Sunday 7 August 2011

Walking round a damp allotment

We walked round some of the other plots and saw Jerry's globe artichokes which have flowered - really beautiful.

Our runner beans have a few beans which have set but still really tiny, so the plan's worked so far - we didn't want green beans, runners and broad beans all at the same time. The flowers are looking brilliant and keeping the bees happy.
The raindrops on the bottom pic are quite arty :-)
Scarlet Empire F1

Rainy Sunday

We went up the plot after a rainstorm this afternoon - just to pick some veg. The potatoes are Orla and there are a few obligatory courgettes which I'll take to work - there should be a couple more ready when I want them for my dinner tomorrow evening! Also got another harvest of express french beans from our dwarf plants.
I made some carrot & coriander soup, using our lovely coloured carrots and one of our onions.
My soup recipe is always the same, just with different top 2 ingredients - this is the soups I made last weekend (measurements are very vague):
  • Vegetables (e.g.4 carrots/pile of broad beans)
  • Some type of herb (e.g.coriander/parsley)
  • An onion cooked in butter with the herb
  • 1 pint of vegetable stock
  • Black pepper

Saturday 6 August 2011

Compost

These are just some of the hundreds of worms in our compost. Not sure why the one in the middle has shiny blue edges! The compost is made up of allotment waste, grass cuttings and cardboard. We've also added some really stinky comfrey juice that we were given a year ago - we added that occasionally.
We're going to leave this bin for a few months (or a year) now as we've started filling our second bin again.

Clearing legumes and spotting bugs

It wasn't a very nice morning; a bit chilly and drizzly but eventually the sun came out. We cleared weeds and also cut down the pea plants which had dried/died back and a lot of the original broad beans which had stopped producing pods and have rust - we don't want that passing to the crimson broad beans (not before the beans have been picked anyway).
We also cut the haulms (tops) off the potato plants which have died down. The Congo plants though are looking amazing - they are standing up again after the rain. We just hope the potatoes under the ground look as good as the plants and flowers!

Found a great little shield bug on the enviromesh over the sprouts - unfortunately we now know it's a Brassica Bug! Doesn't seem quite so pretty now. It'll overwinter in the ground apparently - hopefully it doesn't have too many buddies on our plot - though a lot of nibbling has happened to our purple cabbages in particular...
Eurydema oleracea
Our first Rocky cucumber will be ready to eat next week and another's on the way. Courgettes are going strong and the Balmoral patty pan is producing quite a few more sqashes.

Friday 5 August 2011

Mostly pickling

Jamie pickled another jar of beetroot this week, again in red wine vinegar but with less demarera sugar than the previous jar.
Also pickled 2 jars of shallots, after soaking in brine for a couple of days. The shallots aren't that good - not many big bulbs. When they are cut into they break into more bulbs. Not sure whether this is because of the weather or the downy mildew, which may have stopped them forming. We did notice that the green tops grew very tall very quickly so maybe it was the soil being too rich from our compost...
Still, I'm sure the pickles will taste lovely at Christmas. The shallots we've used in other cooking have been very tasty.