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!
It turned out that my Cornells Bush Delikata squash had survived being stored for nearly 4 months and have become part of this spicy parsnip, squash and leek soup.
All home-grown vegetables and plenty of spices. I have a couple of parsnips left over so I may try making parsnip crisps next time the oven is on - they sound tasty.
I cooked it in the slow cooker - on high, so it probably would have been cooked in 3hours. I left it in for 4hours whilst working this morning and it smelled so delicious. It doesn't look as pretty after (over-)cooking but it is very tasty - I decided to leave it chunky.
I'm trying to get used to using the slow cooker. Last week I cooked beans for 8hours on low before using them in several tomato-based meals. My borlotti and yin-yang beans didn't need soaking ahead of time because of the long slow cook.
We had a lovely day on the plot yesterday, enjoying the Winter sunshine - new word alert - APRICITY. I'd never heard that before but that's the kind of thing you learn when chatting with other plotholders.
Jamie weeded the broad bean plants, which have grown rather tall because of the mostly mild weather this Winter. We put the net cloches back over them as they look rather spindly and vulnerable outside of their little plastic cloches.
I spent some time digging out the remains of our enormous rhubarb plant - we should have moved/split it in recent year and it's has given its all. There was nothing living left in the woody hollowed out stems. Well, one thing - a little mouse (maybe a vole) that I disturbed went hopping over to the hedgerow.
So, that wasn't a lot of work but it did feel nice to be digging in the sunshine. And I spent an hour doing the RSPB bird count but started a bit late in the day so it was a very poor show: 2 great tits, 2 blue tits, 2 magpies, 1 dunnock, 1 robin and 2 woodpigeons - not very impressive! And the Sun started to sink so it got rather chilly.
The song is provided by Prince cos we've bought a new car - a lovely shiny red one but it's not a Corvette, that wouldn't be very good for allotment visits 😄
January sped by and on the non-rainy evenings we enjoyed some amazing skies. The red stripes of this one were so much more dramatic than the photo shows - so beautiful. January offered us two excuses for celebration. Burns Night provided us with a delicious Stahly's veggie haggis and Jamie's version of neeps & tatties, followed by a Scottish film (this year, Shallow Grave).
Then the Lunar New Year, welcoming the year of the Rabbit, meant we could have a tasty mix of pan-Asian (I don't think we can claim it was chinese) fare, including these Itsu bao buns which are the most delicious! Followed by Chinese film Lian Bian (King of Masks).
Perhaps that's why the usually longest month of the year disappeared in the blink of an eye and now we're into February. It's started mild and not too wet so we've had two weekends of some allotment work. Jamie cleared the strawberry bed which has been entirely swamped by bindweed over the last couple of years. We're going to grow the strawberries in growbags this year in the hope that we can recover the area underneath. And I planted up the Egyptian onions (aka tree onions, walking onions) - look how tiny they are!
I should have planted them on arrival but the weather was too cold and unfortunately some of the bulblets were past their best - I hope I at least get a few to grow. I found out about them in a book I received at Christmas from my nephew - it's a little set of old Gardeners Companion books by Dr Shewell-Cooper (I can't help reading it in a Mr Cholmondley-Warner voice, from Harry Enfield 😃). I've also found this useful advice online from the LovelyGreens blog.
The last weekend in January meant it was the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch weekend. Unfortunately the Sunday wasn't a sunny day and the birds weren't very active, but we saw a few. All of these are regulars at the moment and there are actually 3 robins who are getting very aggressive with each other.
At the weekend the weather was quite reasonable, especially in the Sun, and like many other plotholders we decided the time had come to do a bit of ground preparation. Most of the beds look like this... weeds and lots of grass growth. The wet weather has made it easy to pull most of those weeds though and after a couple of hours both days we now have a cleared potato plot with sulphur sprinkled and dug in.
Aaah, freshly cleared earth is such a happy sight! We seem to have created a cliff at one end of the plot - I'm sure that'll settle a bit 😆
It was lovely talking to some of our new plotholders and old ones who we haven't seen since before Christmas. Ivan gave us a couple of plants for our flower bed - an iris (obviously) and phlox. They'll wait a bit before going out as we're expecting another cold snap.
We had some nuts left over from Christmas so I made this nut loaf - this is my version, adapted slightly from this one online. In fact my hairdresser mentioned it a few months ago - nuts, cheese and wine, how could I resist?
It made a big loaf and we had it for dinner 3 nights in a row. I really liked it, very tasty - hot or cold. As with most nut loaves, it refused to hold together but I would make it again (maybe half the size though!)
It's frosty this morning and once again I am pleased I don't have to go and scrape the car before driving to work. Plus I have a short week which is always a bonus! Have a good week all and enjoy this song by Pitbull - this post has a lot of celebration in it so it seems appropriate.
It was bright this morning so we decided to visit the plot. By the time we got there it wasn’t very bright but it was very cold ... brrr. I’m only slightly sorry that the snow started about 30minutes after we got home.
The ground is far too wet to dig, but we decided to weed and trowel over the area where the shallots will be planted. Quite a satisfying bit of work. We’ll get the shallots planted as soon as it dries a bit. If it doesn’t dry off soon we’ll have to start them off in pots.
While we were working we noticed a flock of redwings; it was at that point we decided to do the Big Garden Birdwatch 😊 and had quite a good count:
No sign of the robin unusually and I didn’t attempt any photos. The kestrel was hovering over the site and then we saw him land on an aerial so I won’t add it to the official count.
Yesterday I went through all the seeds and have a planting plan, (I know! Haven’t been this organised for a few years!) Of course, it doesn’t include any offerings from fellow plotholders which I find so hard to refuse and there are a few things missing, but we know where they’re going eg spuds, toms, peppers,..
