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!
Coo, that’s chilly! I’ve never seen such spiky frost. Apparently it’s called Rime Ice and the freezing fog will have helped cause it, along with the arctic blast. It’s rather stunning, I hope you agree as here are a few more examples.
Frosted (not barbed) wire
All the wire on site was significantly thicker than usual.
And netting looked hairy.
The teasels were extra spiny.
Especially the stems!
The coreopsis flowerwas still just about recognisable.
And the chard… well!
Even the brassicas didn’t seem too happy, it may have been a bit too icy - even though they’re meant to taste even better after a frost (hmm, I wonder if the whitefly survived).
Cavolo Nero (top) & purple sprouting broccoli
We enjoyed a few bubbles whilst on site.
You can see the bubble just beginning to freeze in this photo. Looks like craqueleur.
This beautiful one stayed stuck to the pot for ages.
Meanwhile Robbie enjoyed a few mealworms. Aww, poor little chap had to puff up his feathers to keep warm.
Anyway, that was quite enough playing in the cold - look at the thickness of the ice!
We’ve had a long day. We got up extra early to enjoy the Hungerford Christmas lights in a proper frosty, foggy Winter Wonderland at 4:30 this morning (4:30!). Only to find they switch the lights off at some point in the night - doh! But the super-frosted spiders webs everywhere were amazing, so it wasn’t too disappointing.
And a few lights were left on for us to enjoy.
So that was today, as the temperatures slip down again overnight….bbrrr. No snow so far, but maybe in the coming week. The White Stripes provide this perfect song title.
It’s December and the countdown to Christmas has begun! The weather has turned from a drenching November to a cold start to the month; not frosty, just grey.
That isn't egg nog - it's carrot and chestnut soup, flavoured with garlic, turmeric and cayenne pepper. I just had to have a taster before storing it to be my lunch for the next few days. It's very tasty. I picked the carrots when we visited the plot yesterday - so c-c-c-cold and we're not used to it. Our carrots have been mostly small this year, but there are plenty of them.
Also whilst on the plot, apart from chatting to a handful of other brave souls (well, we've had a manure delivery which is always a draw), Jamie emptied the final potato bag. They were meant to be Nicola potatoes but something must have gone wrong with the labelling - there shouldn't be any pink ones in there! Anyway, a nice haul of muli-coloured little spuds whatever variety they are.
We picked the last pepper and a few remaining tomatoes as the temperature is due
to drop below freezing this week. I added the cavolo nero to a tofu curry last night. It such a good flavour, shame about all the whitefly. They're pretty dormant on site at the moment but as soon as they warm up indoors they start flying about 😬 so the leaves need a lot of shaking outside and a thorough wash.
I've been having porridge for breakfast and have been using the rosehip jelly that I made in the Autumn - it did set and melts nicely into the hot porridge. (Not convinced that it tastes any different from sugar though!)
We decided to put the Christmas Tree up, as all the lights are up in town and across the road - if I'm brave enough to go out before the sun is up or after it's gone down I'll get some photos. Our tree looks like it has for the last 30-odd years but it is so pretty with so many little trinkets that we've gathered over the years.
And I received a gift through the post - well, it was a prize actually! I came 2nd for my Christmas card photo for the National Allotment Society competition. Here's my prize - that nice book which has recipes as well as growing hints and a bundle of seeds 😊
And this is the photo I entered - from a snowy day in March 2018.
I was going to use the Smashing Pumpkins Christmastime song, which I love but it seems that I used that in last Christmas's post, so here's a great song instead by Kate Bush. Enjoy.
Two days of leave, then a final two days of work before I stop for Christmas - hooray!
As usual, we’re going to have a quiet Christmas and, as last year, it sadly doesn’t include any gatherings or proper get-togethers. But we live in hope for next year if people can be a bit careful and consider the implications of 90,000+ COVID cases every day - the figure is astounding isn’t it?! At least the government is leading by example <ahem>. Anyway, moving on…this is my Christmas post!
Do you like my wine cork reindeers? Finally I found something to do with those corks I can’t help but save! We only visited the cold allotment last weekend to gather some suitable sticks for their legs, tail and antlers.
Our Christmas tree is up and is colourful and full as we like it, with decorations made or collected over the last 33 Christmases and a few from even before we were together, including this little Santa.
This blog is the only diary I keep. I’ve been looking back over the last few Christmases. I’m looking forward to visiting Christmas markets, light shows and lovely Oxford again. In the meantime, we have good films to watch, plenty of food to eat and lots of Christmas cheer to be enjoyed.
Whatever your plans, stay safe and enjoy your time. The song is provided by the great Smashing Pumpkins.
When I opened the curtains on Thursday morning and spotted the moon, I had to dash for my big camera to get a photo and I was pleased to see it was in focus because 10 minutes later the moon was hidden by mist as the Sun arrived.
