Changes

During the week we had our first Pak Choi harvest, I thought it was quite tasty, we had it steamed with dauphinois potatoes and a Quorn fillet. And we harvested our first EVER melon! 

We knew the mangomel was ripe because the skin had turned yellow. And, as you can see, a bird (probably) had also decided it was ripe enough to sample. So the remaining growing fruit now has a protective cage round it.

It weighed over 1.6kg and served us for two breakfasts. It was so deliciously sweet, well worth growing. I wonder if it grew particularly well because of the heatwave and perhaps that’s also why we only got two fruits - apparently it can produce up to five.

Looking back at my blog from last year I was reminded of the carrot and beetroot fritters. So I picked the main ingredients in the morning and cooked them up in the evening. Unfortunately they’re shop-bought shallots.

It’s such a straightforward recipe. Saying that, I probably added a little too much water so it was more sticky than intended but the fritters are so tasty and served me for two dinners. I used the thinnings of Chinese cabbage in the salad.

Last week I commented on it being Autumn and it’s most obvious in the mornings, with mist/fog and condensation in windows. 

The hedgerow is full of berries.

The Love Lies Bleeding is getting redder. This is the biggest of the plants; it’s certainly taken advantage of the space on that patch!

The cucurbits are starting to succumb to mildew, so we’ve nearly (but not quite) reached the end of courgette season.

Temperatures have remained warm and we’ve had some significant rainfall, mostly at night. Early morning plot visits are more relaxed as we only need to water in the polytunnel, but (every silver lining) the rain is really bringing the weeds on well 😣

Talking of the polytunnel, we cleared most of the excess growth and new shoots from the tomato plants. We hope that will provide more light for a few more of those lovely looking Crimson Plum tomatoes to ripen and keep mildew at bay…

The Cleor pepper has lots of long peppers which we also need to turn red… waiting, waiting…

Allotment-time this weekend has mostly been about weeding, clearing and dead-heading but I did plant up some Crocosmia bulbs which fellow plotholder, Martine, put on the freebies shelf. I’ve put some in our flower plot and some on the wildlife plot. We sowed some radish in the potato bag that we emptied today - they’ll go into the polytunnel once the tomatoes are cleared. 

And here’s a photo of the ‘allotment cat’. He’s such a friendly chap, we all like it when he turns up - well, everyone I speak to does ☺️

The song title is provided by Will Young (I’ve used David Bowie before) and what a lot of changes; not just the season and the weather, but with the death of the Queen - I wonder how long before it sounds normal saying ‘King’ - not a personal impact on my life but certainly the loss of a constant. Boris Johnson is no longer our Prime Minister - thank goodness - but time will tell how much of a change Liz Truss offers. Changes are afoot…