Why I love my veggies!

I have been growing vegetables ever since I can remember! My parents both lived through the Second World War in London, where everybody was encouraged to "Dig for Victory". This habit continued in our family during the 1960s and 1970s, and both my older Sisters have the veggie bug!

My earliest memories are down on the Allotment with my Dad, I was given a little plot to grow my own radishes... I remember we kept bees down there too - I helped with cleaning the beehives every so often. On my eighth birthday I was given my first bee hat and gloves.

We performed scientific genetic experiments with our veggies year after year. The biggest "Marmande" tomato would be set aside and the seeds gathered. The biggest Shallots were kept aside for next years seed. Eventually, as I remember, we grew giant vegetables most years. The most fun to do was to get a pin, and find a small marrow, and write silly things on the marrows which would grow and callous over.

Anyway, back to the present day allotment. You should smell the stink of my lovely nettle "soup". To the un-enlightened , take a big bag full of stinging nettles, squash them down into the bottom of a bucket, put a brick or heavy rock on top to weigh them down, fill up the bucket with tap water, leave to stew in the garden for about two weeks. This is the most wonderful liquid foliar feed that you can get. Use about a cupfull of this to one gallon of water. To describe the smell.... well.... just think of cow manure!