Honkjazz - The Musical Allotment Huzzah!!

Hello my lovelies. Are you well? Been taking care on that slippy ice? Good.

As you may have seen from the previous post, honkjazz has a new friend. The decision has been taken to sort this dump out a bit! We're planning to slowly move the video player and podcast players over to the new site and hopefully leave this place to handle the allotment side of things. We'll still keep a radio show on a little player here so you can listen to our musical endeavors whilst perusing the gardening stuff at the same time. The links page will change as well in keeping with the overhaul. Festivals (unless they're food ones :D), record shops, record companies, etc will all move over to Chew Bubblegum. Instead we'll link you to farmers markets, fishing hotspots, amazing restaurants, agricultural agencies and excellent farm shops. Kapiche?

Good. We think it will make everything a lot more simple on the eye. We might even use this as a chance to redecorate. Also I've

 changed the name of partner in crime No.1 to keep in line with his super-duper DJ career. His name was never Herbert Westchester, that's just ridiculous! He's called Blunts. Potential confusion averted. Lots of changes eh?

Hopefully it will all coincide with a change in fortunes for the plot itself. The weather has been so awful since October that we've not been able to do anything there at all. Even when it has stopped raining for just one day the soil has been so waterlogged that any efforts are useless. The last batch of onions, garlic and broad beans were planted during one of these brief respites from the pluvial onslaught and consequently all have completely failed to sprout from their waterlogged beginnings except the garlic. Strangely this has flourished so thats at least one victory for team Honkjazz. The rain did stop before Christmas. Just in time for a three week freeze which, coupled with the snow that followed rendered the plot inaccessible. The weather has cleared up a bit (although we did have a slight flutter of snow last night) and the rain isn't a constant factor so I'm really hoping to get to the plot tomorrow. There's not really a lot to do there in truth. The last third of the old broccoli

bed has to be dug over and there's some very light weeding to be done on the other beds. I'd like to get some of H&S' amazing pig poo on top of the beds as well. Feed the earth and you shall be fed in return. Or something.

The last twenty or so swede are distributed across three beds so we should be picking those off over the next month or two as we start to plan the next campaign of growing. The very last of the brussel sprouts need to be hoiked out as well. 

Then we'll have seven empty beds to play with. This year I'd like to plant more peas as they were one of my favorite successes last summer. The harvest would have been much bigger if Bibby and I hadn't snaffled so many straight from the plants. "Like little vegetable sweets!!" is how Bibby gleefully described them and I couldn't agree more. Runner beans should come back as well after last years absence. We didn't plant them out due to losing the crop of seeds taken from the year before. I swore blind that Bibs had put them in a mixed bean vegematarian casserole or some type of dinner that makes you want to wear sandals and make clothes out of hemp and drive a car powered by the gastric emissions of your children Tao, Cloud and Tweed. This was

 when she was still a vegematarian (of fourteen years no less!) and before the magic of living in Devon had sparked the primal urge to kill animals and eat their flesh!!!! (she came home with some delicious black pudding the other day and we celebrated our one year anniversary with bloody rump steaks - result). Anyways, it turned out that I'd put them in the loft out of harms way. So who's the chucklehead now huh? 

Oh.

The potatoes have served us well the last two years so I'm guessing that we'll work those again. Perhaps this year we can buy a few less as we ended up with a bit of a glut and its an emotional wrench of a crime to throw homegrown food on the compost heap, one which I'd rather not have to repeat. The tomatoes that I collected from a freecycler were a unanimous failure - possibly due to the complete 100% lack of food that we gave them. Like a high maintenance girlfriend or human child they need food to live! Who knew?

Otherwise there's potential in parsnips, hope for herbs and possibilities for pumpkins. That sounded very Hugh Fearnley-Eatsitall didn't it?

And speaking of the River Cottage lifestyle guru, I'd like to touch on another aspect of this food malarky - foraging.

