Rabbits: the ultimate 'green' pet

I've come to the conclusion that rabbits are a pretty eco-friendly pet choice (as long as you don't let them breed lots). They love hoovering up leftover vegetables and relish the tough ends of cauliflower, broccoli etc. that we'd rather leave. They also don't need to be bought lots of expensive pet toys, as they're more than happy with an old plant pot, a stick or a toilet roll tube to chuck around instead.

Another bonus in terms of food is that, unlike those environmental nightmare 'pouches' for cats (the mixture of foil and plastic means they can never be recycled and take years and years to break down), they don't need to be bought anything with excessive packaging, just a mega bag of mix about once a month.

And best of all, when they've finished digesting all that food, you can just put the droppings, straw/hay, sawdust and newspaper straight in the compost bin, which heats it up very nicely and helps everything break down.

Pictured above is Lavender (we've since found out the doe was actually a buck but the name hasn't been changed!) and his new friend, Jack, who has the cutest baby blue eyes, but unfortunately you can't appreciate them in that photo as he's snoozing, so here's another one below so you can get the full effect.


Lavender is the Hop Garden's mascot, and he's often seen around the allotment, especially when there are children around willing to stroke and feed him. The new recruit will hopefully be a suitable stand-in for those days when Lavender's had enough of fame.

And on the allotment today Paul and Peter washed down the shed to prepare it for painting, and David and I cleared the hop vines and cut them down to ground level. It was sad to see them go, but they were looking forlorn and needed to be pulled down - hopefully they'll come up even better next year.

Paul covered one of the beds for overwintering with a layer of horse manure, while Peter and I prepared the cardboard to lay over the top.

Moving shed

I've been thinking about moving this neighbour's shed for a while now, and we finally got round to it today, thanks to help from allotment neighbour Alan and house neighbour Ian. I think it was used to house rescue cats some years back, but has since seen better days.

But we've taken a few feet off the bottom where it was a bit rotten, and tomorrow we'll give it a good clean and a coat of wood preservative (pet friendly of course) and before you know it, we'll have a lovely clean (and free!) hen house.

All about alpacas

The weather this weekend has been glorious, with clear blue skies and lots of sunshine, so I should have left the tomatoes in a bit longer really, but never mind.

I took advantage of the weather to ignore the housework and get out on the allotment, shifting loads of alpaca droppings onto the hops. Alpacas are shy but sociable animals, sharing a communal 'poo pile' in a corner of their field, and the six in Chopwell Wood are no exception. This makes collecting their droppings a much easier task than playing ' hunt the pat' in the nearby field, and the bonus is that it can be put straight on the plants, rather than leaving to rot down first like most manures. And of course, there's the kudos: how many people can say they have alpaca droppings on their allotment?

Also in the picture above is my recycled border for the hops, made from bits of our next door neighbour's conifers that were cut down about a month ago.

Paul dropped by today and between us we weeded the roots bed, which was looking a little overgrown, and transplanted a few more kale plants.

Here comes the sun

It's said that jerusalem artichokes rarely flower in the UK, so I'm pleased to report that evidence to the contrary is above. They're lovely yellow sunflower-like blooms (which give a good clue as to which plant family they belong to) but are unfortunately so high up that only the birds are really getting to enjoy them; I had to jump up and pull this one down to get a photograph.

Today was a hive of activity on the allotment: Peter and I cleared all the old tomato plants out of the polytunnel, dug over the ground and added some organic matter from the hot bed, while David and Paul were on a manure mission with a spade, bucket and wheelbarrow in the nearby field, which conveniently has some horses grazing in it at the moment who were happy to oblige.

We also managed to weed around the base of the hop vines in preparation for creating a trench to fill with manure and compost when the plants are cut down for the winter, and bluebell, snowdrop and crocus bulbs are now buried under the ash tree at the shady end of the allotment. Peter thought the idea of throwing the bulbs over your shoulder to create a more natural looking display was quite mad, and decided a more sane option was to weed instead.


I promised earlier in the week that I'd explain more about the sheep fleeces: the spring cabbage above, like all our other brassica plants, is tucked in with a blanket of Suffolk Down sheep fleece, kindly donated by Bill Quay Farm in Gateshead. I know of a smallholder in Weardale who uses fleece to protect her plants in the winter, so I thought I'd give it a try, and it seems to have the added bonus (although I hate to speak too soon) of deterring slugs and snails, as they don't appear to like the texture.

