Allotmenticity - 13-04-09 Happy Easter Aston FM Sod It Grow Your Own

Happy Easter to all my friends! I hope the weather has treated you well and that you've all been able to get out on the land.
I spent a very pleasant weekend planting my Asparagus crowns which arrived on Saturday morning. Heeding the advice to plant ASAP I got stuck in and dug out 2 trenches, made a mound of compost/sieved soil and then covered them in more sieved soil.
I just have to patiently wait for a couple of years before I can try them.



I mentioned in a previous blog about growing Parsley and in particular 3 different ways suggested by readers of The Times. One is to put the seeds in the fridge for a week, Two was to pour hot water in the drill and the third was to soak the seeds in urine (Male of course!) Well I've prepared a bed especially for the experiment as can be seen in the picture using a bag of B&M multi-purpose compost. The seeds are Plain Leaved 2 from B&Q at 98p and I've split the packet into 3. The first lot are in the fridge and next week I'll sow them at the same time as the other 2 methods.
Has anyone else done the trick of cracking the Coriander seeds? Here's proof of what the guy said on TV a couple of years ago on Gardeners World from an allotment site in Birmingham. If you carefully crack the coriander seed there are 2 seeds inside. So, without cracking them I sowed 5 seeds in the pot. And there are 10 seedlings! I know it's time consuming, but isn't that's what having an allotment is all about?????


Recipe: Baked Camembert

Here's a really nice way to bake Camembert as a starter or even a light snack.

Ingredients
Camembert cheese in a wooden box. (Lidl or Aldi is the cheapest!)
Clove of Garlic. Cut in half.
Tablespoon of Dry White wine.


Take the cheese out of the box and remove the plastic wrapping. MOST IMPORTANT!
Put the cheese back into the box and rub the surface with the cut Garlic clove.
Make a few small holes in the cheese and drizzle the white wine into the cheese.
Put the lid back on and bake in a hot oven, 200C for about 25 mins or until soft and runny.

To serve, remove the lid and scoop out the cheese with carrot or celery sticks, crackers or bread sticks.