Two books from the River Cottage lot have really given Bibs and I a push in the direction of free food from the hedgerows and the seashores. One is a cookbook that contains more advice on growing vegetables, keeping livestock, foraging for mushrooms and fishing the rivers, coastlines and seas of our land than it does recipes. The other is a book by John Wright, his advisor in all matters relating to foraging. This one sticks to the beaches and harbors of England and has given us a fully fledged desire to start collecting the edible plants and shellfish that populate the coastlines of Devon and Cornwall. The nearest beach is only a fifteen minute drive away and if we can spend an afternoon splashing around the rock-pools and tidelines and come home with a bucket of prawns, mussels and cockles then we'd be daft to ignore the culinary benefits which couple the mighty pull of the ocean which surely affects all of us on some level. A lumpy sentence but one which expresses exactly how I feel. 

So neeer!!

 A couple of visits to nearby Brixham have produced a desperate want to start fishing from the beaches and breakwaters as well. Slapton beach is home to some pretty big fishing competitions so I'm hopeful of that as an indicator of an abundant ocean larder. There are many beautiful coastal towns with a harbor wall that we can park up on and there are plenty of rocky beaches that are perfect for a flask of tea, some sandwiches and a spot of mackrel-bashing. So the next of you to visit our neck of the woods c

ould be treated to a homemade AND self-caught fish pie! We're very excited about this as ever since we stumbled on a carpet of wild garlic in some nearby woods we've being wanting to get out and about with a book and a bag and a roving eye for plants, herbs, fruit and seafood that we can harvest with no damage to the environment or our purse-strings and only positive benefits in terms of taste and freshness.

 We'll also be safe in the knowledge that this food is completely organic and having cut out the middlemen of growers, distribution chains and shops will have had no detrimental effects on the environment. Everyone wins. Especially us.

On another note, some of you may have noticed a distinct lake of puzzle books as of late. This is explained by my employment situation. Having left the puzzle book world in October and spending two months on the sofa (Dr Quinn Medicine Woman is

very addictive and also an excellent barometer of just how long you've been unemployed - following plot lines across more than three episodes? Back to work with you right away!!) I started working for a company called Riverford Organic Vegetables in December. So now you're likely to get some grade-out vegetables instead of puzzle books, although they may not fare too well in transit to Oklahoma or New Orleans.

Working with fruit and vegetables all day long is an absolute joy, both from a sensual and an ethical viewpoint. The smells and sights, tastes and touches of our produce is just too amazing to describe. You've all smelt a fresh leek in your time I'm sure. Try smelling two tonnes of them. The smell hits you like a hammer. A very lovely vegetable hammer. I'm guessing I'll never have to use that sentence ever again.

And the ethics that this company live by are outstanding. Their efforts to reduce carbon footprints, re-use and recycle as much packaging as possible and support co-operatives of growers and farmers in the UK, Europe, Africa and South America are exemplory.

 Admittedly I'm working in a warehouse. It just happens to filled with delicious organic produce instead of nuts and bolts or tupperware or computer components and situated on a beatuful farm in the heart of south Devon's breathtaking countryside.

Which is nice.

So it seems like everything is going pretty swimmingly at the moment.

Whats that? You want some pictures?

Oh all right, here's a couple of highlights from 2009.

 

honkjazz has a friend...

right!!! after a lengthy break from all things blog like to enable a replenishment of our collective minds (little time and it's winter) a brother or sister has appeared where all things musical in the world of honkjazz will appear including mixes, shows off the purple radio and possibly the odd review, poem or interesting link.

There isn't much there yet but you can download the honkjazz office party (on the right hand side) if january really is proving to be that tough...

link - chewbubblegum

Honkjazz - The Musical Allotment Part 21

Its been an odd year garden-wise. I'll finish off the rundown of what did what to whom in what spot where etc etc in a bit. But first a quick word :- 

rifle.

This years gardening was a quite different style to last years. Last year we had just taken on this plot and had no experience of working with earth at all. This year we were the boys with everything to prove. This year we had no excuse. This year we would be judged!

Was that as dramatic as I hope it was?

Well a poorly lady gardener and a wedding to plan kind of schtimied the course of Every Weekend And A Few In-Between gardening sessions that we fell into so eagerly last year.

The living past crept back to present, never left......... just waiting for the right vibrations to start and the wrong to stop.

Taller.

Upwards and outwards.

Will take it back.

We shall grow untited.

And then our shears broke.

I know.

I thought I'd put that pause in there so you can take in that behemoth information. Its OK - it works out in the end.

