Hungerford allotment blog - grow your own, harvesting and vegetarian cooking. Enjoying allotment wildlife, weather and other things that catch my attention.
Enjoying time on the Marsh Lane Allotment site in Hungerford, Berkshire.
A record of successes, failures and a handy reminder for me.
From 2017 each post title brings a song to add a little extra music to the world - enjoy!
Before our weekend away I had to do a final water in the polytunnel - outside could look after itself for a few days, especially if this was the weather September was going to bring! Between torrential downpours I picked more tomatoes and left them on the Spares shelf, we'd already given some away to neighbours. I was tempted to take some away with us, but I think they have tomatoes in Bath ðŸ¤
The two redcurrant tomato plants are producing masses of tiny tomatoes - they’re a bit of a pain to pick, it would be considerably easier if whole trusses ripened at once, but they are so tasty and photogenic I’m glad I grew them.
I made the confit “con-fee” (apparently) with some of the redcurrant tomatoes as planned. I've mostly been having them as toppings for sandwiches and cheese biscuits. There are some left which we may have with halloumi tonight - they only keep for a fortnight in the fridge. They produce a delicious pop while eating them. The oil can be used for pasta, salads or cooking. I used some for frying aubergine this week.
Confit - redcurrant tomatoes and garlic
The aubergines have done well in the polytunnel this year - these were from the Graffiti plant.
They were used, along with tomatoes (obviously) for this tasty chilli.
And the radish pods were used in this concoction with non-chicken and an onion sauce - delicious. The pods didn’t last long, they’ve gone past their best now and rather stringy so the plants will be next in-line for the compost bin.
This is our latest trug which includes some Meatball aubergines. There are still quite a few small fruits on the plant, but that’s the last Graffiti for the year.
And this trug has more dried beans and our first melon, which I think is ripe. Plus a few tiny, tasty carrots - not sure they appreciated being container-grown.
The flowers are really enjoying the sunshine and showers weather at the moment, even though the nights are getting a bit chilly for me.
We went early with making some sloe gin using sloes from the allotment hedge - they’re so abundant this year. The sloes were frozen before adding to the gin and the jars are shaken regularly so the colour is deepening for (hopefully) a tasty liqueur around Christmas.
And just to show how autumnal it is out there …. This large fungi emerged in the woodchip pile. Not sure of the variety so it didn’t get eaten!
And because this post contains some beautiful things, Benson Boone provides the title track - enjoy!
A very impressive building - and just look at the inside! The vaulted ceiling is so beautiful…dating from the early 1500s.
Vaulted ceiling in the Abbey
and the stained glass - wow!
East Window
The windows were smashed to smithereens in World War 2, but the glass was gathered up and 60% of the current East Window is original.
There’s not much of the 16th century abbey left, there have been so many restorations, but the memorials and inscriptions all round the walls and floor date back to the earliest days of the abbey with some excellent sculptures.
Obviously we had to visit the Roman baths, which are just beside the abbey - the abbey floor is warmed by the same hot spring. I enjoyed the statues around the terrace walls but was disappointed to learn they were carved in Victorian times.
In fact it turns out that much of the Roman Baths are Victorian, including all the columns and surrounds, but the more ancient elements (mostly just the foundations and some paving) were interesting and thousands of Roman coins have been found there.
Roman hypocaust pillar
This surround is Victorian, but the warm (40°) bubbling spring water was good to see, if rather green and a little bit funky. Interesting that the Victorians were basing the design on their knowledge of Romans in Britain.
The Sacred Spring
This protected channel is Roman - the Great Drain taking the overflow water down to the River Avon.
The Great Drain
This is definitely Roman - the Goddess Sulis Minerva who the coin offerings were for. She has healing powers so Jamie through a coin into the cold plunge pool for good luck.
Anyway, back to the modern world - look at this amazing meal I had at Plant.Eat.Licious - I’d definitely return there for a meal. It’s crispy cauliflower with other delicious things besides.
A proper little hidden delight in the basement of an old chapel.
We walked a lot, quite exhausting but our hotel was in an excellent central location. Just walking around is a treat as Georgian buildings are rather beautiful - look at all those chimney pots!
There were plenty of coffee-stops for people-watching when we couldn’t walk any further.
We were lucky with the weather except on our final morning when we got a drenching and there was thunder and lightning as we made our way home. Next time we’ll keep a brolly with us rather than leaving them in the hotel and the car!
