Showing posts with label chives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chives. Show all posts

Monday 15 May 2023

This Garden

Mmm, I made a floral focaccia again. And this time it was actually like focaccia rather than a big flat biscuit!

Garden bread

Reading back on when I made it before, I think it didn't have the right texture because I didn’t bake it in a high-sided tin so it just spread out - it was definitely more like a pizza base… This time, contrary to the instructions on the Tesco Focaccia mix, I proved it a second time after spreading it out in the tin. Here’s the pre-baked garden.

You can see that there is plenty of olive oil! Only chives and parsley from the plot. We had a little picnic on the plot in the Sun yesterday and had some red wine with this lovely snack. Mmm, the focaccia is so tasty dipped in that balsamic dressing. Perfecto!
Plot picnic
I could have done with a lie down afterwards but we kept on with our weeding and tidying. The recent wet/dry weather has been ideal for the weeds. Ivan taught me how to use a hoe for the edging rather than a spade - aah so that’s how to do it.
Plot3 is looking much better now the PSB has been removed, chopped and composted. The Spring onions and lettuce (Dark Roden) seeds have germinated after 1 week -  the cage is having a year off from brassica this year - and the lettuces will be planted out when they’re big enough. It looks like most of the pre-germinated parsnip seeds have sprouted; the other row hasn’t yet.
We're having a bit of trouble germinating our courgettes but we'll give them another week. Other seedlings continue to appear in the inner polytunnel, including florence fennel, but none are large enough to transplant yet. Some of the annual flowers will eventually be part of the flower patch in front of our bench which has expanded a bit on last year.
The flower patch has more perennials this year, including Geum, Jacobs Ladder, Leucanthemum and Scabiosa plus a few verbascum which Ivan gave us today and this lovely delphinium that Aimee gave us last year when she gave up her plot.
The HAHA Wildlife plot is fit to bursting with so much growth but is still mostly green at the moment, apart from some pretty Red Campion. I pulled some of the plantain and dandelions to make way for less invasive plants and whilst rummaging found lots of shield bugs and other insects.
Wildlife garden
We feel a bit in limbo with the waiting, waiting … but cold nights are threatened this week so it’s definitely worth waiting a bit longer - or at least having the fleece on standby… The Levellers provide this excellent song title.

Monday 24 April 2023

Time for Action

What a lovely long day we had on the allotment yesterday. It was warm and the Sun even appeared from between the cloud at times.
Broad bean flowers
We’ve taken the net cloches off the broad beans so that the bees and other insects can do their pollination duty to provide us with some tasty broad beans quite soon. The photo above is one of the plants sown at the end of October- they survived the extreme frost; some of their gang didn’t which is why we have a bit of succession planting.
Yesterday we were mostly sowing (and chatting and listening to the birds) during our several hours on the plot. In the inner polytunnel tunnel we have: Flowers: Verbena bonariensis, Nicotiana Whisper, Ipomoea Iobata (Spanish flag), Calendula Officinalis ‘Canteloupe’, Marigold ‘Legion of Honour’, Sunflower ‘Tall Timber’ and veg: Rainbow chard, Asparagus pea and an All Green courgette is an early sowing at home.
The nicotiana (Tobacco plant) has the tiniest possible seeds - there they are a tiny smudge in the bottom of that miniature phial. And only 20 seeds! But I know they're a pretty flower so I hope they work.
 

Most of these flowers are destined for the flower plot this year, around the bench. It's great to see the perennials re-appearing now the ground is warming up and the daffodils finally came out.
I'm trying to keep on top of the weeds which are appearing and also pulling up some of the masses of Nigella. Having said that, Ivan gave us this plant, which looks a bit like Nigella - but we're not too sure what it is at this point. It's probably a weed as it was growing amongst his irises. I do like the foliage and I'm sure the flowers will provide an identification quite soon and we can decide then whether it's a keeper.
I was going to sow some veg outside but the ground was too wet. I have a week off soon so hopefully the weather will be a bit drier then. If we get the spuds planted out next week we'll have some space under the grow lamp at home. I've started parsnips by germinating them at home on a paper towel - they are notoriously awkward germinators so this way I'll only plant viable seed to get the best chance of a few parsnips this year.
At the weekend we spotted our first swallow of the season and then yesterday it was joined by a pair of house martens so it's really beginning to feel Spring-like, although night-time temperatures are still dipping close to zero (centigrade) and frosty rooftops are still regular morning sights. The birds were in full song at the weekend though and Ted pointed out at least two song thrushes, by their songs. That would help to explain all the broken snail shells but there are plenty of living snails left!
Rain threatened

I spent a lot of time scrambling around by the pond trying to get a 'from the bottom of the pond' style photo. I had my camera on remote control using my phone and had some tadpoles in a transparent pot. It was quite awkward and of the 20-ish photos this was the best but isn't quite what I was aiming for ... oh well, perhaps I'll try again another day.

