Getting Used to the Quiet

 Well, here we are again, another Saturday, flour on my hands and something rising in the airing cupboard same as always. Except this week's had a peculiar, slightly wrong-footed feeling running underneath all of it that I don't think properly goes away, not for a good while yet anyway. If you saw my last post, you'll know why. It's been a long week without our Jack pottering about the place, and I'll tell you something about grief that nobody thinks to warn you about beforehand: it plays tricks on your eyes. I've lost count of the number of times this week I've caught a shape out of the corner of my eye, black and low down near the floor, and been halfway to saying his name before I've properly looked and realised it's a pair of slippers kicked off by the back door, or the wash basket sat exactly where it always sits, or, on one particularly daft occasion, my own boots left out after a morning up the plot. Sara reckons she's done the exact same thing at least twice this week, and Iris owned up to it too, so it's not just me losing the plot entirely, which is something, I suppose, even if it's not much comfort at half past six in the morning with the kettle not even boiled yet.

Anyway. Life doesn't stop for grief, not on an allotment anyway, and there was a fair bit to get through this week, so here's how it went.

Down Came the Tomatoes

The tomatoes had been calling time on themselves for a week or two now, the way they always do once the nights start drawing in and the last few trusses just sit there sulking rather than ripening properly, so this was the week we finally admitted it and took the whole lot out, canes and all. Sam and I did the actual pulling, working our way along the row and easing each plant off its cane before yanking the cane itself out of the ground, while Iris trailed along behind us with a trug, picking every tomato worth having off the plants as we went, ripe, half-ripe, and the sort of hopeful green ones that'll never turn red on the vine but might just about manage it sat on a windowsill if you're patient with them.

It's always a slightly odd job, pulling out plants that have fed you all summer. There's a proper sense of an ending to it, the kind you don't get with most jobs on the plot, and this year, for obvious reasons, that feeling had a bit more weight behind it than usual. Iris, bless her, kept things moving along at a fair old pace regardless, chatting away about nothing in particular the way she does when she's decided a job needs cheering up a bit, and by the time we'd worked right along the row she'd got two full trugs and a decent haul in a carrier bag besides. Sara took the lot off her hands the moment we got back to the house, already planning out loud what was going in the freezer as passata and what was earmarked for chutney, because if there's one thing that woman won't do, it's let a trug of tomatoes go anywhere near the compost heap while there's a jar in the cupboard that could hold them instead.

Weeding, Tidying, and a Trip to the Compost Heap

Once the tomatoes were out, the three of us turned our attention to the rest of that bed, which if I'm honest had been looking properly sorry for itself for a few weeks. The summer bedding along the edge, the petunias, zinnias, marigolds and the dahlias, had gone over completely, and with weeds having pushed their way up through everything while our backs were turned, the whole area was in serious need of a proper tidy rather than another half-hearted go with the hoe. Seeing as Iris and I had already been round with the paper bags a week or so back saving seed off most of that lot, there was nothing lost in clearing the spent plants away now, and it felt good, if I'm honest, to get stuck into something that had an obvious before and after to it. An hour or so of the three of us bent double, forking out couch grass roots and pulling weeds by hand where the fork wouldn't reach, and the bed went from an embarrassment to bare, tidy soil ready for whatever comes next.

Everything we pulled, weeds, spent bedding and all, went onto the compost heap, barrow load after barrow load of it, and here's the one tip from this job I always come back to at this time of year, learned the hard way more than once over the years: never put tomato foliage on the heap if there's the slightest hint of blight on it, however tempting it is when you've got a barrow going spare and a compost bin looking a bit hungry for greenery. An ordinary heap, no matter how carefully you build it, rarely gets hot enough for long enough to properly kill off blight spores, and I found that out the expensive way a fair few years back after chucking on a trailer-load of blighted haulm, thinking rotting it down would sort it out for good. It didn't. The following spring, blight turned up early on the first plants anywhere near that particular batch of compost, and it took me a couple of clean seasons before I trusted the heap again. These days, any foliage that's shown even a whisper of blight goes in with the household rubbish rather than the heap, no exceptions, and only clean, healthy top growth gets anywhere near the compost bin. We were lucky this year, no real blight to speak of, so it was all fair game, but I still gave every armful a proper once-over before it went on, because some lessons you only need to learn the once, and that one cost me a whole crop the following year to learn properly.

Twenty Little Gems, While Sam Was at Work

With Sam back at his day job midweek, it was just me and Iris up the plot for a couple of hours, and we made good use of the time putting in twenty Little Gem lettuce, one of my favourites, if you hadn't already worked that out from how much space they've taken up on this blog lately. These are the same trays I mentioned a week or two back, raised under cover from seed and hardened off properly before going anywhere near the open ground, and it was rather satisfying finally getting them into soil that had, until a couple of days before, still had tomatoes standing on it.

Planting lettuce is about as unglamorous a job as the plot offers, if I'm honest, no drama to it at all, just a trowel, a line of string to keep the rows straight, and roughly nine inches between plants so they've got room to bulk up properly without crowding each other out. Iris took charge of firming each one in, pressing the soil round the roots with her fingers the way I taught her years ago, and somewhere around plant number twelve she informed me, entirely unprompted, that Little Gem was "basically the best lettuce, no arguments," a statement I happen to agree with wholeheartedly and wasn't about to argue with anyway. Twenty plants doesn't sound like much on paper, but it's a proper stretch of salad leaves coming our way over the next few weeks, right when there's precious little else fresh off the plot, and there's something quietly satisfying about a job that small getting done properly rather than rushed.

