
On winter days
On winter days, there’s no finer sight than that of one’s child eating homegrown vegetables.
I say this even though my child is a child-substitute, is hairy and will eat almost anything, taking the big bits through to the sitting room to eat on the rug.
No, I’m not talking about Mr Mandy Sutter. I’m talking about Dog MS, in whom the Reluctant Gardener has found an unexpected ally when it comes to eating up allotment produce. Let’s face it, Dad and Mr MS have disappointed in this regard.
Mr MS, despite being the designated ‘filth man’ in our household, has been squeamish when it comes to picking or preparing allotment vegetables. When it’s his turn to cook, he comes home from Tesco’s just as he always did with a shrink-wrapped head of broccoli and an extortionately-priced four-pack of baking potatoes.

All that kale to eat
‘WHY BUY GREENS WHEN THERE’S ALL THAT KALE AND CABBAGE TO EAT?’ I shout. ‘AND WE MUST MAKE AN INROAD ON THOSE TURNIPS!’
Having expected brownie points for making the tea, he looks dismayed. ‘Yes, but where are they?’
‘Where do you think they are? At the allotment! ‘
‘You mean, I’d have to go down there and pick them?’
It’s no good blaming the weather: he was the same in the summer. Later, when I come back with a semi-frozen cabbage and five turnips (I’m still harvesting, snow or no snow) he’s not convinced. ‘But they’re covered in muck!’ Then he says he’s forgotten how to peel the turnips, even though I’ve shown him a hundred times.
Dad is no better. I have tried to slip him a turnip three times now.
‘The thing is, love,’ he said in September, eyeing the unfamiliar vegetable, ‘I’m still on salads.’
I tried again in October. ‘The thing is, love,’ he said, ‘I’ve adopted a new health regime. I breakfast like a king, lunch like a lord and dine like a pauper. Turnip doesn’t fit in.’
In November, when he finally went ‘onto stews’, he at last accepted one of the freshly dug gleaming purple and white roots.
When asked in subsequent weeks how he was getting on with it, he merely said, ‘it’s in the fridge’.
But then he went online and found Mr Neep, a site devoted to ways of making the pungent peppery taste seem palatable. Today the turnip still lives in his fridge, but he chips little bits off now and then. Progress, yes. But at this rate we’ll be eating turnips well into the next century.
Of course, both gentlemen enjoy turnip when it has been picked, cleaned, chopped up and incorporated into a delicious meal by someone else. Which is all very well, but it isn’t my dream of allotmenteering. Not only do I have to grow the bloody vegetables, I have to cook them too.
I once asked Mr MS what he liked best about me.

Fleece tunnel
‘Your stews,’ he said.
Another dream shattered.
Thank God for Dog MS. Vegetables don’t have to be cooked for her to enjoy them. They don’t have to be cleaned. They don’t have to be prepared. They don’t even have to be dug up.
She has always appreciated fresh produce. And she is good at working things out. When offered grapes on a stalk, she discovered how to pull them off one by one, rather gently, with her teeth. Later, she discovered how to mount the settee and take the whole bunch out of the fruit bowl herself, but that’s another story. When the blackberries ripened, she watched me picking them a few times, then was out there picking them herself.
It’s too icy for Dad to visit the allotment at present. So I take Dog MS instead. At first, things aren’t ideal. She barks a lot and is frightened of the chickens. Being a shepherd dog, she likes a task (such as warning passing males not to piss on our fence posts), and there’s a limit to what a girl can do on a winter allotment.

