Two Vines

We had a trip to a local vineyard yesterday with plot-buddies Linda and Ivan. The Winding Wood Vineyard is a rare thing in Britain - it creates organic sparkling wine using biodynamic practices.

The tour was interesting and gave Ivan a few ideas for his grapevines at the allotment - one half of the vineyard is growing the same variety of Pinot Noir grapes as he is. Interesting that they use horsetail-tea to spray the leaves against aphids/fungus - we can help with that! They also use willow-bark and yarrow flowerheads and china-clay against mildew. They don’t do any watering - even this year - as vines have 5m roots. But they have a fancy heating system to avoid frost damage at vital stages - Ivan will need to stick with fleecing.

I wanted this photo of the ripening grapes in row 23 when Linda snapped me 😊

After the tour - it’s across 2acres, so not a lot of walking, we went into the lovely big barn for tasting of three 2020 wines. The rosé was mine and Jamie’s favourite.

The Winding Wood’s 2500 Pinot noir and Chardonnay vines are 13years old, so about twice as old as Ivan’s.

Winding Wood Vineyard - Chardonnay vines

These are Ivan’s 10 vines - I just know we’re going to find him stripping back leaves next time we see him on site!

Ivan’s are larger than the grapes at the vineyard, which I think were intentionally smaller but about the same state of ripeness. Harvesting will be likely. Be mid-September or October.

It was a very pleasant couple of hours in a beautiful quiet location, so peaceful. And very interesting to see their techniques for growing organically - I think I want to dig out my biodynamic gardening book…

Meanwhile, on the allotment I’ve cleared three areas - the over-Wintering broad beans will go where I pulled the leek flowers up. Look how dry it is! I disposed of the leek seed heads and composted the stems.

The sweetcorn patch has been cleared, apart from a few snapdragons, to get a bit more light to the Jacob’s Cattle dwarf beans which are drying on the plants - I’ll move them into the polytunnel before it’s due to rain. Last year my drying beans got such a drenching they went mouldy on the plants so couldn’t be saved. 

Harvests have mostly been tomatoes now. All three of our varieties have produced plenty of fruits - I may need to make some passata to store.

Cocktail Crush, Black Moon, Redcurrant

I had fried veg which included radishes and radish pods - the radishes were really tasty, like a peppery turnip.

It’s a bank holiday weekend and we also get Tuesday off - yay - and the Sun is shining so I should get off my butt. Have a good weekend all. The song is provided by Empire of the Sun.

Long Train Running

It’s been extremely hot again, reaching 30° and there’s still a holiday-feel in Hungerford when the Sun shines. We’ve enjoyed walks to feed the ducks in town and on Sunday went to the monthly Food & Artisan market and had a cake by the canal - lots of canal boats visiting. The allotments are further up the canal in that direction.

On Wednesday I took leave so Jamie and I had a trip to the seaside - Hayling Island, we haven’t been there for years. It was rather cold and windy 🙄 but we did enjoy some terrific thunder and lightning! 

We went on the little train along the beach, well, why wouldn’t you?! 

It was fun trundling along waving at people and we couldn’t have walked it.

We played on coin-push machines, had chips and watched seagulls arguing over some biscuits. Traditional British seaside amusement ☺️

We even had a paddle in the sea - I was panicking that Jamie would fall down, but I’m pleased to say all went well!

I’m leaning rather than the horizon - I was paddling at the time

So, no matter what the weather we had a fab, exhausting, day. Of course, the next day I had to work and it was really hot again - we were too tired to even visit the plot so it had another day without water - the plants, especially the flowers and sunflowers really didn’t appreciate it and were completely flagging by Friday but have cheered up again now. 

The amaranthus (Love lies bleeding) was transplanted when it popped up having self-seeded amongst the potatoes so I’m pleased that survived. And I think I sowed the cerinth last year (or maybe it was this year) and there’s a nice little cluster of those interesting flowers in the flowerbed.

Many veg plants are going over now though, seems like a short season. The Baby cucumber has burned itself out and I’ve started removing some of the dried bean pods from the Gigantes with the Borlotti following soon. But the melons are trying hard to produce something…. This is in the polytunnel and the outdoor plants have a few fruits too.

And the squashes on the tunnel are beginning to flower and fruit - this is the so-called rampant Shark’s Fin melon squash. Well, perhaps not rampant for us this year… or perhaps there’s still time.

I’m pleased that the earlier-sown radishes have produced their seed pods now which I enjoy snacking on and the flower is quite pretty too.

The aubergines are bulking up and more tomatoes are ripening - even a few of the tiny redcurrant tomatoes so there’s still more to enjoy - but I’m glad I didn’t sign-up to put anything in the Horticultural Show!

The Doobie Brothers provide the excellent song title - enjoy ☺️ 

Sunny

This last week I’ve worked more than my current required hours but it’s still felt rather like holiday time. I think there are positive vibes in the air.

We’ve been walking to the river to feed this lovely family - eight cygnets! The River Dun is so clear and there are masses of fish which were also jumping out of the water to eat the floating swan & duck food. One afternoon it was so warm and sunny we decided to go to a local pub for dinner and a bottle of wine - what a treat! Sitting in the riverside garden the same swan family swam buy and were enjoying eating the weed. So beautiful.

