when she suggested readers might try growing wheat in order that they could make their own bread. I believe that a letter from a reader the following week asked how a threshing machine could be operated in the confines of an allotment, so I was pleased to discover that I wasn't the only one who thought it was a daft idea.
I treated the family to a weekend in London recently and we hit the usual tourist haunts including Covent Garden. Amongst the stalls selling scented candles (they're bloody everywhere) was a 'working allotment' which was the centrepiece of the Spring Renaissance Festival.
I am not normally impressed by such blatant attempts at 'going green' but there were plenty of people showing a great deal of interest in it and a young woman, sat by the shed, apparently willing to offer growing advice to anyone interested.
I dutifully waited my turn, which is more than several European visitors were able to do, and decided to quiz the young lady about the current state of my rhubarb.
I'm afraid to say, despite my high standing in the allotment movement, that my rhubarb has created a certain amount of mirth amongst the plot holders.
Unlike everybody else's, my rhubarb has decided to flower several months early.
I do have a rough idea as to why this has happened but I thought I would get the advice of a fellow 'expert'
I was not prepared for the answer she gave me when I told her that the rhubarb was trying to flower and it must have shown in my face.
"Wow, fabulous", was her answer.
Now there are a lot of things in life which are 'fabulous', Andy Ritchie's injury time equaliser for Oldham in the Littlewoods Cup quarter final against Southampton in 1990, obviously springs to mind straight away but flowering rhubarb doesn't come halfway close.
Knowing my reaction in similar circumstances, I was bundled away by Mrs MV and it is true to say that I was a little bit lost for words. If Jocasta (which was probably what she was called) had answered "You're a pretty crap gardener then", I would have taken it like a man but I couldn't get her words out of my mind for days.
I have decided therefore to widen my campaign net to rid the world of the scented candle, feng shui decorators, decking 'experts' and now Patsy Stone imitators in dungarees. You have been warned.
Incidentally, if your rhubarb is flowering early it is likely that infertile soils and extreme drought may cause a flower stalk formation. Age may be another factor. Old plants tend to flower more than young ones.
Regardless of the reason, flower stalks should be promptly pulled and discarded. Plants will be less productive if allowed to flower and set seeds.
Either that or you're a crap gardener.

Another pretender to the throne

2008-04-26T17:54:00.010+01:00

My views on TV gardeners are well documented. The people (and they know who they are) who are responsible for 'decking' should be banned from ever setting foot in a garden centre again. Acres of rainforest has probably been cleared so that Vince and Marjorie can 'entertain' the neighbours with their gas barbecue once there's a break in the clouds.
For me, there was only ever one gardening guru and that of course was Percy Thrower. Percy didn't need the help of horsey women in low cut t-shirts or feng shui advisors. His advice was accurate, helpful and innovative at the same time and there wasn't a obelisk in sight.
I fought off any ideas my allotment members had of inviting TV gardeners to our site. The insurance premiums go through the roof when Titchmarsh calls round and the Health and Safety issues associated with cameras, lighting and equipment are a nightmare.
I thought I had avoided any further mention of 'celebrity' gardeners but it appears one or two of the members, contrary to Association rules, have invited Radio 2's Terry Walton to pay us a visit. For those of you who don't know who he is, Walton is an advisor to the BBC programme Coal House and gives advice about growing vegetables on the Jeremy Vine show every week.
I decided to tune in to hear what he had to say and if you can put up with his Welsh accent, he is worth listening to.
I was particularly impressed with an answer he gave somebody who asked if April was too late to sow onion seed.
"Boxing Day is the day you sow onion seed" he replied, giving him instant kudos in this neck of the words, not only for the fact that he expects the excesses of Christmas to be finished by then but
for his no nonsense reply to a daft question.
I have decided to let the obvious breach of our rules pass this time and have invited Mr Walton to pay us a visit on May 17th around 3 pm.
I know this time clashes with Cardiff City kicking off in the FA Cup Final for the first time since 1927 but I am sure that Terry knows where his priorities lie and I've also informed him that he is more than welcome to bring along the barrel of beer he's got his foot on.

Who's looking after the gerbil?

2008-04-07T18:35:00.010+01:00

Getting a school full of youngsters to appreciate the joys of vegetable growing isn't as easy as say, teaching them to read and write. If some of the teachers kept a bag full of teeth-rotting sweets hung up on a nail as a post-gardening bribe, as I do, they might find that getting their young charges to pay attention was a lot easier.
Consequently, as I think I have mentioned before, there are plenty of volunteers to work on the school garden. The leaves of the broad beans that were planted a few weeks ago have appeared but as I feared, the inability of the kids who planted them to understand what a straight line is has resulted in a mad flourish of greenery that occupies about fifteen square inches.
I will of course correct this little mishap before the children return from yet another break in their education, a two week Spring holiday.
Their absence has thrown up the usual dilemma of who will water the greenhouse or feed the gerbil and it is fortunate that I am considered trustworthy enough to be issued with a key to the gate. It is a strange feeling however, to walk through the deserted school grounds without the cheery greetings from the children or the sounds of a non-contact, non-competitive game of rugby.
There is consolation in the lack of company however and that is the speed one can get all the jobs done without having to stop to answer various questions or listen to an account of why Jacob's Mum won't let him have a dog (the last one gave her a headache).
I've lost count of the number of times I've been mistaken for the caretaker and if I was an impish type I could have had contractors and all manner of visitors running around in circles.
Some of the teachers forget that I don't actually work there. I have been asked for screwdrivers, ladders and one of them actually asked me to give her class a talk on garden wildlife. Considering that teaching is simple if you keep one chapter ahead of the kids in whatever book you're reading, I invested 20p in a copy of Collins Garden Wildlife at a car boot sale and I have contacted the NUT to see what sort of hourly rate I can expect to receive. I have yet to hear from them however regarding my enquiry as to whether the tawse is still an accepted means of chastisement.
The questions the kids throw at you are the best ones however. "Why have you got no hair?" is a popular topic along with "Do you live in the shed?"
I was nearly stumped when one child asked me how the solar fan in the roof of the greenhouse worked. I quickly formulated two answers, the first being "The sun shines on the solar panel which operates the fan", which was accepted thankfully, as my second choice answer was "It's magic".
I was politely told by the headteacher that I was not allowed to give out house points after I had set a new school record by awarding one child 500 of them for making me a cup of coffee.
With no one about for the next 10 days or so, I did wonder whether anybody had remembered to take the school gerbil home. Still, it should make a game of "What's that smell?" more interesting when school opens up again.

Some people have far too much time on their hands

2008-04-04T05:26:00.003+01:00

The disturbing lives of fruits and vegetables

A Mystery Mushroom

2008-03-24T18:10:00.004Z

The snow that arrived on Sunday morning left a covering which was thick enough to keep me away from the allotment and the rest of the family from attending Church. There's a good enough reason why I don't attend Church in my left-hand column.
Typical of Spring weather, by the time dinner had been devoured and the dishwasher was earning its money, most of the snow had disappeared leaving only the odd, sorry looking snowman.
Any ideas I might have had of gardening were quickly scotched when I felt how cold and wet the ground was (using the tried and tested Mystic Veg method).
Whilst poking around, replacing covers that had blown off etc. I came across a mushroom that was a bit bigger than the usual little specimens that appear in the garden.
A quick look on the internet showed me that there are more than just a few varieties of mushrooms and care should be taken before consuming any of them given that some are poisonous or Hallucinatory.
Happily, we have an elderly relative staying with us who has offered to savour the mushroom. At least I think that is what she said. It is difficult to understand anybody over 75 after they've had several G & T's.
Anyway, here's the mushroom if any of you fancy identifying it.

Vermin

2008-03-18T12:06:00.009Z

Vinny Spencer hated rabbits. If the Easter bunny had paid him a visit it would have blown it to smithereens. He wasn't keen on slugs, pigeons, aphids, butterflies, mice and squirrels either. In fact, anything that conspired to ruin his cabbages was high on Vinny's hit list.
He had good reason to detest such a large variety of wildlife as he grew Championship Cabbages and the merest hint of a nibble of one of the leaves could mean the difference between success and failure. There was no better grower in the country and Vinny's mantelpiece and trophy cabinets held a vast array of silverware to prove the point.
Pride of place however went to a framed certificate over the fire, signed by Lord Pesqoit of Grantham which stated that Vinny could, by royal decree, claim the title of All England Cabbage Champion on account of his record-breaking seven year run of coming first at the National Cabbage Championships.
Needless to say, Vinny's allotment was designed so that any pest with its eyes on one of his cabbages would find it especially difficult. A fine mesh covered everything, making it impossible for butterflies to land and lay their eggs. Copper pipes, beer traps and nematodes protected the valuable crop from slugs. A sophisticated alarm system recognised the presence of pigeons, mice and squirrels and played the mating call of the American Bald Eagle at ear-splitting volume frightening off not just other birds but herds of cattle also.
Vinny's main problem was with rabbits. The local bunny population appeared to have it in for Vinny and they would gather on the hillside above the allotment, reminiscent of a scene from Zulu and watch Vinny tend his crop.
The stout fence that Vinny erected was breached on more than one occasion but he managed to keep most of the Oryctolagus cuniculus at a safe distance.
One night however, when Gordon Fallon was on his way home from one of the Red Lion's infamous Mead and Marmite nights, he stopped to relieve himself against the gate of the allotment.
He was there some time, not because of the amount of alcohol he had consumed but because of a rather nasty urinary infection he had caught from a visit to a Birkenhead prostitute.
While he struggled to perform his task, he noticed in the gloom, the sight of Vinny Spencer in what seemed like unarmed combat with a large, hairy figure. Gordon called out but not wishing to dampen his trousers again, wasted valuable seconds putting his equipment away. By the time he had managed to scale the gate and make his way over to Vinny, the assailant had vanished.
What met his eyes was the sight of Vinny, cowering on the ground, forlornly trying to protect his prize cabbages which lay chewed and battered.
Of course we called the police but they were at a loss who to look for given Vinny's vague description. There just weren't that many people about with large ears, buck teeth and covered in fur. Just before the officer left he took me on one side, tapped his temple and suggested we took Vinny to his doctor.

That was five years ago and I still pay Vinny a visit in the hospital. It has changed a lot in five years but Vinny's room is the only one which still has bars at the windows. The nurses tell me that Vinny prefers it that way, not to stop him getting out but to stop something getting in. Something Vinny never wants to see again. We don't talk about Vinny much down at the allotment for the idea that he was attacked by some giant rabbit would obviously bring us a lot of unwanted attention but I was momentarily shocked when I spotted this picture in our local paper. I'll make sure Vinny never gets to see a copy.