We bought some shears.

They broke after 4 seconds. 

snip snip snip snip what?!?!?!?!?!?

Weeds and shrubs grew back in their fertile birthplace. Innocent lands for so long, wrenched from root and tendril, ploughed of history and robbed of bucolic prides.

How about that, was that as dramatic as I'd wanted? Sorry.

Anyways, the upshot was that we just couldn't get our shizzle together. As the weeds grew around and in the vegetable beds, higher and higher, they kind of sapped my energy along with the nitrites of this good Devon soil.

It wasn't until we employed the friendly (I mean a bit moody) services of a fellow allotment holder (who scares me a bit but has a strimmer) to use his strimmer (I told you!) to sort our plot out that things changed.

And then my friends, it was a corker. The mood throughout the autumn had been one of pessimistic navel-gazing. But now I could see it, we had a different game. With contributions from the wonderful and always intriguing Herb and Bibs the plot was transformed. The new look and some newly-found enthusiasm has led to a very positive approach and mindset from me. Beds have been stripped of every single weed. Borders are being kept in check. Last years dead crops are being torn from the earth. The unforgiving shine of metal spike crashes through the earth with barely disguised passion of purpose. Bare hands are plunged into the land and clods are crushed with loving muscle and sinew. The air and light dance through....

Wait, what? ......... I did it again didn't I?

Sorry.

So the plot is in good shape. We've got a couple of empty beds, some full beds weeded, the soil is prepared, new things have been planted (onion, broad bean and garlic), the freecycle cold-frame has been reconstructed and filled with the first of many pre-plant-out crops (cauliflowers) and we're still taking food to our tables. I feel ashamed to have bad-mouthed our efforts this year. 

We've done alright for scran and its still a lot of fun.

And the drama!! You wouldn't believe it!

BB

Fire + Children = Pizza

Honkjazz - The Musical Allotment Part 20c

Onions
In our house they're called FUNIONS! We don't actually know what funions are. So we planted some Japanese winter onions (that concept blew my father's mind, man) that the lovely Jute gave us in December (I think). There was another variety but I can't remember what they were called.
(pssst Jute, what were the onions called?)
We weren't too sure what they were going to do having only ever planted normal onions (whatever "normal" means - its probably a media-imposed cultural trend or stereotype that people subscribe to to try and feel and like they "fit in" which only leads to the tastemakers sneering down upon them for following suit in the first place and they end up being derided by the very people that they crave to belong to but they'll bury that shame far away in a place where it can simmer and smoulder, simmer and smoulder and they'll look down on people even less confident than them, people who don't even have the confidence to try and follow others, people who refuse to follow others and people who just don't care about following others and deep down they'll end up feeling like they've betrayed their true self by following other people's ideas of what we should look like and speak like and what we should do and eat and listen to and how we should dance and where we should go and how we should behave towards different people but really all they've ever wanted to do is dance! Thats right, dance. All they ever wanted was the greasepaint and the spotlight, the music and the crowds, the leg-warmers and the geeky American-Italian keyboard players. World, get ready because HERE I COME!.....................................)

Sorry, sorry.

So the winter onions grew well but they weren't huge so come March time when they started to wilt at the top (a sign that they're taking up every last bit of onionyness) I thought it was time to start pulling them out. My reasoning was thus: they were small and didn't have much of a bulb on them so I guessed that they must be more like a spring onion. And whats nice with the spring onion is that you eat the green bits as well. The green bits which were starting to wilt and brown. So we grabbed the biggest ones and ate them all up. And they were good. And these are short sentences. I sound like a robot. Or an idiot. Does not compute.
Throughout the Spring (© Mother Nature Inc.) we grabbed the onions out as they grew bigger. Only the ones we'd been leaving because they were too small kept growing and growing and by June we realised that I'D BEEN AN IDIOT. THEY WOULD HAVE GROWN INTO LOVELY BIG ONIONS. YOU LOVELY BIG IDIOT.
So that was my lesson learned. Still, they did taste very nice indeed.

