It’s a Beautiful Thing

It’s been rather rainy and feeling rather Autumnal, but I have a few days off work for the Bank Holiday so that’s a bonus!

I’ve been a bit poorly so didn’t make it to the Horticultural Show - I only had a few photos and a ‘longest runner bean’, which wasn’t record-breaking, so I decided to have a slob day instead. The Sun eventually came out in the late afternoon so we went up the plot to feed everything after they’d had a good drenching.

If you you look at my Wildlife on the Allotment blog, you'll see that we've recently been watching what goes on when we're not on the plot - we aimed the wildlife camera towards the water bowl. The hedgehog(s) are a regular visitor, the fox has been seen a couple of times as has a mouse, along with the big fluffy black cat and Marmalade/Major/Orlando - just 3 of the names the ginger cat has! The magpies are ever-present and looking a bit bedraggled at the moment - assuming this is one of the parents.

The female pheasant still has 2 chicks left and it's usually a shock to see her when wandering past an overgrown plot. One of the not-so-little ones is more adventurous than the other. 

The squirrel is also a regular visitor. It doesn't usually venture as far as Plot7 when we're there, but we've seen it under the trees by Plot3 and in the hedgerow. In one of the captures it was bundling up moss so appeared to be collecting nesting materials and it's certainly enjoying burying things for Winter.

We put the wildlife camera in the polytunnel for a couple of nights. Apart from a mouse and the hedgehog trundling by the only other thing we captured was birds - enjoying an early morning dust-bath! We think they're wrens.

We've had a few plot visits, to pick a few things - mostly cucumbers and that one tomato (we have had a few more than that!) from the outside plant.

And Jamie pulled a Desiree potato - some whoppers in there and, dare I say it, no slug damage!

Here's another calendula with raindrops - such a beautiful flower. I can remember them being my favourite when I was little.

And another trug. Although our runner bean and french bean plants were pretty decimated by slugs early in the year, they are producing plenty of tasty beans. The stripey courgette looks good and ... have I mentioned the cucumbers..!

So, with 3 days left of my bank holiday break, I'm feeling in the mood for a picnic so looking forward to that later this afternoon and if we're lucky we may get a bit of star-gazing in too. Enjoy the Bank Holiday and here's a song to start the day...Ocean Colour Scene - beautiful 🎶

Late in the Evening

At last we have more variety in our harvests. That was our second potato bag with a better haul of (Rocket?) spuds. The Cavolo Nero was used as crispy seaweed in a Chinese meal.  The warm and showery weather over the last couple of weeks has made the plot and this plotholder a lot happier as our beds are finally filling up a bit.

The climbing beans tunnel looks quite sparse but is producing a surprising amount of beans and lots more flowers too.

They were part of this early morning, pre-work harvest along with our first courgette (the plant has been sitting in a pot for months with the weather refusing to let its fruits mature!) and our first cucumber. Mmm, home-grown mini-cucumbers are so delicious.

The larger turnips were past their best so went to the compost, but the little ones were tasty roasted with potatoes.

And this trug has our first harvest of tomatoes (well, the first that have gone home), radishes, stripey courgette and some leggy carrots (purple and orange).

We had a tasty salad with 7 home-grown ingredients. The imperfect carrots in mayo made an excellent tasty coleslaw.

These ipomoea were from seeds from my Cousin Jen. Such beautiful colours and they’re beginning to climb the frame now. Related to the dreaded bindweed, which I’m still fighting on our plot. We had a HAHA workday this weekend where we cleared a plot which has been given up. It was completely covered in white-flowering bindweed. We’re not fooling ourselves into thinking the problem is gone but now it’s covered in a plastic sheet for a while it’s at least contained. It’s been a particularly good year for bindweed 😖

The female pheasant, with her remaining two chicks likes the un-loved plots, but they’re less popular with the neighbours! The pheasant herself also has her fans and her haters!

It was breezy and unexpectedly misty and perfect for a bit of digging, so I cleared the area on our plot where the broad beans were and the leeks will soon be planted.

You can see that the soil is actually bone dry as soon as the Sun appeared.

My brother gave me these bees for my birthday, thanks Tim, they look great on the toilet which we can see from our plot and the communal area.

At our Sunday picnic last week we made use of the donated Chiminea when the Sun had gone. It was lovely and we enjoyed seeing bats zipping about around us, such fun.

Which gives me the opportunity to use Paul Simon’s great song title - dance-along now!