Jobs to do
But while I’m checking my fleece tunnels, things go quiet and I turn to see her amidst the greens.
I’m about to shout until I see the cabbage stump cradled between her paws; her green tongue.
‘Good dog!’ I say.
Later, sated with cabbage stalk, she digs a big turnip and munches her way through that. It takes a dog a while to eat a raw vegetable: their teeth aren’t designed for it.
We pass a harmonious, if chilly hour. And I can’t help feeling proud. One always hopes one’s offspring will inherit one’s own values. Or as Dad would say, she’s a chip off the old block and no mistake.
Look Mandy, it’s about time you realised that opening a tin is a great deal easier than growing, feeding, mucking, weeding, digging up and foisting turnips on an unforgiving world. That poor dog wouldn’t be reduced to the desperate expedient of picking blackberries (haven’t you told her, she’s a dog??) if you would only open a can of Pedigree Chum for her from time to time! And by the sound of things, you could just hand her the tin-opener and pour yourself a ginger wine.
Laugh-aloud reading, once again. Circulation restored to my frozen funny-bone.
It might be me or is this the first mention of Dog MS. Is she called ‘Maxine’ in real life? Brilliant that the plot continues despite the weather are we looking at any early planting? love Phil
Having met Dog MS I can now see her munching happily on your home grown veg. I was not a turnip fan until a friend showed me how to bake them with butter and onion slowly in the oven when they are transformed into something much more enticing.
As usual, I love the humour and repetition in your writing. Hope Mr MS is shamed into picking, peeling and preparing delicious veg. after reading this.
John, dog MS doesn’t realise that a) she’s a dog, and b) dogs are inferior to humans. She sees herself as head of the household. Hope she doesn’t go giving Mr MS any ideas…
Phil, there are overwintering broad beans under the fleece tunnel. But what is the advantage of planting early? It just seems more expensive (the fleece tunnels were £20 each. Don’t tell my Dad – he’d go mad, and who can blame him!)
Emma, your turnip recipe sounds delicious! But then, anything cooked in butter becomes instantly edible, doesn’t it?
I left the turnips you gave me at mum’s. By accident, honest. I’ve no doubt she did some spicy magic with her huge, loud clangy pestle and mortar and turned them into something delicious and totally ad-libbed. Don’t quite know where that gene went.
yummm, turnips in stew. sounds delish. perhaps dog MS has a career as a vegetarian dog food super model?
love from Oregon
Hilarious, Mandy – possibly the funniest Reluctant Gardener yet (which is saying something).
Mandy, I laughed out loud at the picture of Fable(aka dog MS) leaping onto the settee to demolish the fruit bowl. Knowing the young lady in question I could visualise the scene all too clearly….Not a Fable after all, more a legend…!
Has anyone tried neeps with haggis.. surely the tastiest way to dispose of them.. you could always set up a stall in the New Year in preparation for Burns night …..you and Mr MS could always come over to mine…a spot of highland malt wouldnt go amiss…
lotsalove
Liz
Yes, it’s rather suspicious that a dog has suddenly appeared as a crucial character in serial. What next? Long-lost-identical-twin-sister MS?
Tamsin, that’s the last time you get any turnips from me! No, forget that. The punishment is MORE turnips…
Kathy, great idea. You know, this has all happened since the vet put Dog MS on a diet. She’s gone back to normal portions now but retained the habit of trying to eat everything in sight. There’s a message there for us humans, I reckon.
Thanks, Martyn. You’re a star.
Liz, you’re on for Burns night! Booths sell haggis (veggie and non-veggie)- did you know? And Mr MS and I have a number of malts… they’ll make the neepicine go down alright.
Hope all this talk isn’t making you homesick, Bodhipaksa. That’s not a bad idea about the long lost sister! There could also be a bloggisode that turns out to be ‘just a dream.’
Good morning Mandy
Mr MS is not quite candid with his turnip peeling as it was one of our chores in the Morris houshold, or you got no pocket money.
I would have thought Mr MS would eat anything after the Chocolate Ants. Your stories are brilliant and hope you and yours have a Happy Xmas.
Luv L&J
Hi Mandy,
enjoying being a allotment owner by proxy – clearing the snow from the front path has been enough for the last week. Everyone needs a fleece tunnel in this weather
love marilyn
I loved reading this! Your stories are always about so much more than the allotment! My favourite episode so far!
PS Turnips are great mashed with butter – accompanied by vegetarian haggis from Booth’s!
Sounds as if the Great Irish Potato famine has come to Yorkshire, but I can not boast either: my year’s harvest consists of two bell peppers and three tiny green tomato’s that refuse to ripen.
Jim, thanks for blowing the whistle on Mr MS! I’m glad your loyalties are in the right place 😉
Marilyn and Rowena, sounds like you both have the right idea there (staying warm and eating).
Lamar, you’ve got enough produce to make a very small jar of chutney, if nothing else.
Surely there must be a need for a snowman on the allotment with all those vegetables to supply features?
I love having Dog MS in the story! She is looking great. Only adds more to an already brilliant series. Love it, and you, Mandy x
Pete, that’s a genius idea! I think even Mr MS could be recruited if snowmen are mentioned.
Ange! Thank you so much xx Dog MS will make time in her schedule for more guest appearances.
I’ve never heard of a dog eating raw veg but that’s credit to F. And if you ever need anyone to help you with a glut of homegrown veg, give a student at Leeds Uni a ring!
Even turnips, Looby? If so, just say the word.
Definitely. there are 568,000 results on Google for “turnip recipes”.
Loving the story of DogMS – who reminds me a little of No1 Dog MS – the lovely Max. I knew a dog who lived mostly on carrots. Turnips are delicious in a sald tell your dad – little ones, grated …
Crikey, Loobs, that should keep you going! Turnips are here, ready for collection, then. Don’t forget to visit ‘Mr Neep’, will you: a top site if only because the whole site is dedicated to turnips and that has to be worth something (though his recipes are a bit odd).
Reb: ah, the lovely Max! Yes, there are definite similarities, including an obsession with balls and a ‘game’ of seizing people’s trouser leg or nibbling dead skin off their toes.
(Not to be read if you’re squeamish or eating that delicious allotment veg.) Nibbling dead skin is all the rage in Hull, Mandy – except done by sitting with your feet immersed on public display in a tank full of tiny fish … Dog MS could rake you in a fortune!
Loved your posting as ever – wishing all the Household MS a really warm and wonderful Christmas xx
Now you mention it, Glynis, I did once hear about tiny sea fish cleansing whales’ wounds by nibbling the decaying flesh out. Mm-mm. Merry Xmas to you and yours, too x
Hysterical as ever. I notice your lovely dog is female – funny that =)
Anyway what I’d give for a well prepared & cooked fresh vegetable after the last 7 weeks of Martin’s culinary delights …. Only 8 more to go – help!
Dog MS sounds a lot like my Knic Knac – the vegetarian dog. Altho she does eat meat (and almost anything that does or doesn’t move) she also devours vegetables…..with gaseous results.
Hello Ali, nice to see you here! I know what you mean about the silent but deadlies. Recently Dog MS has taken to crunching on raw potatoes, which seem to have the very worst effects…