Education

2008-03-06T16:15:00.010Z

The first thing my old mate William (Billy) Alfred Fowler did in 1983 when he received the Nobel Prize for Physics for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe was to go out and get absolutely blarted. The second thing he did, next day after he'd sobered up, returned the garden gnome to its rightful owner and forced one of his landlady's famous cooked breakfast down, was to seek out Roy 'The Boy' Burgess who had taught him practically everything he knew when they'd worked on the bins and shared an allotment in Bury in '73.
As Billy made his acceptance speech in front of hundreds of the World's most brilliant academics, he faltered slightly as he acknowledged the debt he owed to Roy but being a stout professional, he cleared his throat, took another swig of Carling Black Label, carried on and finished by hoisting the award aloft just as he'd seen Dick Mulvaney do when Oldham Athletic won the Third Division Title in '74.
There were many who thought Roy would accompany Billy around the lecture theatres of the world given that Bury MBC Cleansing department was not renowned for supporting the aspirations of Nobel Prize winners but Roy chose to remain in Lancashire whilst Billy set up home on America's West Coast.
Roy was the sort of bloke who knew a little bit about everything. You could never catch him out by telling him you were a clinical perfusionist as he'd no doubt bend your ear on the subject for half an hour.
There was one thing however that Roy knew a lot about and that was manure. Cow manure, chicken manure, horse manure, you name it, Roy could spot it a mile away and he knew exactly what type it was, how long it had been outside the animal and how much you'd need for your rhubarb.
I learnt a lot from Roy as he constantly drilled us on the use of manure and woe betide anyone who couldn't answer his questions later. Many a young gardener found themselves on the bus home sporting a 'cow pat quiff'.
I'd end up in custody if I tried the same trick with my young charges at the school garden but there was no lack of interest yesterday as they helped me fill a trench with several bags of 'poo' in preparation for planting strawberries. I was promised, that spreading horse crap around was far better than decimals any day.
The day was rewarding for me also as I realised that you can avoid unnecessary back strain associated with digging by getting half a dozen ten-year-olds to do it instead.

We're safe!

2008-02-27T12:31:00.003Z

Many of you will have been woken in the night by an earth tremor whose epicentre was just up the road from here in Market Rasen. Let me set your minds at rest straight away by telling you that, as far as I can see, we appear to have escaped any serious damage or injury.
Living on the edge of the Stan and Doris Fault puts us at risk from earthquakes fairly regularly and sadly, our insurance premiums reflect this.
Given the amount of time it took the insurance company to process my last claim following the Lincoln subtropical cyclone, I have made a quick tour of the allotment and assessed the damage.
Sadly, the rotovator which gave us 20 years sterling service has been buried under mounds of debris as has the tool shed and other essential items and all these will need to be replaced.
It was lucky that the February meeting of the Allotment Association was running later than usual, otherwise the committee members could have been at risk under their own roofs, rather than in the safety of the Red Lion snug with its earthquake-proof construction.
I have been advised by the Town Council cleaner that we may suffer 'after shocks' and to be prepared for such an occurrence. We have therefore recognised our public duty and designated the Red Lion as an operations centre for the next week.

The Devil made me do it!

2008-02-24T16:15:00.008Z

Like the drug addict craving a quick hit or an alcoholic drawn to the bottle like a moth to a flame, I succumbed. It was sunny, the seeds have been sat in the sweet tin for weeks, I had no outstanding DIY projects to finish and we don't have a dog to take for a walk.
As I passed the spare room, a voice entered my consciousness "Start the seeds off" it said. "It's not too cold and you can use those polystyrene packaging sheets from the new fridge as insulation rather than throw them away"
The voice in my head is eco-friendly.
Of course, I fought the urge just like I did when it told me to burn down Lincoln Cathedral but the daffodils on the lawn and the Spring birdsong forced me towards that sweet tin. How easy it would have been if there were only sweets to choose from (despite all the decent ones usually disappearing within hours of the tin being opened) but as soon as I took the top off the tin, I knew I wouldn't sleep tonight until I had started off my leeks, cabbages and cauliflower.
I've sown far too many of course, that's how it gets you. No ordinary sized family can devour 30 cauliflowers one after another - it's not normal and the flatulence produced could prove devastating to family life. Just ask my Father's last three wives.
Once I'd dropped the tiny seeds into place and covered and watered them, I felt that same old self-loathing rising to the surface. The amateur weather-forecasters at Metcheck would be wrong of course and my efforts would be three inches thick in ice within a few days. My only consolation as I locked up for the day was that I had used the Mystic Veg™ plant labels for the first time, soon to replace scented candles as the 'must have' item on your visit to the Garden Centre.
My name is Mystic Veg and I've started my season's planting.

Freezing?

2008-02-19T12:53:00.007Z

There's one thing I can't be accused of and that is jumping the gun when it comes to starting the gardening calendar. These sunny weekends are deceptive and there are plenty of people who have rushed out to their local garden centre, elbowed past the pensioners buying scented candles and rushed home with armfuls of seeds and bags of compost.
The race to get growing in the garden seems to start earlier every year and compost heaps up and down the country are full of plants and soggy compost that has been thrown away due to frost damage.
I can understand the desire to sow broad beans if the sun is warming your back when you're composting the flowers you liberated from the cemetery for Valentines Day but my advice is to hold tight and wait till the days get longer and temperatures starts to climb.
I am continually asked about the best time to sow seeds and to save time I refer people to the old English proverb 'Ne'er cast a clout till May be out'. The word 'clout' in this case isn't what you used to get off your Dad for sellotaping your younger brother to a chair, it refers to an item of clothing.
The meaning is that it is still too cold to go without a coat until the end of May, so sowing seeds is not considered a good idea either. With the early arrival of Spring in many parts however, that advice might need to be amended and to be absolutely sure that you're starting the growing season off at the correct time, I suggest you use the tried and trusted Mystic Veg™ method.
We all remember testing the temperature of a babies bottle on our wrist and this is not a great deal different.
To test the temperature of the ground, place your bare backside on it. It really is that simple. If the experiment proves too 'numbing', then obviously the time isn't yet right but if the ground is warm enough, one experiences a pleasant, back to the earth, as nature intended feeling.
This doesn't suit everybody naturally but it has proved very popular amongst my fellow growers and even though some would claim that modern methods are more accurate, it certainly hastened the purchase of a new Portaloo for the allotment.

Putting something back into the ground.

2008-02-12T15:19:00.001Z

There's a certain amount of responsibility involved in being an Internationally recognised vegetable expert. It is easy to forget your roots (if you'll pardon the pun) when you are receiving an award in Cannes or Castleford and opening the post to find expense paid invites to far-flung shores, 'fan' mail from young ladies requesting signed photographs and mountains of gardening-related products from manufacturers eager to have the Mystic Veg name endorsing their brand. Although there have been dark times when a fat cheque for my services would have been very welcome, I am nowadays happy with a free t-shirt from FuelMyBlog, although I am unsure of being seen in public in it.
The stories that I have chosen to abandon the allotment and spend time with the bright young things of the vegetable world on their yachts and in their penthouse apartments could not be further from the truth and I suspect that the upcoming elections for the post of Allotment Chairperson have something to do with the slurs aimed at my good name.
I am not a man who boasts about the good work he does or attempts to coerce others to follow his lead. I leave that sort of thing to that prick Bono.
However, I think it is time that I reveal that I have given my time generously to a project at my children's school which involves the construction of a vegetable garden. Obviously, given the poor standards of numeracy in British schools these days, I have taken over the financial side of things and it has to be said that parents can be very generous if they think that little Johnny is getting his portion of vegetables the natural way.
There is no finer sight than 10 or 20 youngsters sweating away with shovels and hoes whilst I supervise the proceedings and the finished produce is sold to eager parents who are happy to pay that little bit extra knowing that their offspring are being tutored by an expert.
I will keep you posted on the garden's progress, which is still being overwintered as you can see but it will soon be time for the little darlings to be getting their hands even dirtier than usual.

Spring?

2008-01-30T12:49:00.000Z

According to Radio 4's Home Planet yesterday, Spring in 2007 was the earliest since records began 300 years ago. Obviously this has a dramatic effect on nature with birds, insects and all manner of wildlife waking up at the wrong time, frolicking around the fields (or whatever they do) only to find themselves frozen stiff a couple of days later.
I wasn't surprised then to share the garden with a squirrel at the weekend who appears to have mapped out all the bird feeders in gardens on our street and was visiting each in turn before disappearing back to his home, midway up the tallest tree in the neighbourhood.
There is little doubt that we are helping to change the way animals behave by providing a source of food for them. Any self-respecting squirrel is not going to waste his time hunting for nuts when he can find plenty of them piled into a handy container.
Of course this means that birds will probably miss out on what is their rightful property but they have little chance of fighting off a squirrel.
A Golden Eagle would wipe the floor with a squirrel naturally, but there aren't many of them round here and I doubt that even if there was, they wouldn't waste their time with bird feeders.
Incidently, it is worth pointing out to any squirrel who has its eye on my sweetcorn later in the year that my vengeance will be swift and mighty.
I would urge those of you concerned about the early arrival of Spring to join in with the Woodland Trust's Springwatch which aims to survey the unfolding of Spring across the UK. They are inviting everyone across the country to watch out for the arrival of six key species in their region.
Naturally, I'll be taking part and you might also want to join in with the Mystic Veg™ Spring Watch by looking out for those tell-tale signs of Spring amongst the Human Race.

The first Hoseasons catalogue.
The first pair of Union Jack shorts.
'Comedy' Barbeque aprons.
The first over-50 male in a vest top.

What do the encyclopedia salesmen do now?

2008-01-15T15:21:00.000Z

With information on every subject you can think of being at our fingertips via the Internet, I wonder what happened to all those encyclopedia salesmen who used to knock at the door. They're probably employed by the people who want you to change your gas and electricity suppliers every two weeks.

My thoughts turned to Encyclopedias when I was hunting for something in the house and came across four volumes of 'The Amateur Mechanic' which at first sight looked like a guide to fixing your car (and consequently of no use whatsoever to me, not because I don't own a car, it's just that I refuse to fix them).
However, on closer inspection I discovered that the four volumes, which are undated but have to be at least 60 years old, covered just about every DIY subject you could think of and while I was tempted to share with you the guide to making your own mattress, I thought it would be wise to stick to a gardening project.
Consequently, those of you currently wrestling with the decision on which garden roller to buy (and I know there's a lot of you out there) can save yourself a great deal of confusion caused by the bewildering array of products on the market.
Rather than spending hours queuing at your local DIY store this weekend, make your own garden roller using the guide I've lifted from 'The Amateur Mechanic'.
There'll be a prize for the best effort and when you're confident of moving on to something a little more challenging, we'll move on to the next project.