From the bottom of the pond
But I thought this gelatenous outline was quite interesting on this shot.

Anyway, enough about tadpoles! Here's an arty photo of purple sprouting brocolli and chive flower buds which formed part of my meal the other night. 

I used one of the frozen bean burgers that I made a few weeks ago. I squashed it flat like a pancake; it still fell apart, but I really like the flavour of borlotti beans.

At 3pm yesterday everyone (almost) reached for their phones as we received our first ever Government 'Emergency Alert' - great, what a hopeful new advance for the 21st Century...😕

Oh well, it gave me an excuse to use this song by Secret Affair. Let's hope we never have to hear the alert alarm again.

Monday 28 March 2022

Making a Fire

The clocks have moved forward an hour, so now we’re in British Summer Time. The blackthorn thinks it’s May already. So beautiful against the blue sky.

Blackthorn in Flower

It felt really summery on Saturday, I even wore cropped trousers while we had several hours on the plot, with a trip home for lunch. It was nice again Sunday afternoon when the Sun emerged through the mist. We had a bonfire so that kept us toasty for a while. We used the new HAHA incinerator; it's not so shiny now.

And that bonfire spelt the end of the sage plant. I finished clearing the area Saturday so we flattened and levelled it down and Jamie edged it with a plank.

Hungerford allotment

And now our seating area is in its new place; we're going to get some decking or something to put over the weed fabric. So now we can sit watching our own plot growing. I’ve moved the bulb tubs next to the seat, they're mostly grape hyacinth at the moment, but tulips and iris are on their way. Eventually that area will be a flowerbed and I think the area in front, next to the pond, will be for herbs (in pots, so they don't take over the world again!)

Hungerford allotment
Directly in front of the bench is a lovage plant. It’s not been looked after for the last couple of years but it struggles on. I’m hoping it’ll grow tall this year; it can grow to 2m apparently. It has a celery scent, which I love and it can be used in salads, soups and stews.
Growing lovage
I used fresh chives for the first time this year. They added a bit of extra colour to this harissa-flavoured What-the-Cluck and peppers meal, served with spinach-coloured noodles. I really like the plant-based chicken-style cluck, but Jamie finds the texture too close to chicken for his liking. He likes the Beyond Meat burger, but for me that is too much like beef.
Rose Harissa flavoured meal
I had the rest of the What-the-Cluck and peppers with rice and a leek from the allotment - just a bit of garlic salt and pepper was added as flavouring for this meal. Both really tasty and quick meals. I hope we manage to have more home-grown peppers this year.
What the Cluck, peppers, leek and rice
The birds are full of song at the moment. The robins have paired up and we've seen blackbirds, blue tits, wrens and pied wagtails squabbling meanwhile the kites soar overhead and just keep an eye on what's happening below. We saw a tiny goldcrest the other day (far too nippy to get a photo) and Jamie saw a greenfinch, which is good news as I've not seen one for a few years. The wildlife plot is greening up nicely but there aren't many flowers yet; just the cowslips, some grape hyacinths and a couple of these particularly large-headed daisies. They must have been included in a seed mix.
Daisy

So that's nearly the end of March and I need to logon to work on this foggy morning - I'm glad I don't have to drive in that. The title song is provided by The Foo Fighters, sorry to have seen that the drummer died at the weekend, but at least he seemed to enjoy his life.