And onto the spring onions. As mentioned earlier we planted them in between the carrots to ward off the carrot fly. Next year I'll try planting them in between the carrots and the sky to ward of the stupid rain! We planted the variety BLANK in the month of BLANK (seriously I can do that all day) and unlike last year, when not a single one came up, this lot have done alright. They're still going now and we've been grabbing them here and there for our salads and stir-frys. Very tasty indeed.
And what a load of old hot air that was. A lesson for us all I think.

(Honkjazz - The Musical will enter preproduction and casting from October 2009-January 2010)

Honkjazz - The Musical Allotment Part 20b

And onwards in mega-post recap!

Carrots

This one served us well last year despite sewing them far two thickly from the off. This meant that we couldn't thin them out for fear of attracting carrot fly. But they came and represented big style! A really good crop with a few monsters amidst the curly and the odd (seriously, why hasn't anyone mass-grown curly carrots yet? Kids would love them! OK, I'd love them, whatever). Pulling the carrots out of the ground last year supplied one of my all-time highlights of the Honkjazz experience - the smell of a carrot when its just popped out of the soil. Amazing, really amazing. Try saying that without sounding like you wear clothes made out of mung beans and wash your hair with your own urine.

This year we made sure to sow them nice and thin and put rows of spring onions in between to bamboozle the carrot flies. We planted the BLANK variety in the month of BLANK and hoped for the best.

Which just wasn't good enough.
The carrots this year have been poor, the vegetation is quite small and is starting to yellow although we've no idea what's going on under the soil so I guess we'll have to reserve judgement.
Oh too late.
Carrots you have been sentenced to FAILURE!

Note: I planted another bed and a half of Autumn King carrots yesterday so hopefully we'll have a bit less rain (just a little bit, just like, ONE WHOLE DAY TO PASS PLEASE THANK YOU) and eventually a nice crop. Carrots, redeem yourselves in the eyes of your God (thats us).

Honkjazz - The Allotment Part 20a

Hello Children.

I trust you've all been behaving yourselves in our absence? Didn't think so. No rhubarb jam for you.

As with the last post the dates of our gardening activities have been lost in the mists of time (fog of ale) but so much has been going on that it would be silly to try one huge rambling post (because we've never done that before).

So instead of that I'm going to try and put together a few mini-posts concentrating on one thing at a time. The photographs will be randomly selected from that last six months or so if at all and the varieties of vegetable and planting dates will be left blank for Herb to fill in because I don't know about those sort of things. It'll be like Blankety Blank. But without the chequepen and book. Is that alright?

Potatoes

The spuds this year have been a bit of an oddity. Not the things themselves, just the growing process. We planted the early, second early and main varieties (which were BLANK, BLANK and BLANK) all at the same time in the month of BLANK (I'm loving this already). The growth-rate of the spuds seemed a bit slow and the plants were quite small compared to last year leading Herb to think that he'd panted them too close together. However, when I visited my Papa's vegetable garden he was complaining about his plants being too big! The thinking was that all of the growth would be in the plants above the ground and not in the crop under it. We'll find out when he hoiks his spuds out later on this year.

Which leads to the Odd Factor (reality talent show idea no. 21) - the main crop plants have died back as well as the early and second earlys. They should have another six to eight weeks left before they die back so we're a bit flummoxed as to why they've bolted early. I shoved the fork under a rotting plant a tilted the soil up last week to check and there are big ol' spuds under the ground so its not a disaster, just a conundrum. Anyone?
Whatever - we've been taking the potatoes out of the ground in stages this year just because there's no way we can eat that many potatoes (we struggled with three beds last year - this year we have four) and last weekend I grabbed the last of the second earlys leaving just the mains underground. They'll probably have to come out soon though as the rain has been constant for weeks now and I'm a bit worried that they'll rot.
The harvest has been good and the pink potatoes are very cool and magical (especially for faerie Pwincesses). The haul is never as much as I imagine it will be which is silly really - each plant has had at least six to twelve spuds underneath it which is pretty good I reckon. But there's always a part of me that expects the ground to be packed with spuds, every square inch of it!!! Thousands of them!!!!
Anyways - we've probably pulled about five or six carrier bags full as of yet and we've been using them in curries, boiling, mashing, frying them, whatever we can as fast as we can. And they're a good size for throwing at kids on their bicycles as well.
Next up - broad beans!