
Humongous home produce
I thought having an allotment would make me immune from receiving vegetable gifts.
I have had to think again.
Innocent observations to my allotment neighbours, like ‘cracking courgettes you’ve got there’ or ‘sensational sweet peas’ have brought hope to their eyes.
‘Please take a few!’ or ‘Cut yourself a bunch!’ they plead. It is an unfeeling person who looks into those desperate faces and says no.
So to help out the couple who had been on holiday and come back to find their cabbages big enough to appear on roadmaps, I took delivery of a huge head of Savoy last week.
Dad and I were already buckling under the heft of supersized spuds dug from our own plot. One weighed in at nearly 2lb and Dad, who has taken to wearing 2 pairs of £1 reading specs one on top of the other, rather than forking out £200 at the opticians (and who can blame him), could hardly believe the evidence of his six eyes.
‘Now that’s a potato among potatoes!’ he said. ‘It’ll keep me going for a month.’
But back to our neighbours’ preposterously-sized produce. I struggled to carry it to the car. Perhaps it was already developing its own gravity system.

Big Spud
At home, it made Mr Mandy Sutter back away across the kitchen. ‘Oh, no, no, no,’ he said.
The table legs flinched under the weight of the Brobdingnagian brassica. ‘Well,’ I said coolly, ‘I’m away next week. I’m afraid it’s going to be your project.’
One of Mr MS’s friends was coming to stay in my absence. ‘It’s a good job Ade’s a vegetarian,’ I said. ‘And that he’s a gannet.’
We live in a terraced house that looks smaller out than in. Visitors often comment on how spacious our kitchen is. But, glancing at the gargantuan green on the kitchen table, the room suddenly seemed small.
I left for Northampton.
I phoned home mid-week. Mr MS and I managed to talk pleasantly for a while, but we both knew where the conversation was headed.
‘The thing is, we haven’t made much of a sortie on the Savoy yet,’ said Mr MS.
It was the same old story. Except that this time, thinking about that vast vegetable, I couldn’t help sympathising.
At primary school, I was once made to sit over a bowl of sago pudding for the entire dinner hour. As I stared at the dreaded substance, unable to imagine even putting it into my mouth, let alone swallowing it, it looked more like frogspawn every second. And it seemed to be multiplying in the bowl, a vast gelatinous alien life form that might suddenly overflow and spread over the tables and chairs until it had annihilated the entire school canteen, including me and all the dinner ladies. Let’s face it: food in large quantities just isn’t appetising (unless it’s salt and vinegar Kettle Chips).

Sago pudding
‘Don’t turn your back on the cabbage,’ I muttered.
‘What?’ said Mr MS. ‘Look, we’ll try and break through the outer atmosphere tonight. I promise.’
When I returned home, he swore they had eaten three of its leaves. But the cabbage looked remarkably undiminished. Perhaps it was evolving, learning how to replenish itself from thin air.
No matter, though. There are very few vegetables that can survive a concerted attack of recipe Googling. Today I found a website that had 200 ideas, all involving cabbage.
To finally defeat this ginormous growth, I may have to try them all.
At least cabbages evolve slowly and steadily – unlike the dramatic courgette to marrow transformation which can definitely occur over night or at least over weekend. I once had 18 marrows to dispose of, after a mere week away – people on our allotment were fleeing wild eyed as I trudged heavily laden along the paths bearing gifts !
Crikey, Janis: 18? That’s a hundredweight of pale green flesh in anyone’s book. I was gifted with two big yellow ones from an allotment neighbour the other day and have to admit I passed one on to someone else.
Great writing, Mandy, I really enjoyed reading your post. I feel for you with the allotment problems. Fortunately due to rabbit problems my vegetable quantities are modest and I could do with a tad more (she says, knowing that she’s at a safe distance 🙂 )
Thanks, Sharon, and oh the cunning of your last remark! I have to admire it (thinks: courgettes might travel well through the post if packed in a cardboard tube…)
I am well impressed. About to dig up my spuds this week – from bags in the yard, so not expecting anything on your scale! Heard from a friend this week who is dealing with a glut of plums. She has made 37 lbs so far – and ony stopped because she ran out of jars.
Good luck with your taties, Reb. Hope you get a good crop. 37lbs of plum jam? Unbelieveable. I wonder what you’ll be getting for Christmas from her this year 😉
So glad your veggie experiments are really paying off now. Looks like a cabbage diet for yourself and MS. Not that you need one, you understand but I hear you can get through vast quantities of the stuff in just a week. Hate to think what the results might be but sure gets rid of the cabbage from the kitchen table.
