The digging has had to stop, temporarily. The ground is frozen hard and even stoical Steve has given up on extracting couch grass while it's still so cold. In the meantime, he's done some research on wheelbarrows - the hardware shop just down the road does one for around £30, which is not much more than B&Q so we're keeping our custom local - and while we wait for the soil to defrost we are busy consuming the Allotment Chutney.

Now, you may think it odd that we have managed to produce enough ingredients to make said chutney when the first few sods have scarcely been turned on our new patch. However, this chutney was made back in late October, after I put down the black plastic as a mulch. The next time I went to check on the plot, I found a large marrow had been placed on top of one of the sheets, which I took as a item of rightful provenance.

True, it had been slightly nibbled - by what, I'm not quite sure - but it was only the skin on one little bit of it; the rest looked fine. We also gathered some rock-hard Golden Delicious apples from the stunted little apple tree on our plot and, while we were at it, collected the rest of the edible blackberries from the brambles in the hedge. Disappointingly, the gooseberry bush had not borne any fruit, but it was a reasonable haul considering we hadn't actually planted anything ourselves, yet.

I made an apple-and-blackberry crumble, which, with the apples cooked and sweetened, was wolfed down by my family. The marrow slumbered in the veg basket for a bit - I was still a little dubious about what might have had a go at it - but eventually I decided to wash it very thoroughly, cut away the 'contaminated' area and make the flesh into a chutney, along with the remainder of the apples.

This I did, using a WI recipe I have for Apricot and Marrow chutney that I improvised on, adding fresh ginger and spices such as cardamon and coriander. It looked good and it smelled divine. I bottled it and labelled it 'tNot to be opened until Christmas' and distributed jars among the family.

(What with all this chutney- and pie-making, I am working up to joining the WI, though the husband reckons I'm too radical for them. Steve suggested I could join the provisional wing, if they have such a thing. Or start one. Dumping packaging at the checkouts is a bit radical, though, and they've done that already. Could chutney-making become symbolic of a new political movement?)

Anyway, I digress. On Boxing Day, my mother rang to say that they'd just opened their jar of chutney and how wonderful it was. A couple of days later, my Dad rang to say they'd finished the jar and could I send Mum the recipe . . . No-one's gone down with anything nasty yet, so my worries about any potential health risks associated with the phantom nibbler have eased slightly.

(Last year I used a bit of old tea towel to tie up the pickling spices when I made chutney, because I didn't have any muslin. It was inscribed with scenes of St Helier and had 'A Present from Jersey' on it, but the colour kind of faded in the boiling process. This had me worried that I might have poisoned my family with Saran Red or whatever that toxic dye was. Fortunately, they suffered no ill effects from the Tea Towel Blend, either.)

We've tried our Allotment Chutney now, and I have to say it's jolly good, though, if I'm honest, my next-door neighbour, who also gave us some of her own Christmas Chutney, made a better one. I'll have to try her recipe next time, and this time I won't busk, either with the ingredients or the equipment (though I really should stop boiling dishcloths in the preserving pan; I don't think that helps the flavour).

I gave Steve a jar of Allotment Chutney, too, though he managed to leave it behind at our house after a riotous Christmas party (well, the kids were being riotous; we adults were playing hoopla with a clapping mechanical seal). The next day I got a text off him saying, 'Am down allotment. Bring chutney.' He said he had a ham sandwich  with its name on it.