The visit

2008-01-09T14:58:00.001Z

I was brought down from the excitement of the weekend on Monday by the visit to the allotment of the new clerk to the Parish Council. I had a lot of time for Derek Bailey, the old clerk who retired before Christmas. He always phoned before he called and often left loaded up with vegetables and fruit donated by the plot holders. When there was an urgent matter that needed his attention, like the re-surfacing of the car park, we would retire to the vault of the Red Lion rather than discuss business in the drafty allotment office and there was always one or two willing volunteers to help him home. Many a time we would prop a grinning and flushed Derek up against the wall outside his house while we waited for Mrs Bailey to answer the door and she always greeted him with the same words "You've been down that allotment again Derek!".
The best thing about Derek was his ability to persuade the Parish Councillors that his way was the right way and woe betide any Councillor who crossed him. They'd find that their dedicated parking spot had disappeared overnight. Some said that Derek could run the Parish Council single-handed, he certainly knew the workings of local government but he was sadly excluded from the process of choosing his successor.
I had heard rumours that the new clerk was a 'no nonsense' type but the same was said about Derek 22 years ago and within two weeks he was sat in our allotment office, sampling Flora Higson's parsnip wine and revealing lurid details of the newly elected Independent Councillor and her interest in a Conservative Member.
I fully expected Derek's replacement to be the sort of chap I could work with. After all, Derek's tenure as Clerk was legendary. Clerks from other Parish Councils were urged to adopt his methods and his retirement clock was the first one in ten years that hadn't been bought from Argos.
The sight of the new clerk left me as unsteady on my feet as Derek leaning up against his front door. For a start, he was a she and the new female employee of the Parish Council was holding something that strikes fear into all hard-working men. She had a clipboard.
I'll not go into too much detail of what horrors the next hour and twenty minutes held for me but it is suffice to say that this damn woman had me measuring the heights of sheds, fences and anything else that caught her eye. Every measurement I took was jotted down on her clipboard which she tapped annoyingly whenever I decided to take a breather.
"I'll be examining all this information" she said to me before she left "but you can be sure that some of these buildings and fences exceed the measurements laid down in the Council guide for Allotments. It may be necessary to remove them. I have also been looking at your Allotment Association Rule Book and I have to say that seven of the first ten rules contravene the 1906 Open Spaces Act, the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act and the 1998 Human Rights Act. We'll discuss them on my next visit a week today".
In order to salvage something from the visit, I offered to escort her to her car and as we passed the open door of the allotment office, I asked her if she would like to sample some of Flora's wine.
"No thank you" she said icily, "I don't drink alcohol".

2008-01-06T00:12:00.001Z

I was going to kick-start the Mystic Veg year with some vital information for those of you hoping to grow your own food for the first time but some things are far more important than vegetables. I'll be back when my voice is.

Busy doing nothing

2007-12-21T15:27:00.000Z

The Christmas break is a quiet time on the allotment. There will be a brief flurry of activity between now and Christmas morning when people dig up their parsnips, pick the last of the sprouts and anything else they've grown for Christmas dinner but apart from that, the allotment usually remains unattended till the New Year.
I know plenty of people who rather be there than entertaining incontinent aunts and constipated uncles but 'nipping down to the lotty' isn't a good idea if you're responsible for passing round the mince pies or making emergency dashes to the garage to buy AA batteries.
The absence of people on the allotment sadly signals the arrival of the more obnoxious members of society, the thieves and vandals. I did not have to look far to find an example of how vandals and arsonists can destroy years of people's hard work overnight.
Often, there is little the police can do about such crime given the locations of allotments, usually in an out of town area. By the time the crime is discovered, the criminals have long gone. I have seen people reduced to tears at such mindless acts of destruction and there is the view that the police are unwilling to catch the culprits, preferring instead to pursue motorists and drunk teenagers.
The police case isn't helped when articles appear in the press like the one in today's Oldham Chronicle. It appears that five officers will be using the new 'evidence gathering head cams' over the festive period. Now I'm sure the powers that be are a little bothered that their police officers aren't nabbing the required number of villains that the public expects but 'evidence gathering head cams'?
What happened to the good old black notebook and the "I'll just take down a few particulars"? Instead, we're going to have to get used to "Can you just stop knifing that pensioner and step into the light please. I'll just adjust the exposure. Which would you say is your best side?"
The beer in Oldham's pubs is notoriously stronger than the rest of the country and I bet the locals will be clamouring to get themselves on film after a night in the pub loosens their inhibitions. Should make for interesting viewing back at the station.
Evening all.

Tagged

2007-12-17T16:42:00.000Z

I appear to have been tagged again, this time by Crofty. As I did little last time I was tagged, I am determined to follow the rules and tag a further five bloggers after I have listed seven things you didn't know about me.
Crofty, who describes me as the 'allotment plot doc', a title that I quite like the sound of, has suggested that they should be vegetable related. That may not be possible given my my limited attention span but here goes.

One day when weeding the plot, a mole decided to burrow underneath my hand which was resting on the ground. This proves that a) People who say moles don't like human scent are wrong and b) Men in their 50's can still leap 12 feet in the air screaming like an 4 year old.
I once peed in a pair of Wellington boots and the owner discovered the deed the hard way.
One of my earliest attempts to grow something involved some marijuana seeds. I knew little about the growing and cultivating of hemp and even less about the thermal values of an Oldham window sill in January.
Whilst shovelling horse manure into my trailer a couple of years ago, I was repeatedly harassed by a horse, wandering loose in the paddock. I was so bothered that it might 'go for me' that I hit it with the shovel. It turned out to be a thoroughbred racehorse recovering after an injury.
I once managed to con £50 out of someone called Malcolm after his wife had opened the door of their Rolls Royce and slightly dented my Morris 1000 van. Malcolm didn't want to part with his money but his wife insisted. The van only cost me £45. I got drunk on your money Malcolm and it tasted sooooo good.
I regularly allow my 11-year-old son to swear at the officials when we watch Oldham Athletic. It makes him feel grown-up and saves me doing it.
I was an altar boy at Holy Rosary Church on Fitton Hill in Oldham in the 1960's. One Saturday morning I turned up for a wedding to find I was the only altar boy who had got out of bed. I had never done a wedding before but the priest told me that he'd talk me through it. Everything was going fine until I remembered that 'assistants' were supposed to hold the bride's train off the ground. I dutifully raised the back of the bride's dress as she climbed the steps to the altar. The only problem was that she didn't have a train and all I suceeded in doing was to give the front rows of the Church a crafty view of the back of her legs. I often wonder if the marriage survived the trauma of the wedding ceremony.

OK, it's time to tag some other bloggers. I'm going to avoid the usual people who get lumbered with tags and concentrate on some possible tag 'virgins'.

Introducing: Plot Holes, an allotment blog in need of updating. The weeds will be like a jungle if you haven't been to the lotty since June!
Next up is Pie and Mushy Peas reporting on previously uncharted football grounds. Well it was the name of the blog that grabbed me.
Back to gardening with Anything but sprouts, eating and growing food in the rural idyll of London (it says here).
Support your local policewoman, PC Bloggs a 21st Century Police Officer.
Finally, Things and Stuff, a blog run by an Everton fan who may or may not be dreading the arrival of hordes of drunken Oldhamers on Jan 5th in the FA Cup 3rd round. Mystic Veg junior and myself will be there and may be swearing!

Mistletoe

2007-12-09T12:50:00.000Z

I know Mistletoe isn't veg but if you're looking for a plant which is truly mystical, mistletoe fits the bill perfectly. It was particularly revered by the Druids if growing on the oak, where it joined the stalwart qualities of tree and plant. It is neither tree nor shrub and part of its mystery for the Celts, at least, lay in its parasitic suspension between earth and sky. When all was winter dead, the grey-green leaves and luminous pearly-yellow berries of mistletoe encapsulated the host's life force. On the Druids' holy oak the effect was even more dramatic and the viscous pearly pulp of mistletoe berries was represented as the oak-tree god's semen (yes, you did read that right).
Legend stated that the Hay family of Errol, Perthshire, would prosper only as long as the mistletoe-oak on their land near the Falcon Stone flourished. It protected the family against witchcraft and its infants from becoming changelings. When the estate finally passed out of the family it was said that the oak had been felled shortly before.
Mistletoe symbolises peace and hospitality, opened all locks, protected the house at solstitial festivals from witches, sorcery, fire and lightening. A sprig in a cradle protected an infant from the dangers of being snatched by fairies.
Kissing under the mistletoe was once a fertility rite. In some counties mistletoe must be burned after Twelfth night, lest those who kissed under it never marry.
An elderly Shropshire couple confessed that they had never lacked a mistletoe bunch in the house during 60 years of married life. They had 37 children*.
Mistletoe merited its name 'all-heal'. In Normandy its yellowish berries dipped in male urine relieved jaundice. A child with whooping cough was dosed with mistletoe berries growing on a hawthorn, soaked in mare's milk. Mistletoe broth cured adenoids.
An interesting plant I think you'll agree. My female readers might wish to point out the mystical and healing properties of the plant to the office letch when he corners them at the Christmas party, armed with a sprig of mistletoe. If it doesn't deter him, a swift kick in the nuts works wonders I'm told - not that I've ever had to stoop to such desperate tactics to secure a kiss off a fair maiden.

*I might have made this up.

Saving your sanity (and money) this Christmas

2007-12-03T16:03:00.000Z

I received my first Christmas present yesterday and true to form it was gardening-related. Some elderly relatives who won't be able to make it over for Christmas (shame! etc) spent the weekend with us (actually they were in the local Travel Lodge out of the way) and we had a sort of mock Christmas to make their remaining days on Earth a little less prosaic.
I saved my 'Oh you shouldn't have' face for when I opened a terracotta garden thermometer which probably left a hefty hole in someone's old age pension. Now I know I should be grateful and all that but I'd be just as happy with nothing, as I now know that I'm going to have to attach it to the shed and avoid smashing the damn thing into a million pieces next time I walk past with a spade over my shoulder.
I usually start suggesting to people that they shouldn't waste their money on me around Jan 2nd and continue in this vein for the rest of the year but I still end up with Titchmarsh's latest ramblings and some sort of hat/apron or gloves with an 'amusing' gardening theme.
I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to register my horror if somebody bought me the 'Vegetable Plot Christmas Starter Kit' pictured. It consists of a Father Christmas Stocking, Christmas Card, Joseph Bentley Onion Hoe, Dibber, 'Success with Organic Vegetables' book and the following seeds: All Year Round Carrots, Hollow Crown Parsnips, Colossal Climbing Peas, Polestar Stringless Runner Beans and Boltardy Beetroot.
The price?
£57.95
Personally, I'd send the Fraud Squad round straight away.

Treasure!

2007-11-25T23:45:00.000Z

There's not a lot to do on an allotment at this time of year.The purists would baulk at that statement but if they want to till the soil in sub zero temperatures and attempt to 'over-winter' a few cabbages then they're welcome to it.
Personally, I'll be locking the shed, securing the ground covers and returning just before Christmas to dig up the parsnips. Apart from that, I intend to take my annual break and return in the Spring. Fear not however, Mystic Veg has more than enough advice and tales to get us through the Winter. Given that we are only a few weeks off Christmas, one of my tasks over the weekend was to keep my two offspring quiet and out of the way whilst a certain High St catalogue shop was plundered.
What better to entertain young minds than a spot of digging?
Spades were passed out and I attempted to liven up the proceedings by telling them that the Romans had passed this way around 48 AD and might have dropped the odd dagger or spear.
After an hour or so and without sight of Roman gold or weaponry, the kids were flagging. I thought that I might have to put down the Sunday newspaper and flask and lend a hand until my daughter uttered a shriek of delight. She'd found a Roman coin.
Of course, she hadn't and not being one of those parents who encourages belief of tooth fairies, Easter bunnies and the like, I had to point out that the Romans had left well before 1863, which was the date on the penny she'd found.
This seemed to deflate them somewhat, so when we got home I searched for anything of interest that might have happened in 1863.
The American Civil War was raging which prompted MV junior to suggest that the Americans always seemed to be involved in some war or other. He was right of course but I did explain that so much damage was done during the American Civil War that they decided to have the rest of their wars in other people's countries.
There was not a great deal of interest in any other World event so we decided to look back at our family tree to see who was living around that time.
Imagine our surprise (given that my lot are from Ireland and Lancashire) to find a relative who was born in 1853 in Scopwick, just 12 miles away.
Consequently, a mixture of the children's imagination and downright lies from me led them to believing that a 10-year-old ancestor of theirs had dropped his brand new penny 'on his way to the shops' and they had found it 144 years later.
Far more interesting than finding anything Roman.