Back Home: The Root That Won't Let Go

Away from the allotments, most of my spare hours this week went on a stretch of ivy root that has absolutely no intention of going quietly. You might remember me hacking the top growth right back a week or two ago to clear the way for the new shed base, and I said at the time I had a horrible feeling that wasn't the end of it. Turns out I was right. The main root sits right along the edge of where the base is going in, thick as my wrist in places and clearly having a wonderful time down there for years, and it simply has to come out before anything else can happen with that shed.

It's slow, unglamorous work, digging round something like that a bit at a time, following it wherever it decides to go rather than wherever you'd like it to go, and levering out short lengths with a bar once you've got enough of it cleared to get a proper grip. The trouble is, this particular root has grown itself right up against the base of the fence panel next door, and in doing so it's pushed the post out of true and cracked one of the boards along its length. So the fence is going to need sorting one way or another, whether that ends up being a patch-up job on the one damaged panel or a full replacement of that whole run, I genuinely don't know yet. I'll get the root out properly first and see exactly what state everything's left in underneath before I commit either way, because there's no sense deciding on a repair before I know what I'm actually repairing. Given the year fences round here have had, I'm not holding out much hope it'll turn out to be the easy option.

Saturday, Same as Ever (Mostly)

And so to Saturday, baking day in this house as it has been every single week for more years than I can now count, rain, shine, or the sort of week we've just had. Luckily for my arms, it was only two mixes on the go today rather than anything approaching last month's fifty-five thins in one sitting. One bowl was for the usual sandwich thins, which have thoroughly earned their permanent spot in the rotation by now, and the other was for two smallish bloomers, more out of habit than anything else, since the oven was hot and going spare and it seemed a waste not to fill it properly.

Sam wandered through the kitchen at one point, took one look at the flour on every surface and said, entirely deadpan, "you know it's meant to be your day off as well, don't you," which is rich coming from a man who was straight back out the door to the plot five minutes later. Fern put in her usual brief appearance too, declared the kitchen "a health hazard, as per," helped herself to a warm bit of bloomer crust without asking, and disappeared again just as quickly, which is roughly the exact amount of involvement I've come to expect and, honestly, wouldn't want to change.

Because I Can't Resist a Recipe

I've given you the sandwich thins and bloomer recipes on here before, so I won't go over old ground again this week. Instead, seeing as it's been the kind of week where a bit of extra sweetness felt properly earned, I thought I'd give you something different: a batch of iced buns, the sort the grandchildren always make a beeline for the moment they're through the door, and exactly the kind of daft, cheerful bake this house needed by Saturday afternoon.

Simon's Iced Buns

• 500g strong white bread flour
• 7g fast-action dried yeast
• 50g caster sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 40g butter, softened
• 1 egg, beaten
• Around 250ml warm milk
• 150g icing sugar
• 2-3 tbsp water

Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt together in a large bowl, then rub in the butter with your fingertips until it's all disappeared into the flour. Make a well in the middle, add the beaten egg, then gradually work in the warm milk until it comes together into a soft, slightly enriched dough. Turn it out and knead for a good ten minutes, until it's smooth and springs back nicely when you poke it, then pop it into an oiled bowl, cover, and leave somewhere warm for about an hour, until it's doubled in size.

Knock the dough back and divide it into ten to twelve equal pieces, shaping each one into a neat, smooth ball or a short fat finger, whichever you fancy. Space them out on a lined baking tray, cover loosely, and leave to prove again for thirty to forty minutes, until they've properly puffed up and are touching their neighbours. Bake at 190°C (170°C fan) for twelve to fifteen minutes, until they're a light golden colour on top, then transfer them to a wire rack and let them cool completely, no cheating on this bit or the icing won't sit right.

Once they're stone cold, mix the icing sugar with the water a spoonful at a time until you've got a smooth, thick-but-pourable icing, and spoon or drizzle it generously over the top of each bun, letting it run down the sides a bit rather than staying too neat. Give it ten minutes or so to set before anyone gets their hands on one, though in this house that's more of a suggestion than a rule. I'm entirely self-taught at all this, picked up through years of trial, a fair bit of error, and more doorstop loaves than I'd care to admit to, and whatever sort of week it's been, something comes out of that oven every single Saturday without fail. This week, I reckon it needed to be something with a bit of icing on it.

So that's the week: a bed of tomatoes cleared and handed straight to Sara for the freezer and the chutney pan, twenty Little Gems in the ground while Sam was at work, an ivy root that's turned out to be a good deal more stubborn than the fence it's been leaning on, and a Saturday that, mostly, felt like an ordinary one again, which I'll take.

Has anyone else found themselves seeing their old dog round every corner of the house, in every shape that isn't actually him, or is that just a stage of missing someone nobody thinks to warn you about? And if you've ever gone to war with an ivy root determined to outlive the lot of us, I'd love to hear how you eventually won. Let me know in the comments.

Happy growing, everyone. See you on the plot.