Adventures of an allotmenteer – part 5
‘Its a courgette, Jim, but not as we know it’
With the arrival of summer and the boys on school holidays, allotment visits became sporadic. Unfortunately my sons don’t share my heightened level of enthusiasm for the plot, though they have enjoyed our evening b-b-qs at sun down, slashing through weeds with bamboo canes and wheeling the dog about in the barrow. Neither of the boys, virtual teenagers, would willingly chose an allotment activity over an hour or three with a screen.
Thus distracted I confess to missing my contributions to Rye News which, luckily, no one in editorial seemed to notice. [Oh yes we did! – Ed]
To lure the boys away from the screen we planned our annual summer tour of the UK visiting family. Returning from Wiltshire in early August the dog and I went to check on the state of the allotment, leaving offspring happily plugged in again.
It had been quite hot while we were away so it was a relief to see the vegetation standing up right and not in a state of collapse. In fact, everything looked healthy and had grown preposterously large. I include bindweed, brambles and some horrendously sticky thistles within this metamorphosis.
The desired plants, such as the sunflowers, were so tall their heads were higher than mine, runner beans, planted late, had begun climbing the bamboo frame and were in flower, radishes, rocket and chard were very tasty and the potatoes, whose rapid growth featured in a previous article, were now ready to harvest
The courgettes had been sharing a bed with the sun flowers and so at first I couldn’t see any actual vegetables, but lifting one white powdery leaf I spied, not a supermarket sized courgette but a humongous one of worrying proportion. This individual was not a freak, I had grown an entire bed of giant courgettes! Quickly severing them from the parent plants to cease further growth, I lined them up on a bench in size order and considered what to do.
Hauling the weighty crop home, their size was a temporary distraction for youngest son who exclaimed
‘Aaagh’ on catching sight of them for the first time.
Since taking on the plot last December, our neighbours and fellow allotmenteers have kindly supplied us with plants, tools and advice, so it seemed a good idea to share out the jumbo courgettes.
Everyone smiled on receipt of the huge green vegetable. They were to be stuffed with mince, added to moussaka, sliced into ratatouille, baked in a quiche, seared on the barbie, grated through a cake and fashionably spiralized. By chopping the top off then hanging and pouring vodka through it, Jack’s plan to infuse vodka was the most original.
Julian and George were out while I made the deliveries so I left their colossus in their front garden with a note.
The following afternoon the boys and I returned home to find Julian’s courgette unceremoniously returned on our doorstep in an old plant tray.
‘Oh’ I said ‘maybe Julian is really not keen on courgettes?’ thinking that he might have composted it rather than bringing it back!
Julian was trying for a quick getaway in his van the next day when I quizzed him about the returned veggie. He and George had produced sackfuls of courgettes and had been giving them away to non-allotment neighbours for weeks.
Back in the kitchen, the kettle was boiling as I pondered my options for courgette preparation that evening. A text pinged through from the retired headmaster, RHM, which read:
‘Can we interest you in some courgettes? RHM’
Now, RHM had built a raised bed in his garden earlier in the year and these might have been his own home grown or they could have been Julian and Georges which he was trying to ditch? But as neither of my boys actually like courgettes and we were dealing with our own whoppers, I declined and offered him some potatoes.
‘Thanks but we have plenty of those,’ came the reply.
It turns out this year was a great one for potatoes and large courgettes, but not sadly for raspberries as, unnetted, the birds scoffed the lot.
Jack and Jill grew a lot of courgette plants, of which we were given three surplus. As Jack was then the recipient of one our giant ones I wonder just how many gallons of courgette vodka he is currently fermenting? Next year I know that one solitary courgette plant will be quite enough for us.
All courgette recipes gratefully received as the crop continues.
Photos: Sarah Nelson