2007-11-18T22:15:00.000Z

Living in Lincolnshire is a bit like being cut off from the rest of the world. There are no motorways to sweep visitors to our doorsteps and there's even a toll bridge to deter those irritating tourists. Mobile phones are outlawed and the courgette is used as currency rather than the pound (a move that Central Government are monitering closely to gauge its success). In order to keep my sanity, I have to cross the border to make contact with the outside world and top up my Lancashire accent. Every couple of weeks, I follow the fortunes of my home football team Oldham Athletic.

I'm well aware as I traverse the Pennines that I could have chosen several other, more triumphant teams and perhaps travelled in style with the Lincolnshire branch of the Manchester United/Everton/Liverpool supporters clubs.
As someone once said however, you can take the man out of Oldham but you can't take Oldham out of the man and my normal enthusiasm as we entered the town was bouyed by the fact that we were going to join a march to show solidarity with fellow supporters against the local council who have refused planning permission for the football ground to be redeveloped.
It is vital to the finances of smaller clubs to have a ground that makes money when the supporters aren't there and the plans involved the building of housing, which would eventually fund the whole project.
I have to say that being part of that march filled me with pride. I was especially pleased to have my son with me who could easily copy his schoolfriends and 'support' a Premier League team but he chooses to be a Latics fan just like I did 40 years ago when my Dad took me along.
It wasn't the first march I've been on but unlike the ones in the past, I wasn't trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons, get rid of a certain female Tory leader, fight pit closures or demand the right to work and although those issues were vitally important, so was the one yesterday.
Up the Latics!

P.S. Veg nonsense will return ASAP

The Lost Manuscript

2007-11-12T18:42:00.000Z

Somebody once said that there is a book in everybody and that was certainly the case with Vernon Volume, 'the man who ate the Pittsburgh Library'. I have long harboured the idea of branching out further into the world of literature, after all, Titchmarsh regularly churns out blue rinse romance for the masses and I taught him everything he knows.
However, given that I seem to have cornered the market in vegetable growing advice, I think it is high time I diversified and joined the ranks of those seemingly deserate to prove that they're not just a 'one-trick pony'.
I discovered a dog-eared folder in the back of the wardrobe in the summer and it nearly found its way into the bin had I not paused awhile from my task of finding two socks that matched. It was a 'lost' manuscript from the early 90's and after tidying it up a bit I now feel it is worth presenting to the world.
Friends, I give you The Rise and Fall of Danny Spanner.

Seeds

2007-11-07T13:22:00.000Z

Hardly a day goes by at this time of the year when yet another seed catalogue drops through the letterbox. On a cold November day, the lure of those brightly coloured pictures of vegetables and flowers is usually enough to send me back indoors where I can settle down with a cup of coffee and a digestive and plan next years garden.
In an ideal world, I would only order what I needed and the year would start off with several unopened packets of seeds, all of which would be put to good use.
In reality, I have yet to meet a gardener who doesn't own at least two stout sweet tins crammed with seeds that they never got round to sowing. A cursory glance into the Mystic Veg tin revealed several packets of cress seeds for example. I haven't grown cress since I was a snotty nosed kid at Primary School but I obviously thought it would be a good idea to start again and for good measure, I appear to have bought some mustard seeds as well to go with it.
You can guarantee, if somebody says "I've got some vegetable seeds you can have" that lettuce will figure heavily. I have probably got enough lettuce seeds to enable me to cover several football pitches. I could quite easily decline these kind offers of course but the gardener cannot resist a free packet of seeds.
The back of every seed packet has a 'use by' date but we snort with contempt at the suggestion that we should discard left-over seed. To make matters worse, news stories that 200 year old seeds have been succesfully germinated only serve to strengthen our habit.

Badgers

2007-10-23T03:03:00.001+01:00

It is many years since I swapped the bustling litter-strewn streets of Oldham for the wide, open, litter-strewn fields of Lincolnshire and I remember my surprise at the large and varied amount of wildlife that inhabits the area.
I had only ever seen a handful of squirrels for example and the ones in Oldham seemed different somehow. In Lincolnshire they are everywhere and after a while you stop swerving round them when driving to work.
I have not become a 4x4 driving redneck with roadkill stickers on my back bumper however and I was saddened to read that the Government's Chief Scientist is suggesting that a cull of badgers should take place to prevent the spread of TB in cattle.
I can honestly say that until I moved here I had never seen a badger unless it was in a glass case. It came as a surprise therefore to discover the actual size of them. The ones in the glass cases must have been young ones (aaahhhh). The first time I saw one dash across the road in my headlights, I was surprised to see that it was the size of a decent-sized dog (as opposed to those 'toy' dogs that old ladies seem to favour). You wouldn't want one curled up in your living room however. Apart from the stink, they are pretty fearsome creatures and attempts to get them to move from in front of the fire could result in you losing a digit or two.
However, I am tempted to agree with those who believe in a 'last in, first out' arrangement and unless I am way off in my understanding of nature, it is perhaps time for our cattle to make way for Bertie and his chums.
For those who throw their arms up in alarm at what might signal the end of the beef market, there's always Spam.

Pumpkins

2007-10-11T16:45:00.000+01:00

There's a rather lovey-dovey couple on the allotment who have one of those annoying 'we never argue' relationships which we all know is as rare as hen's teeth. I can just about put up with their false laughter and the loud smacking noise they make when pecking each other on the cheek. What does send everyone reaching for the rat poison however is the pet names they have for each other.
She calls him 'Spongebob squarepants' and I have to say that I have no interest at all in why this is so but it sets my teeth on edge whenever I hear it. Far worse however is when he calls her 'pumpkin'.
I have absolutely no idea why such he should choose to call his wife 'pumpkin' although it has been suggested, rather cruelly I thought, by one or two people that it may be due to her enormous size at this time of the year or the likeness of some carved Halloween pumpkins to her facial features.
It is possible that the arrival in the supermarkets of thousands of pumpkins, destined only for destruction and display in the front gardens of homes throughout the country rather than being eaten has added to the annoyance of the 'happy' couple's fellow plot holders.
To be honest, I've never tasted pumpkin pie but I'm open to offers. What I wouldn't do however, is spend months carefully tending a pumpkin patch and then hack out the insides of the finished fruit in order to create one night's entertainment for other people's kids, high as kites on sugar saturated sweets.
Given our obsession with copying American customs, how long before we've taken up catapulting them through the air?

A Good night's sleep

2007-10-03T11:42:00.000+01:00

You wouldn't think that an allotment was the obvious place to catch up on lost sleep given that it is often an hive of activity but I have often come across one of our members snoozing away in the afternoon sun. Of course, the distractions of traffic, neighbouring children and partners who have spent the morning at IKEA are such that 40 winks at home is virtually impossible.
What better place then to sleep off a lunch time session at the Red Lion than the allotment with only the starlings to disturb you?
I don't often try to wake anybody I find snoozing unless its getting dark or they've stopped breathing but I felt I had to speak to old Fred Mitchum the other day as he slept. By my reckoning, it was the fourth day in a row that Fred had turned up, assembled his deckchair and promptly dropped off.
It turned out that he'd been unable to sleep at home because his wife had developed some sort of rash after she'd bought a fur stole at the village fete. The itching the rash caused made Fred's wife toss and turn all night and the poor man was exhausted.
As often happens, there was no shortage of advice for Fred from his fellow plot holders regarding his insomnia and his wife's itching. Various poultices were suggested for the rash and Fred finally decided on a pumpkin and nettle poultice for Mrs Mitchum and five bottles of home-made redcurrant wine for himself.
As Fred hurried home, the Vicar, who had followed the conversation with interest told us that John Wesley's cure for insomnia was a cold bath. It was not surprising to learn, given his puritanical background, that he also prescribed a cold bath for rickets, blindness, deafness, rheumatism, asthma, tetanus and leprosy. We decided that we'd stick to the redcurrant wine or an hour in the Red Lion.

Garlic

2007-09-20T13:45:00.000+01:00

Folklore concerning garlic is often proven fact - it is documented in many ancient books and inscriptions. In ancient times, people used to eat garlic before making a journey at night. It made them belch and gives one a foul breath. The primitive belief was that evil spirits would not come within the radius of that powerful smell.
The Koreans of old ate pickled garlic before passing through a mountain path, believing that tigers disliked it. In the birth myth of Tan'gun (the founder of the Korean nation), the fact that a tiger was the animal not to have been metamorphosed into a human being seems to have been based on this belief.The entire ancient world loved garlic - particularly the Egyptians, who used to swear on garlic in much the same way as we swear on the Bible today. Egyptian slaves were given a daily ration of garlic, as it was believed to ward off illness and to increase strength and endurance. During the reign of King Tut, fifteen pounds of garlic would buy a healthy male slave. Indeed, when King Tut's tomb was excavated, there were bulbs of garlic found scattered throughout the rooms. When Moses led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt (around 1,200BC), they complained of missing the finer things in life - fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.
The Greeks had ideas of their own on the virtues of garlic. Greek athletes would take copious amounts of garlic before competition, and Greek soldiers would consume garlic before going into battle. It became custom for Greek midwives to hang garlic cloves in birthing rooms to keep the evil spirits away. As the centuries passed, this ancient custom became commonplace in most European homes.
Hippocrates (300BC) recommended garlic for infections, wounds, cancer, leprosy, and digestive disorders. Dioscorides praised it for its use in treating heart problems, and Pliny listed the plant in 61 remedies for a wide variety of ailments ranging from the common cold to leprosy, epilepsy and tapeworm.
During World War 1, the Russian army used garlic to treat wounds incurred by soldiers on the Front Line. Although Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928 largely replaced garlic at home, the war effort overwhelmed the capacity of most antibiotics, and garlic was again the antibiotic of choice. The Red Army physicians relied so heavily on garlic that it became known as the "Russian Penicillin".

Today, garlic is used by herbalists for a wide variety of illnesses including high cholesterol, colds, flu, coughs, bronchitis, fever, ringworm and intestinal worms, and liver, gallbladder, and digestive problems. Several scientific papers have been published in the last two years which strongly indicate that garlic is highly efficient in preventing heart disease and cancer, and even reducing the severity of established cancer.
If all that doesn't encourage you to try growing garlic, I don't know what will! October is a good time to plant garlic and the tried and tested method is just before planting, break apart each bulb of garlic into its individual cloves, trying to keep as much skin on the cloves as possible. Next, simply poke your finger into the soil until about your third knuckle (2 inches), drop the clove in pointy side up, cover the hole, and pat firmly. Space the next garlic 5 inches further down the row. Each row of garlic should be about 15-18 inches apart. After planting, water the buried cloves well.
To form cloves, garlic must be exposed to temperatures below 41 F (5 C), so you're laughing if you live in the UK. Thus, if planted too late in the spring, garlic will tend to form large onion-like bulbs instead of individual cloves. In the North, garlic is normally planted in October so that it can establish roots before winter and really take of in the spring. Southern gardeners can only plant garlic if they know the temperature will dip low enough. Often, they can wait until November or December to plant.
In springtime, the green tips will start to emerge and the garlic should be side-dressed with fertilizer again by placing the fertilizer 2 inches away from the row and lightly scratching it into the soil. During the growing season, keep garlic keep a mulch of grass clippings or similar material around the garlic to help conserve water and suppress weeds.

