Mangomel Melon |
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!
Saturday 9 July 2022
Hot Hot Hot
Sunday 20 February 2022
All These Things That I’ve Done
This week has been all about the weather. Storm Eunice hit on Friday and there was quite a lot of news of trees down in the area but our power stayed on so I could work all day; just looking out each time there was a huge gust. I saw several lorries full of wood clippings where they’d been clearing fallen trees.
We walked to the allotment yesterday and noticed gaps in hedges which weren’t there before. The lamp post in the photo above must have been entwined by that branch a while ago, but it was the first time I’d noticed it.
At the allotment we were pleased to see our polytunnel still standing and only a bit of minor damage. Others weren’t so lucky… here’s one of Ivan’s polytunnels 😔
Plot3 was fine but we’d gained a couple of dalek compost bins.
The North-East corner of the site had even more debris so a few of us did a bit of tidying in the hope that plotholders will retrieve their stuff before the next storm arrives (we have a yellow wind warning today).
I’ve felt a bit washed-out after my fourth COVID19 jab last Sunday, but I hope that’s a sign that it had some positive effect on my anti-bodies… The previous day we enjoyed a few hours on the plot. I divided the beautiful geum into several plots.
I hope they grow and flower as well as the original plant did. I potted on the bay laurel that my sister gave us for Christmas, I’m not sure whether it’s edible bay leaf or not at the moment. Joanne also gave us a lovely little holly bush that we’ve planted on the wildlife plot; the birds will appreciate those berries I’m sure.I did a bit of cooking, using our festival squash and Borlotti beans, as an adaptation of this recipe. That covered me for three meals. Not too sure about using cinnamon in a savoury dish though…Saturday 22 January 2022
First
Three weeks into January already? How did that happen? January always felt like the longest month of the year. Not in 2022 it seems. To be honest, not much has happened. Weather has been mostly wet and when it’s not wet it’s freezing. I forced myself outside one sunny morning and walked up the High Street. The swan family are looking good and hassling people for food.
They’re so big when they walk up to you out of the water! They spend a lot of time preening to look as beautiful as their parents one day. There are seven cygnets in this family.
We’ve visited the allotment most weekends but it’s been too chilly to hang round and too wet to do much, even if we were so inclined. We actually had an excellent snow shower one work-day afternoon; lovely huge flakes and it quickly settled, but 10minutes later it had all disappeared! I’m still working from home and hope I can continue to do so, at least until after my fourth jab which is due in February.
I made a tasty spicy soup, with a Festival squash which had been stored in the polytunnel over Winter. Unfortunately a lot of the pumpkins went mouldy so we put them outside and they’re being eaten by wildlife now. I think I’ll set up a wildlife camera to see who’s enjoying them.Monday 1 November 2021
The Ballad of Peter Pumpkin-head
There goes October, flying by and ending with a pumpkin-filled Halloween weekend.
On Saturday we spent much of the day cooking. Jamie made a roasted red pepper and pumpkin soup, with shallots, garlic and onion.For the main course of our Halloween meal we had Veggie haggis with mushed-up roast potato and celeriac. We used the celeriac that I grew from seed. Although they were extremely slow to grow they eventually produced some pretty good veg - though nothing like the size they sell in shops. We got these two chunks from two plants.
Sunday 10 October 2021
Time of the Season
The mornings have been foggy and dark this week, but this weekend has been mostly warm and sunny. I’ve been prepping for future meals. I do enjoy seeing jars of stored beans.
The Borlotti and Gigantes came from all these pods, which have mostly been drying in the polytunnel. The Gigantes are drying slower than the other beans and haven’t produced so many pods this year.
I filled the trug yesterday, with the intention of doing the podding at home. But it was so sunny that I did it on the plot and it was very relaxing. The Borlotti lingua di fuoco 2 are great; they basically just unzip and the beans pop out. The runners, Scarlet Empire were podded last week and taken home with the peppers. The slugs definitely enjoyed more peppers than us. We’ll probably grow a smaller variety (peppers, not slugs) next year so they’re ready for picking earlier.