Brilliant idea, J. And I DO need it… tricky at the moment though as we’re having our kitchen redone so are at the mercies of a slow cooker in the bedroom. Amazingly tonight I just baked some of our gigantic spuds in it. They took 8 hours!
Best not to get too attached to your vegetables if you are a vegan. You may starve!
I too am suffering from gluts, and being of Scots descent, do not want to waste any good food. so, after a month of strawberries three times a day and plums being frozen or made into plum crumble for a month, I put a plastic bag in all my visitors hands and send them to pick as many Pearmains and pippins as they can eat and Bramleys to freeze for the winter months. My potatoes are monstrous as well but some are not so good inside now whereas they were pristine when I dug them up smaller. My chips are just as delicious with holes in them where i have bevelled out the bad bits. Old thrifty habits die hard.
Lamar,even though Big Spud looks very attractive wearing Mr MS’s sunglasses, it isn’t love and anyway I’m afraid I baked him in the slow cooker the other night…
Marion, I wish I lived near you! I would be over like a shot for some Bramleys: we all love them stewed with blackberries, which the back garden is producing in gadzillions.
Note website link – how we deal with windfall apples in the wilds…
PS… am experimenting with refrigerator pickling of vegetables – essentially vinegar and fruit juice overnight in spill proof tubs.
It’s a variation on a Japanese dish – sunomono salad (cucumber/onion/rice wine vinegar/ can add a trace of sugar – then refrigerate at least overnight).
I’m using apple cider vinegar for my root pickles … pretty strong, though.
Quick way to deal with some of it… and you wind up with low fat dressing for a green salad that way. I include craisins with my root veggies – carrots, parsnips, turnips (forget what you call those there).
In closing… you reapeth what you soweth. Soweth Sorry, Girlfriend.
Interesting to hear about your refrigerator pickling experiments, Kathy. How long do you reckon the veg will keep, treated in that way? And what are craisins?
I’m there with you on the sago – yuck !!!
As for cabbage – isn’t Harvest Festival coming up ? You could give it to a school or church for them to then redistribute to some old person to do something with ?
OR – make a nice unctious tomato /garlic/herb sauce & mix with steamed shredded cabbage – delish.
OR – cabbage soup & freeze ?
Cummon – you’re a Yorkshire lass – can’t bear waste !
Good Luck x
Ooh get you, Charmaine: ‘unctuous’! Wonderful. That is a v g idea about the cabbage soup. It has already been noted that Mr MS will eat anything provided it is cooked for him.
Mandy – they should keep longer than regular refrigerated veggies as the vinegar stops mold growth pretty well. For longer term storage – there’s genuine water bath canning to consider…. whether for pickles or not.
Craisins are raisins made from cranberries. Clearly a US indiosyncracy. (Planning on taking squash, carrots, fridge pickles and other odds and ends and making wontons tonight!
Charmaine… Love the Unctuous Dish idea.
Your huge brassica seems to be floating by itself there in the picture. And look how weedy the “jumbo oats” look in the background. Not so brave now eh, Jock?
Thanks for explaining, Kathy. We are managing to keep pace with our produce at the moment – but the potato crop (which can’t be put off much longer) is going to be huge. Mr MS has been busy clearing out the cellar, but whether he’ll find enough room for ten tons of spuds is another matter.
Brilliant observation, brilliant comment, looby. A riposte in this case is best savoyded.
Ah ha… perhaps an anonymous gifting raid – complete with ambiguous poem – should be contemplated…
listen my children and you shall hear
of the midnight produce raid…
hey Mandy – loved this latest post! I’ll be over your way doing stuff at ILF so feel free to come along laden with veg to pelt at me – I shall think up some particularly bad poems so I get plenty of 5-a-day for my tea!
Big Spud looks well cool in his shades. And I love your use of language – as ever – ‘Brobdingnagian brassica’ is a classic!
love, Char
Hey Kathy and Char – two posts from two poets – how fab! See you at ILF, C (I’ll pick out only the softest produce for pelting: no big spuds nor Cyclopean cabbages I promise).
Better get cooking asap girl to get rid of the damned thing !
Good Luck x
Glad you like the word unctious ….. Fave x
Charmaine – have just taken your advice and cooked up a large batch of courgette and cabbage soup, destined for the freezer. Snaffled a bowl mesen first of course, laced with double cream – delicious. In fact I’d even call it unctuous.
Now you’re taking the mick …….
Plethora – that’s another of my faves & you will have a plethora of unctious cabbage & courgette soup to get through on the long cold winter nights ….Enjoy x
An unctuous plethora! Now you’re really talking.