When the tops turn yellow in early summer, stop watering. Allow the bulbs to cure in the soil for 2 weeks and then harvest the garlic by pulling the whole plant out of the soil and tying the leaves together. Allow the bulbs to dry on a rack in a warm, dry spot.

Celery

2007-09-10T14:27:00.000+01:00

It's little wonder that celery is popular with the nation's dieters, because it has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. I remember my mother and sister arriving from the grocers with armfuls of the stuff. They'd then sit miserably watching the rest of us tackle a Kunzel Cake each. Many people swear that celery is odourless but I can smell it from 100 metres. When I worked on Oldham Market in the early 1970's, if the wind was in the wrong direction, the stink of celery would waft up from the veg stalls. It was enough to put you off your meat pie every time.
Obviously, I've never bothered to grow the stuff given my distaste of it and it comes as no surprise to discover that it is considered a valuable source of pain relief, notably to ease arthritis. Why doesn't stuff that's good for you taste better?
A quick sniff of the air at the allotment yesterday was enough to discover plenty of it growing on Gerry and Tabitha's plot and I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they grew it as a seasoning to enhance the flavour of their Bloody Mary's rather than a slimming aid. You learn something new every day.
I was also told my their know-it-all son William that the 'Fifth Doctor Who' wore a piece of celery in his lapel that would turn purple in the presence of certain gases that the Doctor was allergic to.
I let William prattle on for some time before informing him that I only listened to the Today programme on Radio Four and even that had started to become uncomfortably commercial.
I also let him know that I considered that TV had started to go downhill the day Torchy the Battery Boy disappeared from our screens. Hopefully, that will make the little scroat keep his opinions to himself.

Dung!

2007-09-02T20:05:00.000+01:00

The most important job on the allotment is preparing the soil for next years plot. That usually involves copious amounts of manure which we are lucky enough to have delivered to the gates of the allotment by a (fairly) friendly local farmer.
It is encouraging to know that the manure Mr. Spriggs delivers is free from chemicals, antibiotics and the like as he prides himself on the natural food he feeds his cows.
The arrival of the manure is often a well-attended event and as the steaming (you're not eating while you're reading this are you?) mass slid off his trailer, several plot-holders were already flexing their muscles in readiness to barrow their share over to their plots.
Those of us who know that the best stuff is that which 'cooks' a little at the bottom of the pile were content to nudge the clods with our boots and comment on its quality and usefulness.
It is one of the characteristics of the human race that most of its members take great delight in the misfortunes of others. Consequently, bald-headed women are usually greeted, not with sympathy, but with considerable mirth. Several years ago a young local girl lost all her hair following an illness and it could not be restored.
One day as she was out on an errand for her Mother, she met an old countryman and, according to her brother: 'He told her to use cow dung on her head and keep it in place with a piece of clean cloth. After a few days her hair began to grow and now she's got the best head of hair you've ever seen'.
A man tried the same treatment during a heatwave but the cowpat simply dried, cracked and fell to pieces.
I would encourage any of my delightful female readers to try this remedy if their hair begins to thin and they might also want to treat themselves to a chocolate bar to help the process along.

Store Wars

2007-08-28T19:00:00.000+01:00

I've never watched Star Wars but I'm reliably informed that this is quite funny.

Look what the cat dragged in.

2007-08-24T05:41:00.000+01:00

I've learnt from Bill's blog that in order to direct more traffic to your site, you should include a picture of a cat every so often. I must admit that cats crop up with alarming regularity and I feel I should even things up slightly with a cautionary tale to anyone considering buying a cat this weekend.
Firstly let me introduce Smokey who entered our household 12 months ago and did all the cute things kittens do for a few months. It soon became apparent that he saw his role in life as being the torturer and executioner of every small living thing for several miles. I can put up with mangled cabbage white butterflies on the kitchen floor but the innards of mice, voles and endangered shrews have meant that the wearing of footwear at all times is vital unless you want to step in something extremely nasty.
Just as I thought I was getting used to his daily cull, he managed to reduce the entire household into nervous wrecks when he delivered this little gem.
I'll give everybody a few days to decide what it is and I may award some sort of (virtual) prize to the correct entry.

Size doesn't matter

2007-08-19T10:54:00.000+01:00

At this time of year, you must remember to take a large bag with you when you visit the allotment. Even if your own crops are still in the ground there's always plenty of surplus from other people on offer and I have often gone over to the allotment for a crisp lettuce and returned with a bag full of onions as well.
It is not uncommon to meet up with someone who is unhappy at the size or amount of produce they've grown. I try to reassure them as much as I can but if they've been expecting a bumper crop of onions which will last them through to next years harvest and instead get just enough to last them till the end of the week you can understand their disappointment considering that they spent hours preparing the soil back in March.
The race to produce the largest veg has always confused me and the competition seems to be particularly fierce when it comes to pumpkins. In the USA, pumpkins can reach weights of 400 pounds and I remember a former plot holder called George who was famous in these parts for his pumpkins.
One specimen was so large that he hired a fork-lift truck to load it into the back of his van to take to the County show. He was assured of first prize until he attempted to negotiate the speed humps at the end of the lane. The marks his back axle made in the tarmac are still visible and the pumpkin proved to be a perfect meeting place for swarms of flies as it rotted away in the ditch.
You can't be too careful when bragging about your veg. Tommy Jacobs once loaded up several onion strings on the handle bars of his bike and headed for home. We found him with a sore head and a mangled front wheel after his onions got caught in the spokes on his bike.
It won't be long before they start putting warning signs on veg - you heard it here first.

The Aubergine and the Landlord's niece

2007-08-16T14:09:00.000+01:00

Living in a house where throwing anything away is viewed as the worst sort of hate crime, one occasionally discovers all manner of lost, forgotten and ultimately unwanted junk. Needless to say, very little of what I find belongs to me. My Oldham Athletic programme collection is safely catalogued in binders and my CD's are safe from my yet-to-discover-proper-music children.
Occasionally however, when I'm looking for something entirely unconnected, I come across the odd item I have mislaid.
Whilst searching for some documents to show the Building Inspector (what sort of training do you need to go into strangers homes and suck air in through your teeth?) I came across an old photograph album.
There were the usual forgettable holiday and family birthdays snaps etc and I was about to return it to the box until I noticed, at the back, a photo of myself with a young lady. I must admit that in the 20-odd years that have elapsed since the photo was taken, I have not had cause to remember her but seeing the photo again brought back memories.
She was younger than me, at music college in Manchester and played the oboe (you can stop that right now!). Best of all however was the fact that she was the niece of the landlord of my local. I made various attempts to woo her culminating in an invite to my flat for a meal. She accepted but pointed out that she was vegetarian. I duly delved into my Sainsbury's cooking on a budget book and decided that substituting vegetables for meat would work just fine.
Why I came up with Aubergine and Butter Bean Biryani will remain a mystery but it was bubbling away on the cooker when she arrived at the flat. Dinner (actually, I probably described it to her as tea, as in "D'ya want to come round fer yer tea luv?") was something of a disaster, eaten in near silence. After pushing the contents of her plate about for 10 minutes she sat back, thanked me for the meal and declared that she wasn't that hungry.
Given that I had bought ingredients that I would never use again (poppy seeds!) I urged her to tell me if there was anything wrong with the meal. "Well actually" she replied, "you're supposed to peel the aubergine". The cookbook was heading down the waste disposal chute next day, I can tell you.
In an effort to retrieve something from the evening, I decided to place myself next to her on the bean bag and move on to the 'main course'. In a good mannered but forceful rebuke, she explained that her Christian faith forbade what I had in mind and she would not be partaking in anything of a carnal nature until she was married.
The next hour or so was taken up with her telling me what 'fun' she had with lots of other wholesome twenty-somethings on bible weekends in the Lake District. I wonder what her reaction would have been had I presented the aubergine on the left to her that night. Mind you, knowing my luck, I'd have sliced it from the other end and it would have spelt 'Dog'.

Beans

2007-08-15T12:01:00.000+01:00

If you've had a particularly poor crop of beans, it is perhaps not the fault of the bad weather we've had. As with lots of other crops, it depends, according to folklore, when you planted them.
An old adage goes;

When elum leaves are as big as a farden
Tis time to plant kidney beans in the garden

As a rhyme, that's pretty naff even by my lowly standards but it turns out that elum is a dialect form of elm and farden, a small copper coin called a farthing that I'm obviously far too young to remember.
The newly appointed vicar of an Exmoor parish was mystified by his small congregation on Good Friday and was told that they were all very busy, planting their beans.
Using a remarkable ritual, in May at the festival of Leuria (or ghosts), the father of a Roman family rose at midnight, barefoot, stuffed his mouth with black beans and spat them behind him claiming redemption for his family. This was repeated nine times, the spirits (who returned to earth in the month of May) collected the beans, the father washed his hands, struck a brass instrument (you still with me?) and repeated nine times an invocation. Only then could he safely look behind him and feel his family was safe from haunting.
Miners in the Midlands said that colliery accidents were more frequent while bean fields bloomed. Even to sniff a bean flower was dangerous; to fall asleep in a bean field invited madness, nightmare and, eventually, death which is probably what happened to the Roman father.

A Mystic Veg Public Service

2007-08-10T12:47:00.000+01:00

There are some strange superstitions in the gardening world and I should know, I've introduced a few of them myself. I came across one yesterday however that even I wouldn't be tempted to put my name too.
It appears that if you put a leaf of the weed Hound's Tooth in your shoe, "Strange dogs will never bark at you".
Now that has got to be a bonus for the countries postmen and I was about to offer Royal Mail Chief Executive Adam Crozier, former CE of the Football Association (which made him an obvious first choice to deliver our letters on time!!) a couple of acres of the stuff to put in his postman's wellies until it occurred to me that Hound's Tooth might fall into the wrong hands, namely cat burglars, poachers, stalkers and all manner of undesirables.
Instead, I have passed on my findings to the new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith (who I am informed has no designs on the England managers job should it become vacant) in the hope that she will direct the countries Chief Constables to get their officers to randomly search the shoes of objectionable individuals and in doing so, help stem the tide of crime.
It would save an enormous amount of police time if in future, you remove your shoes and offer them for examination to every police officer you meet.

