Talking in Tones

On 1st August, between rainy days, we planted 60 leeks. I think that’s the most we’ve ever planted but they’re such a handy Winter vegetable.

We planted them in the usual way; topping and tailing and dropping them in a deep hole so they hopefully grow with a substantial white bit, then fill the hole with water. They’re spaced so that a hoe can get between them.

Apart from dealing with the leeks, we’ve mostly been sitting and watching. 

The weather is dealing with most of the watering, we just do a bit for the weekly feeding and the items in the polytunnel.

Talking of the polytunnel.. it’s been a welcome shelter a few times this holiday! There are lots of peppers, tomatoes and aubergines forming but the plants aren’t as wild as they usually grow.

The sweetcorn has developed its male flowers, rather pretty pinky ones ones on these Incredible plants, though the cobs are expected to be standard yellow.

Talking of yellow, look at the lovely rudbeckia - we have several of these, all offspring from one plant my niece gave me probably 10 years ago. Beautiful.

And, talking of beautiful, here’s the female bullfinch. We hear their hooting call before we see them. Both parents are with their young at the moment. So lovely to see.

Talking of lovely… I did the Big Butterfly Count by the HAHA Wildlife plot yesterday. The numbers were rather low, less than we’re seeing on our buddleja at home:

I was pleased to see that someone else had reported a count from the site on 23rd July - interesting to see the different species.

Talking of interesting … yesterday was our Flying Ant Day. When the ants fly off to start new nests - see this link for more info. We have so many ants nests in the grass paths on site, I think they’ll have a long flight to find a new nesting site!

And, when did black ants start biting? I’m sure it used to only be the red ones.

Talking of biting … <ahem> here’s a couple of recent tasty meals.

Baked halloumi, courgette, tomato bake with potatoes and asparagus pea

Stuffed courgette with cheese, nuts and carrot with mangetout

And talking of mangetout… I pulled the remaining plants but have left the frame so the Cornell’s Delicata squash can grow up it. It’s gone a bit crazy, but that’s good as it’s the only Winter squash we’re growing.

And finally, talking of frames. We’ve picked our first French beans today which we’re growing up the old polytunnel frame. The Borlotti beans on the other side are winning at the moment.

The Charlatans provide the song title which is why I’ve been ‘talking’ a lot in this post. Enjoy!

The Importance of Being Idle

I was pleased when it was sunnier than expected yesterday morning and we had a lovely few hours on the plot. The clouds started developing while we were digging the area for the leeks. That’s where the broad beans were.

The leeks were sown en masse at the end of that patch - the whole packet. That method has worked for Neal in the past, so we followed his example and the little leeks look pretty good and ready to be planted on. There should be plenty left over for sharing once we’ve planted ours - I don’t think we’ve ever planted them so early.

Apart from that bit of digging I’ve had a relaxing few days pottering around on the plots. We’ve been watching juvenile robins and bullfinches in the hedge, it’s been lovely. The bullfinch father seems to be pointing out the various locations for food by whistling for his young ones to follow.

We pulled a Nicola potato from one of the bags; probably enough for three or four meals. We had all the tiny ones as part of a salad containing 7 other home-grown veggies.

And this is the ice cream dessert with the gooseberry and blackcurrant sauces from Ivan’s fruit. What a treat!

I should have, but didn’t, do the Big Butterfly Count; there’s still another week or so. This brimstone butterfly (I suppose it may not be the same one) has been hanging round Kate’s runner beans for two days now. Our beans are nowhere near this stage! Lots of people are already picking beans and we don’t even have flowers 😖

We do have beans on our Yin Yang dwarf beans though. I was considering eating the pods but it seems that they are best grown as shelled beans even if not dried, so they have quite a bit more growing to do. These are the fab looking black and white Orca beans that were grown from our last year’s collected seed - also known as Calypso beans. 

I mentioned in my last post that the asparagus peas are doing well this year. I let some pods grow a bit bigger and they were very tasty - I boiled them for about 10minutes then cooled them before adding to this Beetroot and Quorn roast salad lunch.

Courgettes are still part of every evening meal and were good with this fried gnocchi in a tomato and garlic sauce. Mmm, I do so enjoy this time of year and I even don’t mind doing a bit more of the cooking.

I did a bit of clearing by the pond - we really need to tackle the bindweed. This scabious is enjoying a bit more light now I’ve cleared some of the Nigella seedheads.

And, having cleared some weed from the pond, a froggy appeared! 

I am enjoying my time off work and I’m pretty sure my cold is thinking about moving on which is why I’m taking it easy 🙂 Great song and video by Oasis - enjoy!

