Yesterday I played Duchess of Cambridge and planted two trees! It was a beautiful, sunny morning and felt more like April than January. Mum came to help and advise and we were the only people at the allotment, our sole company, a woodpecker who would occasionally tap away in his hunt for a snack. I had started clearing the planting area last week and things had dried out a lot since then so an hour’s hard work and we had all the brambles, nettles and several dozen large rocks removed.
The trees came from Ken Muir and were both bush trees which should get no bigger than about 3.5m tall. The first was the good old Cox which is pickable from October and will store until January. The second was the rather fantastically named Scrumptious which will be ready in September but has a very short storage life. It is described as “crisp, sweet and aromatic. It is also thin skinned and therefore ideal for children”. We won’t have any fruit this year, but hopefully a few to try in 2013.
We staked the trees, gave them a good drink and mulch and protected them form the deer, rabbits, pheasants etc with some chicken wire – a very good morning’s work!
The light was so good and some of the colours so beautiful that I couldn’t resist a couple of pics to brighten this page up a bit – some red cabbage and rainbow chard. Who says winter is a dull season?!
I had a last minute change of plan for dinner as the soufflé which I was going to cook really needed a salad to go with it so had to wait 24 hours for my food delivery. Instead, I needed to come up with a store cupboard supper. Spaghetti Puttanesca or “whore’s spaghetti” was the solution as a) i had some olives in the fridge and b) I could use some of the chipotles from the previous day (I say some, I really mean half of one; they pack that much of a punch!). These two ingredients were combined with garlic, anchovies, capers, parsley and some chopped tomatoes for a tasty plate of pasta ready in 15 minutes.
