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!

Cloudbusting

I took a couple of slices of bread and butter to the plot for a fresh and colourful sandwich 😀 To be honest, it didn’t taste of anything but bread and butter, but it did look pretty.

This sandwich was tastier, with the addition of a freshly picked cucumber, cheese and mayonnaise 😊.  I only recently found out that snapdragons (Antirrhinum) and French marigold (Tagetes) flowers are edible and you can order tubs of ‘fresh’ edible flowers online…! Hoho, I don’t think I’ll bother.

Anyway, enough of that silliness, (though I think my sandwiches may include a few petals more often now). This is a row of nasturtium with self-seeded snapdragons - such beautiful colours, even on a dull day.

We are at the end of July and it’s raining, as it has been for much of this month. But the growth is amazing! This is the Jack Be Little pumpkins and the Incredible sweetcorn.

The Cornell’s Delicata that I sowed is clearly not the bush variety that I’d planned the space for! It’s a Winter squash and I’m pleased to see some fruits now appearing. I’ll try to encourage the plant to grow over the mangetout frame rather than over the path…

Meanwhile our sunflowers have peaked too soon - the measuring is 4 weeks away so we didn’t want them to flower yet. But they do look good and it’s so nice to see them all around site and the bees love them.

This really is perfect growing weather at the moment and it’s a nice temperature for working in - though the HAHA Work on Saturday morning was exhausting - clearing a mass of stingers and brambles from against the site fence near the wildlife plot - my arms were tingling all evening after so much stinging!

Here’s a Timelapse of the lovely bubbling clouds yesterday. We left before the rain started, with a trug full of veggies.

I was eating separately from Jamie so could have chard and fennel which he doesn’t like, oh yes, and asparagus peas 😃 and I used a few baby leeks as spring onions. The courgette had to be picked, but will have to wait a day.

I realise it looks like I was frying coleslaw! This is the mixture of grated carrot, grated fennel, chopped leeks, cornflour and a bit of seasoning. I should have chopped the fennel, or maybe added some of the foliage as the flavour didn’t really come through, but after frying for about 5minutes on each side, then 10minutes in the oven these fritters were very tasty with a satisfying crunch.

This was a teriyaki tofu and courgette meal we had the other night - I found it delicious. No home-grown tomatoes yet but they’re coming on in the polytunnel along with peppers and aubergines.

The French and Borlotti beans are flowering and growing over the old polytunnel frame so we should have some beans to add to our meals in a few weeks…

I’m into my second week of leave (feels like I’ve been work-free for ages) so don’t want to wish the weeks away! We’re enjoying watching England win their matches in the Women’s World Cup - supported by my new gnome 😀 - though the matches are tighter than expected!

Song title provided by Kate Bush - I was amazed to see that I haven’t used this title before. What a great song - but the Cloudbusting can stop now - we’ve had enough rain for the timebeing…

Rewind The Film

It’s here! The new drone video of the site, courtesy of Colin de Fraine. 

I hope you agree that the plots are looking amazing from all the different angles. How dry it is though! Still no rain, thank goodness for the borehole and generator to pump our water.

From Monday it’s National Allotment Week and we’re having a vote for the Plotholders Choice Award for the favourite plot. I hope lots of people join in and next Sunday we’re having a bring-your-own picnic for the prize-giving. We’re not quite ready for an open day with Covid cases still high, so this is the next best thing - also takes less organisation!

We haven’t had any rain all week and aren’t expecting any at least till Friday - hope it stays dry on Sunday for the picnic!

The dry earth makes digging the potatoes easy and they emerge clean, with no slug damage so far - it makes a nice change. These are Nicola potatoes. The tubers are mostly quite small. They’re tasty hot or cold. We’ve had them boiled, as roasted wedges and mashed. 

I had the carrot, fennel and spring onion with mayonnaise in a roll for lunch - yum yum. Only one Florence fennel looks like it may bulb up quite big - nothing like you see in shops though. They are mostly going to seed but are still good as a flavouring.

I enjoyed the last of the pulled Salad Blue potatoes with French beans and these smoky not-chicken bites. They were a tasty snack and added a bit of extra protein to this colourful little lunch.

Green beans, whether runners or French beans, are well and truly on the menu now. The French beans are  Blue Lake climbing French beans. And the cucumbers are just beginning to join most lunches. 

Mmmm, cheese and cucumber sandwiches… we just bought some fancy cheddar cheeses from the monthly Hungerford Food market along with some more garlic oil. I also couldn’t resist buying a couple of pots on the plant stall, including a salvia for the flower patch by our bench. Talking of which, that’s where I’m going now.

The song title is provided by the Manic Street Preachers. Go on, why not take another look at the video? It’s only 2½ minutes long.

Army Dreamers

We have froglets! The tiniest you’d ever see! I’m so happy 😊

There are a least five. The weird thing is that there are still lots of tadpoles which haven’t even developed legs yet. And, weirder still, the frogs are smaller than the tadpoles! 🤔 Here you can see how small this one is compared to duckweed.

After a bit of a chilly start to the week, yesterday was lovely and, because it was a Bank Holiday, the site was really bustling. We planted out our three types of climbing beans: Scarlet Empire runners, Lingua di Fuoco borlotti beans and Blue Lake French beans.

Jamie’s planted the All Green Bush courgette and the Sunburst patty pan. We’ve put slug pellets around these small plants with netting/fleece for protection from the weather and to stop the birds eating the pellets - they are the legal ferric phosphate ones, but we’d still prefer the birds to steer clear.

I’ve sown another row of carrots… 3rd time lucky? And I’m pleased to see some of the parsnip seeds have germinated on the ‘paper towel trick’, so I’ll plant them today.

I finished digging the other trench in the squash tunnel after we’d had a bit of rain at the beginning of the week. So the ground is waiting for the plants now…. They’ve just begun to germinate, so are a bit slower than I’d hoped.

As you can see, Plot3 is still a plot-in-waiting, but at least it’s weed-free now though it won’t be if we don’t get some plants in soon!

Here’s me with fellow committee members, Liz and Richard, with our HAHA-decorated jubilee tree. All the organisations in the town were offered a High Street tree to decorate. And this is what my pompom bees were for, along with seed packet/veggie home-made bunting and decorated flower pots.

We wandered up the High Street yesterday to look at the other decorations. I think it’s a nice idea. Here are a few of the trees. I really like the Nursery School’s golden wellies 🙂

Anyway, back on the allotment. We’ve been potting on marigolds, colourful chard and amaranthus (love lies bleeding).

We’ve had our first harvest of delicious broad beans.

Before applying spray to the annoying black fly, which always breed quicker than the ladybirds 😖

And I thinned the beetroot so enjoyed those thinnings with a halloumi dinner the other night. They were rather earthy-tasting - needless to say, Jamie didn’t want any 😀

The potatoes were earthed-up and fleeced at the end of May as there was concern for a frost. It was fine, only dropping to 3.5° then on the night of June 1st the thermometer recorded 1.4°! But no frost damage.

There are more bees and beetles about and we watched this lovely mullein moth caterpillar chomp through a flower on the wildlife plot (apparently they can stay as a pupa for 5years!) but butterflies and ladybirds seem to be laying low at the moment. We need a few less blowy days I think.

Anyway, it’s time to get back onto the plot. Great song by Kate Bush dedicated to our army of tiny frogs (apparently that is the collective noun).