We’ve been to the allotment nearly every day, there’s not much to do apart from watering and picking a few bits for dinner. Courgettes are still a major element in our meals:

Layered courgette, tomato & shallot bake with cheesy sweetcorn topping

Pan-fried courgette, sweetcorn, chard & lardons with roast potatoes and onion sauce

Courgette and sweetcorn fritters with our first two runner beans

The Baby cucumbers are producing well so I made tzatziki dip, using a recipe from this great recipe book my sister gave me.

We enjoyed that as part of a Sunday picnic - here’s Jamie ready and waiting ☺️ You can see we were prepared for all weathers but I’m pleased to say it didn’t rain and we had a great time with various plotholders dropping by.

We’ve pulled our last Nicola(?) spud - not sure went wrong to produce those mutants! Let’s blame the weather but I think I may have something for the Horticultural show after all 🙄

We’ve picked most of our sweetcorn now and are noticing that something (birds or squirrels) has been stripping the cobs clean on some plants around site. I left a partially formed cob on the plot and the next day we could see just how popular sweetcorn is - amongst many species! We’ve seen wasps eating them but never ladybirds before! It is a very good year for ladybirds and quite surprisingly most I’ve spotted (🤭) have been 7-spots rather than harlequins.

It’s been feeling rather autumnal in the mornings and evenings now, but apparently another heatwave is due over the next few days - good! I’m not ready for Summer to end yet. 

Now sing-along with Boney M - you surely can’t resist!

The Right Direction

I had a lovely break from work and now it’s August - wow, time flies! The weather over the last couple of weeks has been warm and mostly dry so we visit the plot every day. We’ve been watching the juvenile robins who have been well tutored by their parents to know where they get fed.

The blue tits and great tits are also very active in the hedgerow but don’t seem to have a taste for monkey nuts - unless the celebratory England flags are putting them off.

I’ve been holding off doing the Big Butterfly Count waiting for a warm sunny day without a strong breeze, there have been lots of butterflies around so I probably should just get on and do it really!

Our harvests are getting more varied with Lark sweetcorn making a welcome appearance along with the essential courgette and cucumber most days. As tomatoes show a blush we take them home to complete their ripening. The Black Moon variety are prolific (from the polytunnel) and really tasty.

We’ve picked our first aubergine - Graffiti I think. I roasted it separately from the other veg and it was a nice addition to the meal which included some super-sweet carrot thinnings too - waste not, want not 🙂

This vegetable passata bake was all home-grown (apart from the passata) so delicious with potatoes, courgette, garlic, shallot, chard and sweetcorn. 

We’ve pulled another couple of potatoes too - Kestrel it seems.. They’re delicious roasted.

The remaining salad leaf has been pulled from the raised bed and I bought some additional herb plants - Greek basil, oregano and creeping thyme. I split the basil plant so have a couple of pots in the polytunnel. I was going to pull the chard, which hasn’t grown very well, but as I only eat a few leaves occasionally I decided to leave it. And it is so colourful! The sage needs a trim - I’ll do that when I take the heads off the lavender.

The shallots dried off so we made two jars of pickled onions. Jamie’s jar in pickling vinegar with mustard seeds and mine with balsamic vinegar using a slight adaptation of this recipe.

We received some free All Year Round cauliflower seeds from DT Browns so we’ve sown them in modules and they’ve germinated. I guess that means I should be weeding the brassica cage which hasn’t been looked after this year. It just has some Brussels sprout and PSB growing along with a lot of weeds at the moment. 

Oh! Plus a blueberry in a pot which Jamie bought from the RHS as a birthday present from my sister. I hope next year is as good for fruit as this year seems to have been. We’ve never seen so many sloes in the hedge by our plot - does it mean it’s going to be a hard Winter??

Well, I don’t mind as long as it doesn’t come too soon. My squash plants are growing quite well now and beginning to climb but need a good few weeks to produce some decent fruit. The recent rain-Sun-rain has been great growing weather.

We can only see one tiny melon on the polytunnel plant and none on the outdoor plants yet - as Jim (plotholder) said ‘they’d better get a wriggle on’. I quite agree!

The runner beans are finally beginning to form and the borlotti are beginning to colour. A few more weeks till they dry off and I’ll be storing them. Last year it was so wet that I couldn’t save any beans - I hope that doesn’t happen again! This is a bean’s eye view of their world 🙂

On the health front, I have started EPO injections which kidney patients often need to help the kidney produce red blood cells so I should feel like I have a new burst of energy quite soon. Thank goodness Jamie is able to do my injection as I can’t. I’ve had so much needling all my life but I never look (and you really need to when injecting yourself!). What a wimp I am!

It’s 6 months now since Jamie had his stroke. What a terrible time, but he’s made such great progress, though he doesn’t always feel it and it is still early days. He’s easily tired and rather painful but that’s not unexpected although unwelcome. Overall we’re going in the right direction - thanks to Goo Goo Dolls for the song title 😌