So now we’re home and I should go and check out the allotment- I know there will be tomatoes to pick… but perhaps they can wait till tomorrow. Song title provided by The Offspring.
Tomato season has arrived on our plots. I’ve been looking up ways to use the tomatoes and passata was the easiest solution so I have some bags frozen now - they should last 3 months.
We used some of it fresh for this tasty pasta dish - it used up the last of last year’s yin-yang beans which I’d pre-cooked in the slow cooker for 8 hours, avoiding the overnight soak.
The British Tomato Association have some nice recipes so I may use the redcurrant tomatoes for a confit, otherwise they’re mostly good for salads or garnish. I was surprised to see that ‘Tomato Fortnight’ is in June which the Tomato Association consider ‘peak tomato season’ - shows the difference between commercial and home-grown! This was another trug from last week.
The radishes, carrots and aubergine were roasted with potatoes and halloumi and the giant courgette was cut into rings and stuffed with a chestnut stuffing.
Jacob’s Cattle, Greek Gigantes and Borlotti
You can see that I’ve managed to dry some beans, just in time as we’ve had some significant rain over the last few days and have measured 20mm on the plot. I may dry the runner beans too as the meagre amount that we’ve picked have already gone stringy - what a dead loss!
We were lucky that the rain stayed away for the Bank Holiday weekend. Hungerford’s Beer and Music Festival was on for three days. We had two lovely afternoons sitting in the Sun, listening to live music and drinking real ale plus the barbecue had veggie burgers - woohoo!
Cheers!
On Plot3 the squashes are trying to fruit - the Shark’s Fin melon (squash) has a couple of good-sized fruits but I’m not sure that the Festival or Taheri Melon squash are going to achieve anything edible but I do hope so!
Shark’s Fin melon squash
So today’s the last day of August, it’s seemed a quick, but beautiful Summer and I hope it’ll continue for a few more weeks giving the rest of our sunflowers time to bloom 🙄 Poor little plant desperately needed a drink that day!
Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush provide the positive song title as we move into meteorological Autumn and see what September brings us….
We had a trip to a local vineyard yesterday with plot-buddies Linda and Ivan. The Winding Wood Vineyard is a rare thing in Britain - it creates organic sparkling wine using biodynamic practices.
The tour was interesting and gave Ivan a few ideas for his grapevines at the allotment - one half of the vineyard is growing the same variety of Pinot Noir grapes as he is. Interesting that they use horsetail-tea to spray the leaves against aphids/fungus - we can help with that! They also use willow-bark and yarrow flowerheads and china-clay against mildew. They don’t do any watering - even this year - as vines have 5m roots. But they have a fancy heating system to avoid frost damage at vital stages - Ivan will need to stick with fleecing.
I wanted this photo of the ripening grapes in row 23 when Linda snapped me 😊
The Winding Wood’s 2500 Pinot noir and Chardonnay vines are 13years old, so about twice as old as Ivan’s.
Winding Wood Vineyard - Chardonnay vines
These are Ivan’s 10 vines - I just know we’re going to find him stripping back leaves next time we see him on site!
Ivan’s are larger than the grapes at the vineyard, which I think were intentionally smaller but about the same state of ripeness. Harvesting will be likely. Be mid-September or October.
It was a very pleasant couple of hours in a beautiful quiet location, so peaceful. And very interesting to see their techniques for growing organically - I think I want to dig out my biodynamic gardening book…
Meanwhile, on the allotment I’ve cleared three areas - the over-Wintering broad beans will go where I pulled the leek flowers up. Look how dry it is! I disposed of the leek seed heads and composted the stems.
The sweetcorn patch has been cleared, apart from a few snapdragons, to get a bit more light to the Jacob’s Cattle dwarf beans which are drying on the plants - I’ll move them into the polytunnel before it’s due to rain. Last year my drying beans got such a drenching they went mouldy on the plants so couldn’t be saved.
Harvests have mostly been tomatoes now. All three of our varieties have produced plenty of fruits - I may need to make some passata to store.
Cocktail Crush, Black Moon, Redcurrant
I had fried veg which included radishes and radish pods - the radishes were really tasty, like a peppery turnip.
It’s a bank holiday weekend and we also get Tuesday off - yay - and the Sun is shining so I should get off my butt. Have a good weekend all. The song is provided by Empire of the Sun.