Give Me Just a Little More Time

Mmm, look at those little jewels against the blue sky - beautiful! Uh-oh, I see a snail got in the picture to confirm it’s 2024! Jamie made a sauce with the redcurrants from Ivan’s communal fruit cage.

Luckily Ivan is a regular visitor to maintain the fruit bushes as the HAHA ‘community’ element hasn’t gone quite as well as we’d hoped. Perhaps we’ll have a more time later in the year to manage it a bit better. With the weather, work and even our social life slowing our progress we are just about now catching up with things. Not that work and socials have been unwelcome! We enjoyed our second wedding of the year last weekend in the beautiful Shropshire countryside.

What a fun event, interesting slant on the traditional with guests including Darth Vader and Robocop 😀. Our night in the Shepherd’s hut was cosy as the rain poured down but the Sun shone when it needed to on the day, although it was very cold - pity the poor Cypriots who had come over for a Summer wedding and the campers! Great food, company and entertainment kept us cheerful though 🙂

Since being home we’re still enjoying broad beans and strawberries and I’ve included garlic scapes in a couple of meals as a tasty mild garlic addition.

We’ve planted out our beans to grow up both sides of the tunnel frame again: runner beans, French beans and the two borlotti that actually germinated. That’s the valerian in the background, still producing a lovely scent.

The Lark sweetcorn are planted out too - they’re so small we’re leaving their little protective cloches on for a while. And we have two Festival squashes planted in that section to clamber and provide some tasty Winter squash hopefully. The Halloween Orange peppers are planted in the polytunnel and the mini cucumbers are planted in pots on Plot3. So things are progressing at last.

Signs of things to come on the yellow courgette that’s growing in a pot, but not much movement on the ones planted into the ground. We have leek, carrots and beetroot seedlings but I’ll have to get a magnifying glass to see any evidence of salsify or parsnips 😖

We’re mostly doing pre-work visits for watering but last Thursday was the start of a ‘heatwave’ so we enjoyed our lunch sitting in the sunshine for a while. So beautiful as the bare earth is beginning to show signs of planned growth all around. I finally started clearing the unplanned growth on the last quarter on Plot7 today but the earth is like concrete. I cleared the front of weeds and sowed a row of chard and a row of radish, with the intention that some will go to seed to produce the peppery pods.

I was attempting to clear some other weedy areas on Plot8, but there are so many, with bindweed being the worst by far. These two varieties (double or single-flowered) of feverfew arrived naturally and put on a great show each year.

These pretty flowers are spreading on the wildlife plot, they’re so bright and cheerful plus they have a great name ‘Fox and Cubs’ aka Pilosella aurantiaca.

The teasels have almost taken over (we were warned) but they are so impressive and the bees love the flowers then the birds love the seeds.

One more week of June - all going a bit fast, isn’t it?! Leading me to the title song by Chairmen of the Board.

Sorrow

I’ve been offline for a few weeks and the season moved from some sweltering late Summer days to rainy Autumn ones, although it’s a dazzling blue sky this morning.

In the mornings and evenings it definitely feels like Autumn.

Harvests have been plentiful and colourful. 

The French and runner beans have been feeding us well. We were late with the runners so they’re not stringy yet. I may pod some of the French beans for drying, but I probably have enough dried beans…

Most of the Borlotti and Yin Yang are being dried. I move them from the polytunnel roof drying mesh before the pods pop open.

Flowers are beginning to die back, but the Scabiosa Stellata are now in their prime - their seedheads are only small, but so pretty.

The Spanish Flag began to show flowers at about the same time as Spain beat England in the Women’s World Cup final, but September put on a full show.

The calendula have been stunning, but really need deadheading daily.

The two courgette plants just keep producing. We’ve had to share or compost some giants but they keep on coming!

And sweetcorn is now on the menu, for lunch most days. A few of the stalks had been blown down (or dragged down by the weight of the mini pumpkins), but the cobs are excellent; Incredible are not as sweet as our normal Lark variety, but are delicious.

The radish flowers have been so pretty and the pods have been a tasty, hot, on-site snack and addition to salads/stir fry. So many pods that I pickled some and added nasturtium seeds which are extremely tasty when fresh so I hope they’re good pickled.

The song is provided by David Bowie and reflects the current feeling as we said goodbye to my mum who made it to her 95th birthday but pretty much decided that was plenty and fell asleep. A terrible time for us but doing our best to remember the good times, of which there were many.

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!