Happy Holidays

2007-08-04T22:16:00.000+01:00

There was a time when you wouldn't have dragged me anywhere on holiday after years of 'holiday hell'. A succession of freezing cold fortnights in decrepit caravans left me dreading 'Oldham Wakes' when the town would empty and all its residents headed for the delights of Blackpool, Morecambe and Southport.
We had to be different. We were lucky enough to have a car and my Mother spent hours planning summer holidays in Cornwall, Devon and anywhere else that involved an enormous trek. The trouble was that the M6 and M5 were still a few years short of being built so we faced an eight or nine hour journey on A roads in our Austin A30. How we managed to fit two adults, two kids and luggage in it I'll never know.
I quickly learned as I got older that holidays were the God-given right of the working man and there is no way I could escape taking the kids on holiday once a year anyway. I left the allotment in the capable hands of Mr. Patel and Edward and Randy promised to spruce up the allotment office during my absence. I left a couple of pots of Magnolia out for them to use but they seemed to find this amusing for some reason.
Given the recent spell of bad weather, camping in Devon seemed like a very bad idea but once the rain had departed last Saturday, we were blessed with glorious sunshine and I made a concerted effort to rid the Asda shelves of bottles of London Pride which I think I managed to do quite capably.
Camping isn't for everyone but we do try to make it as comfortable as possible and our culinary standards never drop. Such standards weren't evident elsewhere however. You could be mistaken into thinking that everybody in Wales eats Pot Noodles given the staggering amount the people in the next tent went through along with gallons of fizzy pop. The effect on their children was remarkable to say the least and they attempted to climb everything in sight and ran off at every available opportunity. My post-alcohol doze was constantly interrupted by shouts of "Come yuur".
All was not lost however and the daily paddle in the sea appears to have done wonders for my feet and a week on a blow-up mattress has proved that, despite the lumps, there is still a few years left in our old mattress at home.
There's just enough time left in the day to nip and see if Edward and Randy have been creative with the magnolia.

It's Holiday Week!

2007-07-25T13:42:00.000+01:00

I know many of you have expressed concern at the astonishing workload I force upon myself so I have decided to set all your minds at rest by taking a weeks holiday. I have resisted the temptation to return to the B & B in Mauritius as it was a little crowded.
Instead and to show that you don't have to go half way across the world to have a decent break, I am off to Dawlish and for those of you wanting to know whether I am enjoying myself or not, I will be appearing here every day at 3 p.m to wave to my readers. Don't forget to wave back, I'll be able to see you.

It's Vegetarian Week!

2007-07-23T14:12:00.000+01:00

I've lost count of the number of times (OK then, it's three) people have asked me if I'm a vegetarian. Just because I grow vegetables doesn't mean that I firebomb every butchers shop I come across. There's nothing I like better than a nice pork chop with plenty of home grown spuds, peas and carrots thrown in and it is quite wrong to pigeonhole people without knowing the full story as it where.
I can understand those who think that people who grow veg live in wigwams or up trees, release mink/beagles/rabbits from captivity, wash infrequently, drink strong lager and drag a dog along on the end of a rope but I have yet to meet that sort of vegetarian on our allotment. We attract the middled-aged, stricken with grief at what they are doing to their bodies and the planet types. They're actually worse than the dreadlocked tofu warriors in that they constantly berate fellow plot holders who won't join their 'veggie revolution'. Loretta and Marcus Allott occupy plot 13 and they set about the brambles and the couch grass with gusto last September loading tons of the stuff into the back of their Range Rover and taking it away to God knows where. We quickly found out where they stood environmentally when it was suggested they should burn the stuff they didn't want growing on their patch.
"That's extremely harmful to the planet" exclaimed Loretta, "I thought you'd all be aware of that". She was quite right of course but some of the older people on the allotment don't have the use of a car, let alone a Range Rover to haul the stuff away. I did try to point out that growing just one carrot was a useful way of conserving energy by cutting down on the amount of food that is moved by road but Loretta wouldn't have it and suggested that I should be setting an example to everybody in my role as Allotment Chairman.
Now there's nothing I like better than an easy life and Loretta and Marcus were determined that I wasn't going to get one. One day they were suggesting that the Allotment rule that requires no buildings to be over 2.2 metres be changed so that they could construct a windmill and another day they came banging on my door because they'd seen Joe Rollins using Weedol. I remained calm throughout all this of course, it is a quality I am renowned for but it was obvious tempers were becoming frayed when I had to intervene in an argument between Loretta and George Trickett. Loretta had decided to give George advice on his dietary needs after he'd passed judgement on her shallots whilst devouring two Hollands Meat Pies. "You are what you eat George" she barked at him. "You must have ate a right miserable cow then " George swiftly retorted.
In order to restore some kind of order, severe measures had to be taken and we choose the day of Marcus and Loretta's Vegetarian Barbeque to hatch our plan.
The lane leading up to the allotments had never seen so many vehicles and judging from the number of County Council Parking permits in the windscreens, most of Social Services had turned out for the Allott's BBQ. Knowing we wouldn't be invited, supplies were sneaked into next door's plot and after we'd lit our camp stove, we waited till the assembled guests had settled down to their lentil dahl or whatever they'd been served up and we made our move. Within 15 minutes half of the assembled throng had defected over to our plot and after half an hour only the Allots remained surrounded by uneaten chick peas and Quinoa porridge.
Since then, Marcus and Loretta have kept themselves to themselves because they know they are helpless when faced with that culinary champion - the bacon buttie.

Merchandise

2007-07-21T20:35:00.001+01:00

Those of you who have become devoted followers of Mystic Veg will recall that my first blog post was devoted to telling the world about the mysterious Pendant of Intula which had been in my family for generations. Its purpose was to ensure that the vegetable knowledge was kept in the family and only passed on to the first born. Each generation had to swear on the pendant that he would not impart the families knowledge to outsiders. To do so would bring forth all manner of pestilence and misfortune.
As I've been entertaining you with the knowledge that was passed down to me for over a month now with no ill effects whatsoever, I think it is safe to say that the Pendant's curse is questionable to say the least. I mention all this as you will recall I lost the pendant on the bus and despite the efforts of the Lost Property Office, no trace of it has been seen since.
One of my many readers thought they'd "seen something similar" on ebay but I can assure them that the ten-penny trinkets on there are nothing like the real thing.
Consequently, I think it is now safe to say that I have decided to allow the Mystic Veg™ name to be used on a selected number of products. This may seem like profiteering but my newly appointed agent has took the bull by the horns and insisted that I squeeze every last cent out of the Mystic Veg™ phenomenon because as she puts it "You could be back on the bins anyday".
I will make the promise however that even if I am forced to leave these shores in protest at the higher rate of income tax I am forced to pay, I will make sure that my first stop is at the local Allotment site to bag myself a plot.

Mystic Veg's tip of the week

2007-07-20T05:03:00.000+01:00

Don't visit those expensive garden centres and buy scented candles instead of useful garden stuff. To save money, set light to your own ear wax!

It's Onion Week!

2007-07-16T16:06:00.000+01:00

You can't really claim to grow your own veg if you've never tried to grow onions. They are used in just about everything we eat and even my crop of 200 last year wasn't enough to last me through to this years harvest. It is widely believed that onions were cultivated in ancient Egyptian times but there is some evidence that onions were eaten by Bronze Age man in 5000 BC.
Onions have been grown for many years by my own family and Great, Great Uncle Louis (left) a GP and amateur meteorologist, was so keen on onions that he was never without several strings of them wherever he went. He is pictured just before he boarded the train to London to visit the Great Exhibition in 1851.
Uncle Louis was alleged to have come away from the Exhibition with the only working model of the Tempest Prognosticator which he claimed was developed without his permission from drawings he had made on holiday in Whitby in 1848. He was also known as the 'Dry-eyed Doctor of Denton' as he was unaffected by eye irritation when peeling and cutting onions. Legend has it that Uncle Louis had two glass eyes after losing his eyesight at the Battle of Aliwal in 1846 but this was never proved and may have had something to do with his interest in becoming a football referee.

The short-list for Tommy's plot

2007-07-15T13:16:00.000+01:00

Having heard nothing from Channel Four regarding the offer to let their viewers vote for who gets Tommy's plot, I have thrown the vote open to my readers. You will see a choice of four candidates on the right, vote just once and the results will be posted on here in seven days time.
I did hope that the candidates would stake their claim for the plot by outlining why you should vote for them but I have been unable to locate any of them this morning and I was certainly not in the mood as I passed their respective houses at 7.30 to see either Mrs Little or Edward and Randy in their dressing gowns for obvious reasons.

The Media Spotlight

2007-07-12T05:37:00.000+01:00

I apologise to those of you who have been expecting a 'pea week' or a lettuce week' posting on Mystic Veg but I have found myself extremely busy these last few days. There was Tommy's funeral on Tuesday which was very well attended by the Allotment Association. The service was in the village Church with the Reverend Needham officiating and although he made several references to Tommy's love of gardening, I know for a fact that the vicar never set foot on the allotment or ever exchanged more than a cursory greeting to Tommy.
Tommy wouldn't have minded however. The only people he had time for were those who might buy him a drink and those who served it to him. The vicar matched neither of those categories.
Mr Patel spent the entire service asking everyone if it was OK for a Hindu to receive communion. He was resplendent in a deep red velvet suit with matching turban, topped with a curling ostrich feather. He insisted that his outfit was regarded as proper attire at funerals in Bangalore and who were we to disagree. Mrs Osgood from the W.I kept giving Mr Patel dirty looks but that could have been something to do with where the ostrich feather had lodged itself when Mr Patel bent down to pick up a 10p coin.
After the service we found ourselves in the Red Lion having been barred from the post-funeral wake by Tommy's niece, Sandra.
Alf had suggested the previous day that we might form a 'guard of honour' outside the church with crossed cucumbers for the coffin to pass under but after somebody recalled an old joke by Ken Dodd in which he said 'What a lovely day missus, for sticking a cucumber through your neighbour's letterbox and shouting "The Aliens have landed", we decided that we might not be able to keep straight faces.
The decision I have had to make regarding who should take over Tommy's old plot has been made easier by the intervention of the media. I have been contacted by Channel Four who wish to make a documentary with the central theme being the growing of vegetables.
When I told them that I was busy with the selection process for the new plot, they kindly offered to let their viewers vote on the subject in 'Big Brother' style (whatever that means).
I have to say that I am not an avid watcher of Channel Four but the young lady researcher I spoke to seemed very pleasant and arranged for the programme producer to come over next week to talk me through the filming process.
She said that he had been involved in a programme about somebody called Topsy which I assumed is some kind of children's programme. I really must get my hearing checked out as I swear she said Autopsy - how ridiculous!