We also had a few visitors from Gateshead Council today - it was great to have Michelle from the social enterprise team come and see for herself what I've been going on about all these months, and also two unexpected visitors dropped by with some hopefully encouraging news about clearing up the land outside, so we'll wait and see how that pans out.

Sweet dreams

The hops have been pretty good considering it's their first year, and I've been harvesting a few bines to dry in the airing cupboard which I hope to turn into hop pillows at some point. Hops are often used to treat insomnia, and I did have trouble getting out of bed this morning actually, but it may be due to the fact that it's Monday rather than the fumes from the cupboard making me sleepy....


The wildflowers on the allotment have had a new lease of life after the brief warm spell we've been experiencing over the past week or so and the bees are making the most of them while they're still around (below).


On Friday Peter and I managed to clear most of the weeds out of the high raised beds and at the weekend Paul gave me a hand removing all the straw he'd laid down only a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, it's yet another slug haven we've created - despite being a great weed suppressor - so it had to go.

I've cleared some space in the polytunnel as the courgette plants were coming to an end, so the kale has now been transplanted into that end of the bed (with a layer of wood ash around them in the vain hope it may deter marauding molluscs).

The newly-transplanted spring cabbages are now tucked in with a blanket of Suffolk Down sheep fleece, which I'll write more about (with pictures) later this week.

Garden pizza

This is the ultimate in not-so-fast food, and tastes so much better for it. Of course, there are plenty of local eateries that would happily deliver a pizza to my door but I think I can safely say that this one would win hands down on taste alone ;)

David made the pizza base, following a basic bread mixture, and the tomato sauce ingredients are all sourced from the garden (apart from the seasoning)- fresh chilli, various tomato varieties, onion, garlic and bay leaves.

On top is garden spinach, red onion, extra garlic and some mushrooms and eggs from our veg box delivery which we have delivered once a fortnight when our growing season is a bit quieter.

It really isn't too difficult to make your own pizza, as long as you're happy to spend a little time doing so - I just chuck anything on that I have to hand and hope for the best.


The rather sad looking potato above is actually completely hollow. I couldn't quite believe it when I dug it up this morning while clearing the bed for winter and Alan hadn't seen anything like it before either. I think the slugs/snails had a field day on this one.

I orginally planned to weigh the potatoes from the mulch bed and compare against the traditional one but I've saved myself the trouble as there really isn't any competition: due to the awfully damp summer (and consequent snail/slug heavenly conditions) the potatoes grown through the mulch are puny.

It wasn't really a good year to trial the two, as the odds were stacked against the mulch bed pretty much from the start, so I may well try a smaller test patch next year just in case.

On a positive note, the cardboard mulch has broken down really well, and the manure, straw and grass cuttings have left the soil in really good condition, with loads of happy worms wriggling around.

Food for free

*This post is not really about the garden, but hopefully it's still relevant enough to get through the censors!

It never ceases to amaze me how many people go into a supermarket and pay through the nose for in-season fruit that's hanging there on the bushes for free, just asking to be picked.

Autumn is one of my favourite seasons for foraging: there's so much out there I end up feeling slightly giddy at the prospect of all the pies, crumbles, chutneys and jam that can be created.

Today, for example, I'm down in Kent visiting my parents and, whilst out walking the dog along the riverside this morning, we came across blackberries, rosehips, elderberries, apples and damsons.

Damson jam is one of the best in my humble opinion, so I was overjoyed to see there was still some firm fruit left on the bushes, as I thought they would be over by now.

The sight of all the fruit that had gone past its best was a sad testimony to the fact that not many others have been taking advantage of this plentiful free harvest (and also that the birds have an abundance of berries to choose from this autumn).

The photo above shows the carrier bag full that I managed to collect and I'll be going back for some rosehips (for syrup) and more damsons later. I think I'll leave the elderberries as we have plenty around the allotment that can be turned into jam or wine when I get back...

Update: When I went back out later this afternoon to find some more damsons (which involved a bit of scrambling around in the bushes and getting strange looks, but I'm used to that) I came across someone who also likes to forage and was gathering rosehips for wine, so that raised my spirits somewhat following my earlier rant.

If this post has inspired you to think about heading out into the woods and hedgerows and you wouldn't normally, look out for Food for Free, a little Collins Gem book by Richard Mabey which is a great addition to any pocket.