Diggers Unite!

Finally got down to the TN allotment today. Jane and I met at the train station and then we took the bus (35) almost to the gates and went walkabout the Bluebell plots, full of tall cabbages, late cornflowers, golden windfalls sprinkled on the ground, lanky sunflower ghosts and everywhere winter veg shooting hardily out of the soil. We met David from Take 5, (the great bar in Tombland where the Communications crew have their meetings), Peter who used to work for the EDP and is now the compost guru and of course Mahesh who is the MC of this small vegetable kingdom (complete with compost loo and community kitchen).

After a winter picnic of Jane's frittata under the now-leafless plum trees, my coleslaw of red cabbage and carrots laced with lemon, green chilli and roasted pumpskin seed oil we drank a masala chai tea boiled in a Kelly kettle. Kelly kettles were apparently invented by Irish fishermen and they are just the sort of useful tool you need on damp November afternoons. They're like an aluminium thermos with a bore hole through which the fire heats the water contained inside a metal jacket. You light your dry twigs in a small dish, put the KK on the hob and five minutes later, hey presto! you have your perfect zero-carbon brew.

And then we set to work. Serious digging with forks getting the bed ready for the Spring. I was going to wait for J's photo to come through of me, fork in hand, turning up the couch grass, but here is one from Kathryn Siveyer who does the most lovely blog about her Transition allotment http://www.transitioncityallotment.blogspot.com/ in Canterbury that inspired us all in the beginning. I'll post that one tomorrow.

Short post today as I'm on the road. Writing this in the Norwich Library and about to go to the Copenhagen Climate Emergency talks . . . watch this space . . . Oh, here's that pic!















Top: Sprouting Broccoli by Kathryn Siveyer

Bottom: Charlotte at Bluebell Allotments South by Jane