For any Instagram followers, feel free to scroll through the next paragraph as you already know this. For anyone new, however, you might not know that, when we bought our house, it came with an allotment. And not just an allotted space of land — a full, mature allotment. There is a greenhouse, a poly tunnel, free-growing dill, oregano and parsley, mature plum trees (3 of them), Bramley apple trees (5 of those), a peach tree, 2 pear trees, a fig tree (yes, really) a grapevine (I know!) and an entire 3x4m cage full of established berry bushes: raspberries, both golden and pink, blackcurrants, redcurrants and whitecurrants. Oh, and there’s also a pink lady tree, a Braeburn tree, gooseberries, mint, irises, hazelnuts, hollyhocks, lupins and more.
Despite all this, the allotment still needs tending. We bought the house in October 2021, so prime harvesting time. The previous owner left me her leeks, sprouts, purple broccoli and more. This year, we grew beetroot, multi-coloured carrots, potatoes, rhubarb, pumpkins, broad-and-runner beans and copious amounts of cherry tomatoes.
Allotments, come winter time – midwinter, particularly – are strange places. Once everything has been pruned and strimmed and trimmed back and plucked, it becomes almost empty and barren. Right now, the trees are fast asleep, as are the frogs in the ponds. The ground is hard and unforgiving to a spade. The only thing currently growing are a bunch of late-planted leeks which seem to be doing pretty well. Oh, and the tiny, weeny buds on the branches just started to poke through the bark.
Today, Pete and I decided to prepare what I’ve decided will be the carrot bed. A nice, sheltered-but-sunny, 2x3m patch which has been neatly strimmed, raked over, covered with soaking-wet cardboard and further with fresh compost, then secured finally by a solid tarpaulin. The idea is that the ground will self-compost as winter falls away, leaving us with a healthy bed for the carrots. Fingers crossed – home grown carrots really are something special!
In the meantime, the beds and pots in the poly tunnel are slowly being filled with garlic and onions and chillies. The temperature in the plastic sauna is generally a good 10 degrees above outside, so they’ll get a nice head start in the warmth, away from any frost. The kids have been helping with this – pricking seeds into pots is their favourite thing to do (in winter, anyway, when there’s no fresh fruit on the trees).
I have slightly grander ideas for this year – having done one tentative year as a gardener, I now know what the family likes and what grows well in our space. But I’m always up for ideas, too – how about some out-of-the-box recommendations for me?
But this morning, and the rest of today, she’s not been that bothered. She had a nice chomp on a chicken leg bone (so much like her sister). She had great fun playing in the scrambled eggs and avo I gave her (I didn’t see any enter her mouth, but her breath had a distinctly eggy smell afterwards).But here’s the beauty of 
No, seriously – I’ve never seen anyone that size shovel so much food into their mouths in one day. Little food monster!
Mummy’s, Daddy’s and Stevie’s
Mumming and Modelling 