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 😌

Think for a Minute

Dear Clouds 

Thankyou for bringing us some proper rain - real torrential showers. We were happy to avoid puddles, admire rain pouring from leaking gutters and water hammering out of down pipes. 

We’ve been very happy to see the earth on the allotment looking a rich brown colour instead of pale and dusty. The plants say “thankyou” too.

I was very happy to be able to make holes that didn’t fill up with dusty soil as soon as they were dug (using a bulb planter). Thanks to Neal for the baby leeks, we now have 27 planted.

Just one thing, Clouds…. Did you need to have the biggest cloudburst just as the Hungerford Carnival parade was setting off and then disperse leaving sunshine as the parade finished?! Terrible timing! Most of the remaining crowd were sheltering under the railway bridge.

The Town and Manor cows 😀

Anyway, the rain saved us from a lot of watering for a couple of days which was a welcome break. I’m on holiday this week so I’m glad that it’s still warm, not sweltering, and we seem to have a few more dry days lined up for plot-days. And, we’ve picked our first tomatoes.

The beans are getting there, although we only see one(!) tiny bean so far on the Scarlet Empire runners…

Ahead of the rain, I pulled the shallots. They’re now trimmed and drying in the roof of the polytunnel before they’ll be pickled. They’ve done well this year - mostly due to the lack of slugs, I think.

Some of the small ones went home along with a potato harvest - the contents of one bag and two from the ground. They appear to be Nicola and Kestrel but who knows? Not me and I planted them!

Some of the potatoes and shallots have been used in several meals already. Roasted vegetables with paneer also included peppers, but mostly home-grown ingredients.

And I used a chargrilled pepper paste to marinade the halloumi for this delicious roastie.

The raised bed, where the shallots were, has been topped up with soil from the potato bags and topped with Apsley Farms mulch. We’ve sown a row of radish and we’re going to sow some pak choi for over-Wintering.

The zinnia are flowering now and I’m dead-heading regularly to encourage more bushiness - such a pretty flower. And, as you can see with that tiny hoverfly visitor, they are good for pollinators.

The nasturtium on the other hand have proved irresistible to flea beetle this year - the heat has helped their numbers and they are being very destructive. Some plants on site are black with them and when you get close they all ping off in different directions. Nasturtiums are often used as sacrificial plants, but I was hoping to enjoy some leaves myself! The tiny beetles are also enjoying the radish, which are finally going to seed. I hope I can still pick some pods for a spicy snack.

The Sun is just breaking through the cloud now so we shall head for the plot for a bit of pottering, sitting, watching and thinking. The Housemartins provide the lovely song title, aah.

Hot Summer

I got up early and left Jamie sleeping this morning. I got to the plot at about 7am and it was already warm but not sweltering.

The plants still had dew on their leaves and I noticed that one of the melons has begun to send out stems in three directions. 

The plant in the polytunnel has grown faster and is beginning to climb its framework. I’ve moved the aubergine so both plants are in the sunny doorway now. They both have flowers and quite a few buds. Manoeuvring in the polytunnel is getting a little awkward!

I was hoping to prepare the bed for leeks, but the ground was too dry so I did some clearing instead. Terrible bindweed and so much Nigella which has seeded everywhere - they look lovely but are a bit of a pest and the bindweed clings on all over it. The weed pile is full of life; crickets, ladybirds and other wee beasties so I’m leaving it on the plot to dry off and the insects can move on.

Hmm, well it looks better and we can see the pond again but that bindweed will be back for me to fight another day. The little bed in front of the raised bed needs tackling too, but that can wait!

The raised bed has chard and salad leaf as well as the herbs. There are only a couple of small rows of mixed leaf, but it’s cut-and-come-again so perfect for salad and sandwiches.

The Baby cucumber is growing quickly and some tiny cucumbers are hopefully a sign of things to come. We haven’t tried Baby before as we usually grow Rocky.

The tomatoes are always a bit slower to ripen than we’d like, but there are some great looking trusses on their way on the Black moon plant in the polytunnel…

The courgettes have started regular production so the creative cooking needs to start - or perhaps they’ll just be fried up with garlic, which is good enough for me.

The broad beans are still going, but they won’t be part of many more meals; once there’s evidence of the broad bean seed larvae we stop eating them 😖 This was a tasty satay Raman noodle meal I enjoyed the other night. Very quick and easy.