The Last Harvest

2007-07-07T05:12:00.000+01:00

I am afraid that I am the bearer of some bad news. Tommy Jacobs, who had tended his allotment with loving pride for over 40 years, sadly passed away over the weekend. He was found by Roy and Malcolm who tend the next door plot. They had noticed that Tommy's heavy garden roller had dislodged itself from its normal place and was wedged against his shed door, locking him inside. It appears that he had been there for some time. It must have been torturous for him to see the neat lines of vegetables he could have eaten and no doubt his final days were spent regretting fitting the industrial grade, steel mesh to the windows of the shed.
In time honoured tradition, I gathered together the plot holders who were present on Sunday morning and we divided Tommy's belongings between us.
Mr Patel from the newsagents claimed Tommy had a paper bill of £87.50 and so gathered up Tommy's 'artistic' magazines which he thought he might be able to pass off as new with an inventive use of clingfilm.
Tommy was something of a hoarder and we had to reverse Alf's truck up to the shed in order to get the suit of armour and the generator shifted.
In the midst of our labour's, Tommy's only relative, his niece arrived and proceeded to lambast our efforts in an extremely vociferous manner. The other plot holders, unused to dealing with such outbursts, suggested she aimed her vitriol at me in my capacity as Allotment Chairman. Sandra, obviously stricken by the death of her Uncle accused us of "Getting our hands on Uncle Tommy's belongings before his body was cold".
I informed the young lady that her Uncle's body was certainly cold when he was discovered (although the excellent insulation he had fitted to the shed appeared to have aided decomposition slightly) and given his advanced stage of rigor mortis, I had to practically break his fingers to get my hands on a rather excellent axe and ceromonial sword. It was at the point that Sandra decided to faint which could well have been something to do with the odour from the shed or Mr. Patel's aftershave.
Not wishing to put up with the girl's continued outbursts we put her in the recovery position (at least that's what Alf insisted it was. Personally I thought there was no need to raise her skirt to 'aid circulation') and left her lying amongst Tommy's prize marrows.
After the girl had come round and beat a hasty retreat towards the village, I was left wondering what to do with the vegetables that had been tended so dilligently. With the Village Fete looming, I thought it would be only fair to enter some of Tommy's veg myself but given that rule 38 states that no deceased person can enter competition or win a prize, I will be forced to pass Tommy's veg off as my own. I know he would approve.
I must now put the selection process into operation to choose who should take over Tommy's plot. There is a rather long waiting list as you can imagine and it would be a simple task to give the person at the top of that list the available place. However in my role of Chairman, I have a duty of care to the other plot holders and if I gave Edward and Randy the interior designers, who are currently 'top of the list' a plot, there may be mutterings amongst the older members.
I have decided to seek the advice of Mrs. Little who is currently 3rd on the list. She has invited me round for supper and suggested that I 'bring my toothbrush'. She must be planning a rather pungent dish!

Nettles

2007-07-04T14:19:00.000+01:00

As its weed week, I can't possibly get away with not mentioning nettles, those nasty little unmentionables that spoil blackberry picking, camping and 'blanket on the ground' courting. There are between 30 - 45 species of flowering plants that share the name nettle so it is a safe bet that if you manage to avoid one lot, another is bound to get you.
As with dandelions, they have both culinary and medicinal properties. A detoxifying tea can be made from the leaves but you'll be hard pressed to find it on the shelves of your local Asda - try the wholefood store.
Medically, the nettle is believed to be a galactagogue, which is not a character from Doctor Who as you might think but is in fact a substance that induces lactation - so enough of that. There is also a practice of applying nettles to bare skin to combat the effects of rheumatism. This is probably an old wives tale as the sting from the nettles temporarily makes the rheumatism sufferer forget his or her complaint.
Rather frighteningly, nettles are used in some quarters as a suppository but I'm afraid further research in that field has taken me to some rather unsavoury websites.
As an example of what you'll do when you are drunk, the regulars at the Bottle Inn in Dorset, hold an annual World Stinging Nettle Eating Championship. The men's title is held by Samuel Ellis, who consumed the leaves from 52 feet of stinging nettles in an hour.
I wouldn't have liked to be around when he went to the toilet next morning.

Busy doing nothing.

2007-06-29T16:31:00.000+01:00

If you're not careful, a quick check to see if you've received any emails can turn into a marathon session in front of the computer with you ending up at all manner of places. I remember quite recently searching for photos of the new Wembley Stadium in the vain hope that Oldham Athletic would make it to the League One play-off final and ended up at a site called 28 days later which is nothing to do with the naff film that was on the other night. It is in fact a 'Urban Exploration Forum' where sallow youths seek out abandoned buildings, tower cranes and all manner of places they are not supposed to be anywhere near and ...er.. explore them. A couple of them had got into Wembley Stadium before it officially opened and took photographs of the place.
As somebody who understands perfectly well the words 'Keep' and 'Out', I have to admit that I felt a twinge of jealousy at the boldness of the youths who frequent the site. I would not however, swap places with them when they are being pursued by some rabid police dog.
I offer the previous paragraphs as an explanation as to why I ended up at Williamsons after looking through Crofty's Blog . Crofty is from my home town and although the wide open spaces of Lincolnshire are attractive to both eye and lung, there are some places that you just can't get out of your mind.
Crofty was bemoaning the loss of 'real' shops and listed a couple I'd not heard of in Oldham. The one I had heard of however was Williamsons , situated in the delightfully named Mumps area of Oldham. It is a fine establishment offering all manner of tools and hardware. And that, dear reader is where I've been (in a cyber sense of course) for the last few hours.
Having viewed their wares, I am now in a position to announce to my family and relatives alike that if they are stuck for a present to buy me for my next birthday, I have the perfect suggestion.
After all, who would not be delighted to have their very own Grandstand .

It may be just a cauliflower............

2007-06-28T04:51:00.000+01:00

There is one thing you can be sure of when you settle down to read the latest posting on 'Mystic Veg' and that is that you won't be bombarded with arguments trying to persuade you to 'go green'. I'm a firm believer in letting people live their lives how they see fit and if they want to burn truck tyres in their gardens rather than take them to the tip, then that's their business.Similarly, if you're the sort of person who takes to the trees to demonstrate against a by-pass then you won't find me trying to coax you down.
It has to be said however that a good number of people who have an allotment are so-called 'eco-warriors' and I have had to politely refuse the odd quinoa with macadamias and cashews just in case it clashes horribly with my Ginsters pork pie.
Environmentalists seem to be falling over themselves to get people to grow their own food, and no wonder. Experts have pointed out that transporting food sometimes thousands of miles is having a dramatic effect on the environment. We need to cut down on travel whether it be by plane or motor vehicle and that is why you'll find me supporting anybody who attempts to grow their own food. I like to think that sowing a few seeds and reaping the harvest is helping to reduce those greenhouse gases and making the world a better place to live in.
I was reminded of this today when I discovered a rather delicious looking cauliflower that hadn't been devoured by slugs or snails. I hurriedly shoved it in my bag and earmarked it for tea. The ideal accompaniment to a decent cauli is a cheese sauce and I have to admit that I am pretty poor at knocking one together.
Luckily, I met a fantastic Egyptian chef in Mansura last year and all it took was a quick fax to his restaurant and he was boarding the next plane for Heathrow. You can't let a good cauli go to waste!

Another country to avoid - Austria

2007-06-26T04:51:00.000+01:00

Tagged?

2007-06-25T13:00:00.001+01:00

I appear to have been 'tagged' by Bill which means I have to list 8 random things about me then choose eight other people to 'tag' (don't these people work?)
As the allotment is under several inches of water and the Red Lion is undergoing a much-needed carpet cleaning after the Marmite and gherkin night, I'll join in.

I once burnt down a house in South Manchester by accident.
I removed my own stitches following my circumcision.
I faked the death of a relative when I didn't turn in for work one day and my boss sent some flowers.
I actually like Spam.
I operate my windscreen washers every time someone passes in an open top car.
I am one of the worst ex-smokers you are ever likely to meet.
I love Family Guy
I once missed a penalty on the Oldham Athletic pitch at half time against a man dressed in an Owl suit.

As for the eight other blogs, watch this space.

It's Beetroot Week!

2007-06-24T20:19:00.000+01:00

It's a little known fact that if you placed all the t-shirts end to end that had been thrown away with beetroot stains on them, they would stretch 3.87 times round the Earth.
Beetroot juice is known in scientific circles as a biological stain, it resists all manner of detergents and woe betide any husband who gets it on his shirt collar as it can be mistaken for lipstick by a suspicious wife!
Garden beet juice is used as a colourant in tomato paste, jams, jellies and breakfast cereals. It is simple to grow and easy to spot amongst the weeds as it has distinctive leaves. The Victorians used beetroot juice to dye their clothes and hair.
The Romans used beetroot as a laxative and it was also considered to be useful as an aphrodisiac by Field Marshall Montgomery, who exhorted his troops to 'take favours in the beetroot fields' a euphemism for visiting prostitutes.

Unashamed Profiteering

2007-06-24T19:16:00.000+01:00

"You can't get something for nothing" my old man used to say as they led him away on yet another trumped up shop lifting charge. He was right of course but if I have understood my good friend Bill correctly, mentioning the odd brand name might mean you get the odd surprise in the post and given that I was late for dinner with the Bishop and his good lady last night due to a faulty wristwatch, the occasional brand name would not go amiss.
I am slowly beginning to get my head round this blogging business, aided by Bill, who has answered my queries with the upmost patience. He put me onto statcounter.com which is a handy little tool which shows you where in the world your readers come from.
Imagine my surprise to find that I have fans in

Malaysia

, The Bahamas and The USA.
I would like to point out to my readers across the globe that my passport is in order, I have no known ailments and I am available for lecture tours at short notice.
I must rush off an email to Bill to see if he might want to join me on one of these jaunts.
The only problem is the odious relatives he brings along.

The TV Gardeners

2007-06-21T16:18:00.000+01:00

It appears to me that you can't move for TV Gardeners nowadays. Every channel seems to have 'experts' of some description ready to descend on the gullible public who seem only too keen on letting them tramp over their lawns to wreak havoc amongst the Hostas.I don't know why and when it was suddenly considered 'entertainment' to have a crowd of people invade your garden while you were out and expect you to be pleased that they'd placed a bamboo model of Achilles binding the wound of Patroclus where your gas barbeque used to be.One episode of 'Ground Force' I saw involved W.I heart-throb Titchmarsh placing a mirror at the end of a small garden to give the impression that the garden was longer than it was.Now I don't know about you but I reckon that once the sun had caught said mirror and beamed a blinding ray of light straight into your eyes a couple of times, a trip to the council tip would be on the cards.And what possesses people to invest in a 'water feature'? The only water feature Percy Thrower ever mentioned was an outside tap. The shelf life of an aluminium ball, surrounded by coloured pebbles and spouting a trickle of water is about six weeks or until it becomes covered in green slime and your Jack Russell has taken to mating with it.It would be extremely easy for me to add landscape gardening to the considerable list of services I am able to offer but it would be like taking candy from a baby. What I will say in the way of advice to the likes of Titchmarsh is that sticking mirrors and sheets of metal in your garden is hardly innovative.When I was a youngster, roaming the mean streets of Fitton Hill, it was not unusual to see artistic talent at work in the front gardens of the council houses.
Often, the tenants used parts from an old Austin Maestro to add texture and balance to their horticultural schemes.
Many of the projects remain there to this day as workers from the Town Environmental Health Department are aware of their artistic worth and refuse to take them away.
If I'm ever find myself in need of some quick cash, I might decide to offer my design talents to the highest bidder, for my services do not come cheap.
I seem to recall that the Bishop and his wife were desperate for me to redesign their whole garden and I did have some ideas involving Pan and the she-goat as a centre piece.
As I'm invited for dinner on Saturday, I might take along my designs.

