That was 2016

Friday, 30 December 2016

That was 2016

This is going to be a positive post about 2016; highlighting ten good things about another lovely year within our allotment bubble.

In no particular order:

Star and heart-shaped cucumbers. The moulds probably work best with small, quick growing cucumbers, like our Rocky. They're apparently suitable for tomatoes too, but we didn't try that. They didn't work on courgettes.
Sunny picnics and some warm late nights on the plot. Summer started really wet with slugs and snails taking out a lot of early growth but July and August were delightful with plenty of sunshine.
A blue poppy. A gift last Christmas and I was so pleased when it actually flowered as the slugs had rather a taste for it initially! I hope there will be a further showing this year...
We grew a loofah. Well, that's cool, isn't it?!
Ratatouille - what a colourful meal - and it tasted good, especially covered in cheese and sprinkled with chopped nuts
Black tomatoes - Indigo Rose look so great but not a great flavour, this year we're trying some stripey ones. But we'll also be growing that tasty little red cherry variety Aviditas.
We found a coin - a 1744 farthing! For all our searching we've only found 3 in 7 years and this was the oldest.
Growing potatoes in bags - so pleasing to harvest. We used nematodes which we think worked well to keep the slug numbers down. Our favourite bagged variety was probably Orla.
Seeing a pair of bullfinches in the hedge - the first time we've seen them at our end of the site. We saw them later in the year too, which I hope is a good sign they'll be back next year.
The second HAHA/RBL Horticultural Show - such a great turnout, with over 300 entries. We're already looking forward to next year.

So, it wasn't all bad in 2016.
After all, at the beginning of the year we thought we may not have an allotment and then 5 days later we were given a reprieve....(which we're currently waiting on again....anyway, stay positive!)

I wonder what 2017 has in store...