I keep stroking the pollen on the sweetcorn to encourage it onto the silky tassels. Some are going brown, but they aren’t ready yet. Waiting, waiting!

Today we pulled one of the potatoes - thought it was a Duke of York, but appears to be Kestrel. A bit better than the potato bag that had one potato in it!! Potatoes really don’t like such dry weather.

So, with a final hollyhocks photo - what a beauty - I’ll say goodnight.

The song title is provided by Prince and as we’re into our third heatwave of the year it seems appropriate. Phew, stay cool all.

Many Rivers to Cross

This is the tightly packed leek flower head which is protected by the pointy hat until it dries and pops off - or I release it. Most are white but some are tinted pink. I do love these pom-poms! So pleasing to pat as you walk by, but watch out for wildlife! The pollinators arrive en masse: flies, bees, hoverflies, beetles - they can’t resist a leek flower.

The weather has been hot, hot, hot again but the wind is annoying - really howling at times. I’m glad the towering hollyhocks (seed from my Cousin Jen’s plants) are still upright, but I’m not sure how they’re managing it!

The wind has been so strong that we can hear the army practising on Salisbury Plain (about 30 miles away). I guess the noise is tanks firing, it sounds like thunder. And yesterday we could hear live music from a Summer Event about 3 miles away, that was fun. 

You can see that heat doesn’t necessarily mean blue skies, but, although we’ve had a few torrential downpours, the weather has been mostly dry and the wind and Sun evaporate the rainfall quickly.

Everything needs watering and it’s hard work in the heat. Actually, not everything needs watering - the bindweed is doing just brilliantly finding its own water 😖 Wrapping itself around all the flower stems, it’s so annoying! I pull armfuls out every visit and try to get the root but it soon recovers - infuriating!

I harvested our garlic in the week - all from two bulbs, amazing! We’ve starting cooking with one although it’s still a bit green. The rest are drying in the polytunnel now.

Apart from that we are eating mangetout, broad beans and shallots. I’m expecting asparagus peas to be included in my meals next week. I don’t usually grow a long row as Jamie doesn’t eat the pods, but they’re such a pretty little flower. I’m hoping the plants will grow a bit more upright like they did last year, but may need to provide some support. The radishes have gone a bit woody now. I’ll try planting a few more but I want the original plants to go to seed as they are pretty with white flowers and I like eating the pods. I’ve netted the beetroot again as the pigeons/pheasants are really enjoying the leaves this year.

The tomatoes, cucumber and aubergine plants have started to spread; both outside and polytunnel plants and all the beans - climbers and dwarf- are looking pretty healthy; they’re loving the sunshine as much as us. A couple of the Tahiti Melon squash I sowed direct last week have germinated on the old polytunnel frame on Plot3 and the Sharks fin melon plants have grown more leaves - I’m expecting a jungle from them. Both are varieties of squash, not melons. The Alvaro melons on Plot7 are sitting quietly forming roots before the top growth takes off (I hope!).

On these really hot days Jamie and I have started walking down to the river after dinner, only a few minutes away, to sit and watch the wildlife.

It is a beautiful section of river - the River Kennet - with trout and other large fish as well as plenty of bird life. The other side of the stone road bridge is a private fishery. I got told off for reading my book there about 30 years ago - it still smarts! Otters have been seen here, but not by us - yet… We’re still waiting for news of the Kennet Valley Wetland Reserve which will be across from that wooden walkway, if the plan is approved 🤞 

The River Dun sprouts from the Kennet and runs through Hungerford. This section, with the swan gliding by, is at the War memorial and is one of our stopping places when walking into town. There are plenty of benches for just sitting, it’s just a shame the road is so busy.

Anyway, back at the allotment we had a Sunday picnic last weekend - nice to get back to them. We lit the chimnea because the temperature dipped and we were competing with wind and rain, but we stuck with it, with umbrellas and a windbreak! So British 😀

It’s meant to be hotter today, with an amber heat alert. It was just about 30° in the shade yesterday - phew. Look how dry the earth is and the yellowing grass.

The potatoes have flowered, we don’t have many planted so it’ll be good to get a decent haul from each plant. They look like Nicola flowers, but I think that is where the Kestrels were meant to be planted - or perhaps they’re the Duke of York… oh dear, we really must work on our labelling!

The song title is provided by Jimmy Cliff - what a voice. Singalong, but don’t scare the neighbours!