It's Radish Week

2007-06-18T11:07:00.000+01:00

I have been asked to pass on my extensive knowledge of a vegetable that can be sown at this time of year. The obvious choice has to be the Radish which is quick growing, taking only 4 to 7 days to germinate and the perfect addition to those summer salads. You can also entertain yourself by telling younger members of the family that radish are just small tomatoes, then watch their expressions as they take their first bite.
Any self respecting seed stockist will be able to provide you with a packet of seed and they are one of the easiest things to grow in the garden.
Draw a line with the end of your hoe in the soil, sprinkle the seeds thinly in the trough you have made, then cover the seeds with soil and water. Weed as necessary (or get someone else to do it).
Radishes are suggested as an alternative treatment for a variety of ailments including coughs, liver problems (I can think of a few people in the Red Lion who might benefit from the odd radish), constipation, arthritis, boils and madness.
In 2005 in Japan, a giant radish grew through a section of pavement. Named Dokonjo Daikon the vegetable received considerable interest from the public, and toy shops began stocking giant radish dolls which, in my opinion, is a pretty good reason to avoid Japan at all costs.

Stormy Weather

2007-06-15T05:55:00.000+01:00

My post about the sun shining proved to be the kiss of death! I'm starting to believe those boffins who predict monsoon-like weather conditions in this country unless we cut back on exhaust emissions and the like.
It's not easy being a Gardener in this weather either. Everyone and their Uncle always says "At least it's good for the garden". I feel like dumping some waterlogged cabbages in their laps when I walk into the pub and say "How good do you think that is?"
I feel sorry for some of the older plot holders at the allotment. A visit to tend their plants is sometimes the only time they get out of the house and the inclement weather has kept many of them away. One enterprising chap decided to sit it out in his shed I noticed on Tuesday. He'd obviously brought along enough provisions as he was still there today and I was going to ask him how he'd managed to secure the shed door on the outside using his heavy roller and still manage to get inside but he was obviously very busy with something, given the amount of waving and jumping up and down he was doing so I left well alone.
I feel it is part of my role as Chairman of the Allotment society to look after the older people on the allotment. They often feel threatened when new folk come along and challenge the age-old ways that have served the local community for generations. I tell them that we must move with the times and that if those two young ladies on plot 54 feel that sowing seed by moonlight, completely naked, helps with germination who am I to argue with them?
I helped them as well of course by forsaking a night in the Red Lion to shine a flashlight on the proceedings when the moon went behind a cloud and to lock up after they were done. They were very grateful and invited me to join them again when they celebrate something called Lammas which I believe is some sort of cheese. I'll take a couple of bottles of stout along and I might even get my banjo out.

It's Sweetcorn Week

2007-06-11T18:12:00.000+01:00

The sun is shining and our thoughts always turn to barbeques at this time of year. I know some of you won't be thinking of barbeques, especially if there's been a death in the family and the cremation is imminent but you know what I mean.
The perfect veg to serve with all that red, barely cooked meat is of course sweetcorn , not the tinned stuff, I'm referring to corn on the cob with enough butter melting on it to guarantee you a late night visit to A & E with chest pains.
There are a great number of varieties of sweetcorn but the best ones to serve up to your guests are Sundance, Incredible F1 and Kelvedon Glory. If you haven't grown any this year then you're too late. You'll have to put up with the stuff off the shelves of your local supermarket. Next February however, get yourself some seeds and I'll guide you through the process of growing them.

Some people view all the sugar, starch and whatever you choose to stick on it before you take a bite to be a bit unhealthy but it's taking it a bit far to wear rubber gloves and test it out on your kid first!
There's a new barrel of Blaines Old Tosspot at the Red Lion with my name on it so I'll bid you goodnight.

A recipe to finish off Leek Week

2007-06-10T14:56:00.000+01:00

British farmers grow tons of vegetables every year including 40,000 tons of Leeks.
To finish off Leek Week, here's a recipe for you all to try.
Personally, I think the end product looks like puke but then I did spend longer than I intended in the Red Lion last night.

It's Leek Week!

2007-06-07T16:24:00.000+01:00

I apologise for having waited till Thursday to announce this but it's Leek Week. Now you've probably never been aware that such a date was missing from your diary and the reason is that I've only just thought it up.
It would be more appropriate to have Leek Week in February or March when it is time to sow the seeds but as I've only just got round to putting mine outside, I think I can be excused.
The easiest way to grow leeks is to get your hands on a catalogue from Thomas Etty Esq and order some Bleu de Solaise seeds. You'll get about 300 seeds for £1.45 (bargain). Sow them thinly in a seed tray and when they are about as thick as a pencil (an ordinary sized pencil that is, not one of those giant ones you buy for the kids), poke holes in the ground using a Dibber (which I admit looks like some sexual gratification instrument), drop a leek into each hole, fill the hole with water and get down to the pub for a well-deserved drink.

The leek and its violent past

2007-06-05T05:42:00.000+01:00

It is high time I started to educate my readers as I promised. The world of vegetables is both strange and welcoming. The story of the leek and how it gained its notoriety is a worthy tale and as I intended to chronicle vegetables alphabetically, the leek is the obvious place to start.
Joe Roland, who was the North West's leading expert on leeks once told me that it was the only vegetable he had seen grown men and women fight over. He was referring of course to the numerous village fetes and fairs he had attended in his position as Chairman of the Saddleworth Vegetable and Cut Flowers Association. Part of his role was to judge the annual events where villagers displayed produce they had grown. Often, the difference between first place and prestige and second place, which brought only disregard, could hinge on the slightest imbalance in texture or colour and naturally, tensions always ran high.
Joe had witnessed numerous fist fights, some between members of the same family and the altercations were always over the leek. It got so bad in some areas that the leek judging was required to be done in a makeshift cage and Joe was issued with pepper spray for his own safety.
If Joe had known about the role the leek played in the Battle of Brunanburh, he may not have wished to have got so involved with this most violent of vegetables.
The Battle of Brunanburh was a West Saxon victory in 937 by the army of King Athelstan and his brother Edmund over the combined armies of Olaf III Guthfrithson, Viking king of Dublin, Constantine, king of Scotland and King Owain of Strathclyde (mention is also made in some sources of Irish and even Welsh mercenaries). The location of Brunanburh has never been identified but I can assure readers that according to my knowledge, Brunanburh was situated just outside Ashton-under-lyne .
Athelstan's army had been forced into retreat after suffering heavy casualties near Glossop and with the frozen wastes between Ashton and Oldham threatening to further diminish his forces, he led them towards shelter in a farmer's field.
His army had lost much of their equipment and defeat looked inevitable until Athelstan noticed that there were hundreds of leeks growing in the farmer's field. He ordered his men to tear the frozen leeks out of the ground and use them as clubs. The sight of Athelstan's men bearing down on them, brandishing frozen leeks was too much for the combined armies who turned and fled. Those not fast enough in their retreat were bludgeoned to death.
The Stalybridge Tapestry recalled the battle but was lost in the Great Fire of 1289. A small portion of it is held in Hyde Museum but it only shows a local peasant woman baking bread outside her hut oblivious to the carnage unfolding around her. The fact that there were Welsh mercenaries involved in the battle is said to account for the eventual adopting of the leek as the national emblem of Wales.

Notoriety

2007-06-03T19:17:00.000+01:00

My humble beginnings in the blogosphere (as I believe it's called) have attracted the attention of an old pal of mine. There are some people from your past who you would rather forget given that they can usually remember in stark detail the amount of alcohol you drank on any given night and why that tumble amongst the cucumber plants wasn't quite what it seemed.
However, Bill isn't one of those 'anything for a headline' types and I trust that any mention of me he makes is done in the best possible taste, as they say.
I wouldn't put it past Bill to borrow an idea or two from here however, it appears to be part and parcel of being a journalist nowadays. I don't mind of course, fresh ideas and stimulating debate are all too rare I'm afraid and I am delighted to be able to provide material for people.
It is a brave man who would accuse me of plagiarism however, what you see on these pages is my own work and always will be.
Time to lock up the shed for the weekend, the sun is sinking over the sweetcorn and there is a frothing pint of Lobsters Ravaged Belle waiting for me on the way home.

Leadership

2007-06-03T12:21:00.000+01:00

I can't imagine how I omitted to mention that I am the Chairman of the Local Allotment Society. It is a post that I have held for nearly ten years and I am proud of the fact that in that time, productivity has increased on each of the allotments by 17%, there is a new pipeline supplying water to the further flung parts of the site, the new secure fencing has kept out unwanted elements and the education classes I instigated under my five-year plan have proved fruitful with 77% of our members enjoying lectures on everything from how to plant and make delicious meals out of cabbages and beetroot to making a home-made trap for vermin.
Despite my success, there have been mutterings of discontent over the years that I have had to deal with. Younger allotment holders have shown disregard for my methods and questioned the validity of my Chairmanship. I silenced their protestations by showing them the voting slips that had been counted meticulously by my old friend Erich and pointed out to them that there were corners of the allotment site that were considered a lot colder than others and that they might one day have to face tilling the soil in a far less clement climate.
Needless to say, what little opposition there has been has quickly disappeared, especially when I point out to people that to arrive home without fresh food to put on the table would obviously be viewed by the likes of Social Services as a failure to provide for the family.

The start of a perilous journey

2007-06-02T11:53:00.000+01:00

I've given some thought as to how I should begin to pass my vegetable knowledge on to you all and I think it is best done in small portions. Given the possibility that boils could erupt on your body at any second for reading this, a large portion of knowledge could prove fatal.
I have decided therefore to comment as I see fit when vegetables appear in the daily news.
I will rely on newsnow for this and I obviously expect some sort of mention from them as a courtesy gesture.
The world of vegetables is indeed a wonderful place. I can promise you that vegetables help you to quit smoking , which is not a wild claim on my part. I was a 40 a day man until I discovered SMAC pickled mushrooms. When you've stubbed out your last ciggie and are laughing at the fools stood outside the pub in the rain because of the smoking ban, remember who helped you stop and marvel at my knowledge.

The Pendant of Intula

2007-05-31T10:50:00.000+01:00

It has taken a great deal of persuasion to extricate me from my little piece of sanity - my potting shed, to share my considerable knowledge of the vegetable world with the cyber community.

You might be thinking that you have never seen my name amongst the vast array of books and magazines that purport to help people grow their own food and there is a good reason for that - no amount of money can prise my knowledge from me, for it has been passed down through generations of my family and my father, like many before him, swore on the Pendant of Intula that he would only impart the wisdom of my forefathers to his first born.
I was warned that to break this ancient tradition would bring forth misery and damnation.
However, fate intervened on Monday 8th January this year when I inadvertently left the Pendant of Intula on the number 27 bus.
Despite my efforts and those of Hilary at the lost property office to recover the pendulant, it remains missing (although I did see a scruffy youth with a dog on a rope wearing something similar as I left the butchers on Tuesday. He appeared to be in a hurry and I had no intention of pursuing him in the rain without my raincoat).
Given that my first born appears to have little interest in growing food, preferring instead to preen himself in the rear view mirror of his Vauxhall Corsa, I have taken the decision to impart my knowledge to you all.
Needless to say, that if misery and damnation descends on any of you for reading this blog, I accept no liablity whatsoever.
I would however be interested to know if any pestilence or plagues of any description befall you.