Slow and Steady

The squash tunnel is enjoying the rain - we had torrential showers yesterday. The tromboncino have reached the top first but others are joining them. I have been manipulating them skywards but they do prefer to grow sideways and along the ground. 

We didn’t visit the plot today as we had stuff to do at home, plus Hungerford is jammed up because the M4 is closed this weekend. The Sun didn’t show itself at all and there weren’t even rain storms to encourage as outside.

I’ve finished varnishing the crate that I decoupaged using seed packets, allotment magazines and seed catalogues. It’ll be useful for displaying things at the food festival and other HAHA events when they start happening again.

I made a lovely rice dish last night (well, I thought it was tasty) with turmeric and smoked paprika flavouring. It was just courgette, onion, tomato and garlic - I love this kind of meal and it’s so colourful too.

And I did my Big Butterfly Count in the week. I thought I’d hang round the lavender but all I counted was:

3 x Large whites

1 x Small white

4 x Small tortoiseshells 

1 x Small skipper

If the sun re-appears I’ll try again. I’ve seen so many other butterflies on site recently, so it’s a shame they were a no-show but not so unusual!

I’ve made a Google album showing the different flowers on the HAHA Wildlife plot, it’s looking rather lovely at the moment - lots of pinks and purples.

So that brings us to the end of July and just one day left of my holiday, shame as it’s been a lovely break but I know I have another few days off at the end of August so not too bad and obviously I’m still working from home so no commute - hoorah! The song, by Of Monsters and Men, is in reference to the decoupage, which I see that I started in March - well, there was no hurry 🙂

Count it Up

This was a great week to have off work - amazing weather and now we've also had some very welcome rain. During sunny-ish Friday I chose an hour from 1pm to do this year's Big Butterfly Count for Butterfly Conservation.

I sat near our mass of Common Knapweed, which the bees love.

Raggedy Red Admiral

The butterflies weren't as numerous as I'd hoped. Apart from lots of cabbage whites!

I retrieved this Gatekeeper from a polytunnel.

So the final count was:

• 2 x Large Whites
• 6 x Small Whites
• 2 x Gatekeepers
• 1 x Red Admiral

Shame it wasn't a bee count...

Song title provided by Field Music

Missing

I've started this post off with a pretty Cosmos flower, because I have a few things to whinge about...

Last night the expected wonder of the blood moon was hidden behind thick cloud, so we missed out on our view of the "longest lunar eclipse of the century".

The overnight storms entirely missed Hungerford - unbelievably, just look at the lightning map from last night! We're the little white dot in the South of England and we heard one rumble of thunder and had about 3mm of rain... (I appreciate that not everyone likes a storm, but really?!)

The weather yesterday was overcast and today it's blowing a gale, with an occasional shower, so the butterflies have hidden away and I haven't done my Big Butterfly Count yet. I should have started it when I spotted this lovely Common Blue butterfly in the greenhouse, but it seems like my stats from the allotment may be missing this year - unless we get a sunny weekend in the next two weeks :-(

These are our sprouts. Are they going to grow? They don't look at all happy, but even they look happier than our cauliflowers which are really struggling with the heat and we think it's pollen beetles that are causing the problems with the leaves.

OK, whinging over. Look at our lovely harvest and the courgettes and aubergine were so tasty fried, chilled and added to a salad.

And the Chinese leaf is so delicious - it's a shame only 3 germinated and I had to chop a lot of the outside leaves off because of bug damage - but still, it is much tastier than the normal lettuce - I must sow/grow more next year.
Runner beans are setting on all the plants now and we'll probably be picking some tomorrow... in the meantime we have another supply from Ivan (swapped for an aubergine).

The squashes are growing okay- these are pumpkins, but the ones on my trellis are coming on too.We seem to be way behind a lot of people on site though, who have beachball-sized fruits already!

It's rather worrying that our Crookneck Summer squash is being severely beaten up by the wind today - revealing all the immature vegetables. I hope it doesn't snap off...we tried to secure it but the ground was too hard to do it properly.

We pulled all the shallots today as we don't want them getting wet. There are many more than we thought there were going to be from the 15 we planted. I think the variety is Longor.

The few onions are only just bulbing up so they can stay in the raised bed for as long as possible - but I don't think they'll be winning any 'largest onion' prizes!

The bell peppers in the greenhouse are a good size but aren't changing colour yet - they're all green. As are the tomatoes, but the huge trusses on the Aviditas are just starting to change.

The Lizzano are growing much larger fruits this year - presumably because it's been so hot in the greenhouse (~42°). They look standard size rather than cherries.

So, perhaps I'm just a bit grouchy because I'm going back to work next week and the temperature is about 10° lower today than it was yesterday. It's still been a beautiful Summer (so far) and anyway, I like this song by Everything But the Girl.