This is the New Year

Welcome to 2018! This will mark our 9th year of growing our own and my 10 year transplant anniversary. Time really does fly when you're having fun, or is it when you're getting older? Well, there's no avoiding getting older, so we may as well have fun while we're at it!

We celebrated the arrival of the new year by having a lovely meal of Stahly's veggie haggis (the best) with home-grown vegetables, which we picked from a very wet plot yesterday. At midnight we opened the windows (even though it was a bit chilly) and heard the town hall clock chiming and then watched the fireworks. I do love fireworks.

As usual I picked too much for our evening meal, so I intend to make parsnip soup later - the same recipe as I used on 1st January 2017 as it happens! The parsnips are huge - each over 30cm long.We were pleased that the sprouts were so good. They look in a sorry state on the plant but were really tasty. The swede are great (I still haven't found the variety, but they were planted late, in July), although the one we ate had a small 'hollow heart', possibly due to the weather..? It was delicious mashed up with the carrot.

This year I'm recording our plot efforts with the MyHarvest diary. It's a University of Sheffield research project investigating the sustainability of allotment gardening, so I thought it would be interesting to join in. Also, it should help me remember to note the weather each visit, which I always intend to do, but often forget.

So, here we go again...
I can't help thinking of blogposts when I hear new songs that I like now. This was a new one to me and is by A Great Big World... enjoy and here's to a happy, healthy, productive 2018