When life gives you rhubarb and sprouts

Having an allotment makes you want to eat everything you grow.  The time and effort of digging, weeding, mulching, composting makes you appreciate every plant that reaches a point where you can eat it.

This is my favourite time of year on the allotment.  It's all about promise, planning and planting.  There is no thought of failure.  Every year I plant a row of peas and every year they are a huge disappointment.  This year will be different.  I've tried planting them in a drainpipe (as suggested in the Delia Smith book) but they were almost impossible to transfer into the ground,

Last year one of the old boys told me that the mice were probably eating the seeds and that I needed to ignore the packet and sow the seeds thickly.

That worked really well.  The peas germinated but then the birds pecked that seedlings to death before the seedlings were barely poking their heads through.  This year I've put sticks in the ground to protect the peas from the pecking pests.  When they grow a bit bigger I will protect them with net.

My seeds have been ordered, my potatoes are chitting and the onion sets are sitting on my kitchen table waiting to be planted. 

But the food coming off the allotment is a bit scarce.  The carrots and parsnips have now all gone.  The leeks are still a bit small.  But I have plenty of Brussel sprouts and the rhubarb has just got to point where it can be cut.

Going out for dinner with a carrier bag containing a stalk of sprouts seems a little strange but they don't freeze well and have to be shared.

When life gives you sprouts you should give away as many as possible but when life gives you rhubarb it's time to bake.  The Great British Bake Off cookbook had a recipe for a baked rhubarb and ginger cheesecake.  

I don't remember the episode in which it featured but I'm sure it couldn't have been quite that ugly.  Still, it tasted fine.