All the trailing squashes, apart from the pumpkin, are going to form my squash tunnel which I’ve been talking about for years! Ooh, it’s a dangerous thing... to make a plan in the middle of a pandemic, but fingers crossed.
Something I planned for, and did yesterday, was to make some of Shaheen’s Sweet Potato & Cumin soup. I’ve had a taster and am very pleased that it should provide me with 3 or 4 tasty workday lunches. Thanks Shaheen! And a few leftover sweet potatoes to make some roasted wedges for tonight - yum!
The song title is by Tori Amos. The snow has stopped now and turned to cold rain with dripping wet trees. Bye-bye January.
January has sped by which is unusual for this long cold month. The weather has been mostly grey with the occasional frost and some very welcome blue skies but we've only managed a few brief visits to the plot. I was very pleased earlier in the month when I made this sausage and bean casserole with the dried Gigantes, Edamame and Soya beans, using Shaheen's recipe.
Just one problem.... I forgot to actually cook the beans, after I'd soaked them overnight, so it was all wasted - boohoo, it looked so delicious and was going to serve me for two meals! Hence the blogpost song-title.
On Sunday we spent over an hour on the plot, but only to do our bit for the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch. What a wet and miserable day! But I like this little slow motion video of one of our over-flowing buckets.
Most of the birds, sensibly, had decided to stay under cover, but these pigeons were enjoying the berries on the ivy.
So this was our, rather weak, count:
1 x robin
6 x wood pigeons
4 x magpies
1 x blue tit
Our cover was somewhat lacking... the polytunnel has a new sunroof...
Jamie ventured a bit further from the 'comfort' of the polytunnel - look at that weedy plot! Well, it'll have to wait a bit as it's so soggy and we've got a holiday to go on before we deal with that :-)
The wellie-boot remover that I retrieved from my Mum's house has been well-used so far this year.
I'm pleased that the sempervivum (houseleek) which I potted on last Autumn seem happy enough in the wet weather - I do love them.
Jamie and I enjoyed a fun weekend with two celebrations to hijack and make our own - first was Burns Night on Saturday. It's a good excuse for eating our favourite Stahly veggie Haggis with neeps & tatties washed down with a few tasters of whiskey (not my favourite drink). Followed by a Scottish film called Restless Natives from 1986.
And then on Sunday evening we celebrated the Chinese New Year - of the Rat. We had more of a pan-Asian feel to our evening with miso soup, Japanse saki and various oriental items to decorate the room and then watched CJ7 a Chinese film that I've been wanting to see since 2008, it was good.
So this blogpost is brought to you by the colour red - for luck, joy, and happiness over the next year and just a few rats, I'm sure! The song is provided by Ian Dury and The Blockheads.
Last weekend was the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.
It was a wet day on Saturday, so we didn't visit the plot but Sunday I was showing a new plotholder around so I got
to the site at about 12:30.
It was an extremely windy day, but the sun was shining much of the time. I sat in the doorway of the polytunnel, with my flask of hot coffee and big camera, so that I could zoom in on any birds who decided to show up.
The numbers weren't huge, but this is what I saw:
4 x Robins
2 x Dunnocks
2 x Magpies
1 x Wren
2 x Wood Pigeon
1 x Chaffinch
1 x Great Tit
1 x Fieldfare (very exciting that he turned up!)
This is the Fieldfare - they're the same size as a thrush (in the same family). Unfortunately it stayed amongst the branches which blocked my view rather - but I could see enough for identification purposes (we initially thought it was a Redwing).
The magpies and pigeons weren't unexpected!
And we like to see the dunnocks.
I couldn't get any more photos. I showed our newest plotholder around and once he'd selected his plot I returned home to make carrot and leek soup (added a bit too much chilli powder, cough cough!). Very tasty though.
This photo is mostly to show off my funky new cutlery
I picked more leeks than intended because they look a bit ropey at the root end. I'm not sure whether I put the fork through them or if it's bug damage - but there was plenty left after I chopped that off. The HoneyBoat squash is for dinner this week.
I know I like the Honeyboat but I think the Crown Prince was probably the most tasty squash I've had this year. I had two delicious lunchtime salads with cold roasted squash and Peppadew sweet peppers.
I struggled to find a song for today's post, but opted for this one by Beth Orton (no-one's written a song called Fieldfare, unfortunately!)
I was pleased to see the sun was due to shine this afternoon, so got prepared for an hour of birdwatching while Jamie went off to clear some old raspberry plants from Plot3.
I had my logbook (haha, funny, huh?), our new monocular, my fancy camera and hot liquorice & blackcurrant drink (so delicious).
I turned the bench round so I had a better view of the hedge. Our robin, looking stunning in the sunshine, arrived for the worms we put out. Good start...
And, then another robin. Lovely, always nice to see robins.
Jamie saw a chaffinch, but it was flying over so I didn't count that..
And that was it, for 25 minutes. I decided to move along the hedge to another location and start a new hour of counting.
It wasn't so comfy; (I didn't like to sit on Tui & Glen's bench), I sat on the ground, but at least I was a bit protected from the chill wind and it's nice seeing the site from a different viewpoint.
Woodpeckers have been seen in that skeleton of a tree in the centre of the photo. I saw a flock of pigeons fly out of one of the trees and I could hear a lot of birdsong. It was very pleasant, but the birds didn't want to show themselves, apart from these:
5 Wood Pigeons
1 Chaffinch
1 Blackbird
2 Robins
I don't think they were the same two robins that were by our plot!
Where were all the long-tailed tits that we usually see? Where was the bullfinch? Even the magpies and pheasants stayed away!
