Missing

Jamie carved a fab pumpkin for the Marsh Lane gate and also one for us on Halloween.

We had a lovely meal of roasted squash on black rice with black truffle grated on top. We bought the truffle home from holiday, but were disappointed that it didn't seem to have any of the flavour we expected - never mind, at least we know not to spend a lot of money on it in the future! The squash was our Crown Prince and that has lovely flavour - even better (not so sweet) than the Festival I would say.

Now it's November and we achieved a few things on the plot yesterday. It was reasonably warm and quite a few plotholders were on site. We planted up our flower bulbs in big pots

I bought some wallflowers which were on sale, so I got about 30 for £4, I thought that was a bargain, so planted them up along the edge of the plot to cheer it up from March - May (well, that's what the labels say).

I also planted some by the pond at the same time as doing some weeding and getting rid of some of the Californian Poppies which are everywhere!

Jamie dug through the raised bed so that we could plant garlic in it. I left it late to buy it and ended up buying these ones from Waitrose. I think it's a bit naughty to plant shop-bought but hope that because they're from Scotland they'll grow ok. I managed to get 15 good cloves with a few left over to eat too.

The broad beans have grown well, we don't really want them much taller than that.  They're under the cloche net to protect them from the worst of the weather. It'll be nice if we actually get to eat some early broad beans next year!

This is my two celeriac - they've grown well in the old recycle bin. I want to make soup with them, but have to finish off the Crown Prince squash first.

I'm roasting the Crown Prince with sage at the moment, with the skin on. The skin definitely provides most of the flavour and is perfectly soft enough to eat. Look at how pretty it looked in the roasting tray. I've added a bit of chilli powder now it's on the hob. (I've just remembered I meant to add an onion, but I don't think it will be missed as the squash is so tasty)

So this is the last month of Autumn and there are masses of berries on the hedge - does it mean it'll be a hard Winter?

 

We always used to say that, but we'll see... We've already had a week or frosty cold weather, but it's warmed up again now and just a bit wet.

We found one last interesting thing before we left the allotment - a bagful of 10p pieces for my "10 Year Transplant Anniversary Fund" for the Six Counties Kidney Patients Association. People are so generous! Thank you to whoever left it for me! I look forward to doing the big count-up in April!

So today's song...is about the fact that garlic was missing from the garden centres, Wilkos and even Marks & Spencer. But I really hope it's not missing from our plot next year!