Sunday 12 May 2019

Eighth Day

I've been on leave for a week, we've been busy with other things but have also had time on the plot and achieved some stuff, though there's still plenty to do. We still have a few potatoes chitting at home - they're going into bags on the plot, at some point...Looks like an alien with his hands up "I come in peace".
We've had sunshine with some rain and the nights have threatened frost and also reached -1° so we've been fleecing and de-fleecing most mornings and evenings.We have plenty of weeds growing but have cleared areas and taken bagfuls home for the green bin.
But flowers are providing lovely bright spots. We have way too many of these Californian poppies, but they're so beautiful!
And the chives are all flowering so the bees are very happy.
We've potted on all the french marigolds and also some supervivum (houseleek) for the plant sale.
We've braved putting them outside under netting but we are fleecing them overnight if a frost is threatened - it's easier to deal with than in the greenhouse though and they need to toughen up...
The strawberries have so many flowers and tiny fruits forming that we don't want to risk them so they're fleeced each night too. So far they've kept their yellow centres so the frost hasn't got these..
But as well as protecting things and weeding we've been planting - broad beans are in...
Salad is planted in the raised bed with the onions.
And today I planted up a smaller raised bed with Boltardy beetroot, Red and White Salad Onions and Purple and Pink Asian radish. I spent some time yesterday digging out the masses of weeds in that part of the plot. I dug out another part of Plot7 on Bank Holiday Monday - here's a timelapse... you can see why it takes me a long time to dig... apart from having to pick roots (from the hedge) from almost every spadeful it does appear that I do quite a lot of chatting :-)
While I was doing that, Jamie was clearing a large area of Plot 3 and dug the runner bean trench.
It's nice that we're beginning to see areas which are free of weeds. And the beans are planted into pots in the greenhouse - Benchmaster and I have some Pickwick dwarf runner beans that another plotholder gave me.
Our rhubarb is growing monstrous and we've not eaten much of it yet, but did give some to a friend at work to make some rhubarb gin...
We had some torrential rain but no thunder. Anyway that sums up our last week and a bit, and so Hazel O'Connor provides the title track (it should be 9 days, but well, you know..!)

Monday 23 April 2018

One Week

A lot can happen in a week in the Spring. We've had sweltering sunshine, tremendous thunder and lightning (sadly, I managed to sleep through it), torrential rain and now back to a little chill in the wind.
We've started harvesting our rhubarb and this is our 2nd harvest of purple sprouting broccoli. It is delicious but we definitely need to look after the plants more this year - the straighter stalks are more productive than the ones which fell over, so staking is going to be required. Especially as Marsh Lane is such a windy site.
I chopped all those chives to add onion-y flavour to the celery soup I decided to make (I had to buy the celery, but for 49p I think it was worth it). And the soup is so delicious and will provide me with at least two days of lunch - though I must admit I had to add a pinch of MSG and some mustard powder to enhance the flavour.
The seedlings, sown one week ago, have loved the heat in the greenhouse - at the front you can see our next batch of broad beans which have sprouted so are nearly ready to go out. Then there are our trays of marigolds (Durango Bee and Honeycomb). Some of these will be planted on our plots but the rest will be sold at the HAHA plant sale in June - we're holding it on the Town Hall steps in the centre of town, so we hope to get even more passersby than we saw last year.
The cauliflower (Amazing) have germinated - they look like cress at the moment. I hope they survive - we've never grown cauliflower before. The mangetout (Shiraz and Golden Sweet, in the drainpipe have just popped through the compost. They're now at their most vulnerable to mice who love the tasty new shoots. I have lots of twigs to protect them from (mostly) pheasants once they're planted out.
That was yesterday (Sunday). Today is St George's Day but we forgot to put our flag up - see here's a gif from our plot last year. It seems that it was better weather than we have today - we've returned to grey clouds and a fresh wind :-(
And the song title is provided by Barenaked Ladies - enjoy and have it in your head for the rest of the day!

Sunday 18 March 2018

Black and White Town

The freezing weather returned! And we have even more snow than we had at the beginning of March.
Modified photo of icicles from the roof of our composting toilet
On Friday evening we retrieved our recently-sown marigold seeds and wrapped fleece round the shelving where our broad beans are trying to germinate. The fleece and four litre bottles of water are keeping the temperature at about 1° higher than the non-protected thermometer, but will it be enough? Perhaps we'll have to sow a third lot of beans this year...
Look at our pots...
And our chives...
And the site!
There were lots of tracks in the snow - nothing very interesting but we rather liked this meandering trail - bird or mouse?
We saved a panicking thrush from a brassica cage and then checked ours. We cleared the snow to stop it ripping the netting and, hooray, our purple sprouting broccoli is doing something at last, but it was too cold to stay and harvest anything today.
You may have noticed that my camera decided to use macro for the photo above and focused on the netting - now, if I was trying to do that you know it wouldn't work! I tried photographing some of the freshly fallen snowflakes on Friday and nearly caught them, but I need a bit more practise.

It was a very chilly walk back home. The thermometer in the greenhouse showed 3.3° but when the wind blew and whooshed snow about - BRRR! And we may be due more snow tonight - we're not used to this in Berkshire!!
The Doves provide the title track. The pure white snow and black roads made me choose this song.

Also, if you're in the area on Saturday....