The HVFB weather vane is on top of the old firestation opposite (now a hairdressers). To be honest, that was the most exciting thing that happened all week. The weather has been cold, though not very frosty and now it's windy and raining as Storm Barra is on its way.
We had a couple of hours on a cold plot on Sunday afternoon, the rain mostly avoided us but we did get to see this nice rainbow. This is a kestrel, but the photo is mostly showing the beautiful clouds. When I see a sky like that I always wish I could paint (or had my good camera with me!)
We did a little bit of clearing but the before and after shots didn't look much different on a typical December allotment plot!
And then it started to go dark, so the Sun provided some photo opportunities. It was more impressive in real life, obviously!
A couple of hours later we took a wander up the High Street to see the Christmas lights.
The blue tree is particularly beautiful and the little trees attached to all the shops are always lovely to see, though the traffic was too busy to show the High Street off in all its glory - perhaps we'll do a late-night visit when the road is empty.
The canal has to be the most photographed part of Hungerford and The Rose of Hungerford often has a starring role. When we drove past earlier there was quite a crowd gathering to have a canal trip with Santa 😊
So apart from that, I have barely moved from the living room in the past week, except to do some cooking...
I made these bean balls with gigantes and runner beans. The smoked paprika tomato sauce was very tasty and the green spinach noodles were a colourful addition. This is the bean balls cooking - I mashed them together with fried shallots and a bit of bell pepper, they were very tasty although not very photogenic.
I'm working my way through a packet of chestnuts and a Festival squash at the moment, so had a ricey-tomatoey meal last night.
And for lunch I've just had cold roasted squash, with chestnuts and a bought salad with lambs lettuce and beetroot slivers.
Sweet and delcious, but now I have to do some more work. I've just seen that a meeting has been cancelled - that's always a bonus! Aah, and a song title from Fiddler on the Roof - haven't seen that beautiful film for years.. maybe it'll be on at Christmas 😏
Halfway through the Christmas break and what a lovely relaxing time we’ve had so far.
Snow was threatened yesterday and we walked up the High Street through slushy ice. We saw some cars with white roofs but we didn’t see any snowfall, just cold, sleety rain.
We received some lovely presents - there’s my fabulous crocheted cardigan from my sister, which I’m living in because it’s so cosy and such beautiful colours.
We’ve eaten lots of food. We had our Christmas roast on the night of Christmas Eve, so Christmas Day’s lunch was a delicious buffet... mmm, so many tasty morsels!
It’s so great having the freedom to do nothing for a week! We watched the extended editions of Lord of the Rings across three evenings (over 10 hours! It didn’t feel like a marathon as it’s just so beautiful).
Jamie stocked our crackers with Lego figures this year, so Santa has some friends (you’re never too old for Lego, surely 😄). I made this puff pastry tart-thing, with sprouts, tomatoes, Quorn ham and cheese - so delicious.
We visited the allotment to cover the broad beans, to prevent them getting squashed under the forecast snow. It’s so soggy but it was nice to be out of the flat, we’re only wearing the masks for effect, we had the site to ourselves most of the time. We saw two egrets fly along the canal as well as long-tailed tits and the usual robins and magpies on site. The weeds are still growing well 😒
So, now I’m wondering what day it is and what can I eat next.... hmm, here’s a rather dubious song by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band... er, it’s not exactly Christmassy so don’t listen too closely!
Now we’re being watched - we’d better not be naughty! This amazing new addition to our festive flat was designed and created by my incredibly creative Cousin Jen. I texted to ask if she had an elf to go on our shelf and within a day this little chap was made and in the post - isn’t he fabulous?!
We are feeling festive. I had Friday off work and feel like I’ve stopped for Christmas, but actually it’s the first year for ages that I’m having to work on Christmas Eve - I hope it’s not busy! Friday evening we saw A Christmas Carol at the Old Vic Theatre - live streaming via Zoom, of course...
It was great; a really good adaptation with some worthy lessons, sadly, for modern Britain. We were drawn to it because of Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead) but there weren’t any zombies in it.
Yesterday I podded the Gigantes beans. Some hadn’t dried out enough, so aren’t suitable for storing. They’re so smooth and white when they’re properly dried in their pods like this.
But this lot, from 4 plants, will serve me well over the next year.
From today we have moved into the new COVID tier 4 which has been specially created for Christmas in the South-East of England, which we just fall within. It’s going to upset a lot of people’s plans, though our Christmas is always enjoyed in isolation.
It would have been better to have made the decision before everyone finalised their arrangements, but with hospitalisation and deaths increasing rapidly the main concern has to be stopping the virus from spreading/mutating and trying as hard as possible to make 2020 the only year that’s spoilt for so many 😔 So, here’s the beautiful Bill Withers providing the title track. I hope you can enjoy Christmas and look forward to a better new year x
