Sunflower

Oh, it seems to be Autumn!

We've had some rain in the night and the sunshine was beautiful on the cobwebs early this morning. Actually, it's getting darker as the day progresses. The weekend was a mix of weather and the ground was perfect for getting our leeks planted up - well, Neal's leeks (thanks as always Neal!). 20 leeks, with plenty of room for hoeing in between.

I'm going to plant the garlic at the end of that patch, in front of the squash tunnel. I'm leaving the squashes on the plants until the necks dry off and the Honeyboat are finally beginning to produce a few fruits - I hope the weather stays reasonable so that they mature.

The brassica are a bit weird. We have two sprout plants and one has a problem, probably whitefly, but the other one has so far escaped damage.

And one of the three purple sprouting broccoli plants is decidedly weaker than the other two.

The single cavolo nero is small, but will hopefully produce enough leaves for a few meals.

I cleared a mass of overgrown plants from in front of our little pond on Plot7. Looks much better now  and the newly planted perennials should be a bit happier without being crowded out, but I'm sure the nigella and other plants have self-seeded everywhere and then there's the bindweed - ugh, what a horrible weed that is!

We had a salad last night which had potatoes, tomatoes, cucumber, patty pan, carrot and spring onion from our plots. And these were the last of Iulia's plum tomatoes. I cooked them in garlic oil with grated horseradish, but it seems that cooking horseradish completely destroys the heat - not even a hint remained. I'll try again and grate the horseradish over the top after I've cooked the tomatoes.

I couldn't resist planting some horseradish in a pot, in case I decide it's worth growing. It's certainly hot when you nibble it raw, but it's a short-lived heat rather than like chilli so I quite like it.

That pot is in our 'nursery patch' behind the polytunnel. The hazel tree likes it there, as does this lovely fuchsia which was unhappy in the sunshine.

I was so pleased to finally get some reasonably decent shots of a hummingbird hawkmoth at the allotment on Saturday! Such a fascinating moth to watch and so nippy. I updated my Allotment Wildlife Blog.

And this morning we found that the little self-seeded sunflower had decided to open - what a cheery sight :-)

So this blogpost has moved from Autumn back to Summer, though it's raining outside and I now need to get back to work. Enjoy the ditty, provided by Vampire Weekend, though the video will make you dizzy!