Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly

So pleased that we returned home to warm, at times sweltering, weather. The hoverflies, butterflies, bees and other insects are very busy and finally the ladybirds have re-appeared. The rain that fell in our 2 week absence, plus watering by Neal (thanks Neal 👍), has encouraged some good growth - this is the difference in the peppers and aubergine. We had spare pepper plants so we now have several growing in pots as well as leaving some on the Spares shelf for other plotholders.

The tomato plants are looking hopeful for future harvests.

And the pumpkin is growing at high speed, with several viable fruits growing.

The yellow courgette has bright yellow leaves, which is normally a sign of lacking nutrients. We watered it with Epson salts and the new growth is green again. It has a few tiny courgettes at the moment - hope they continue to grow.

Our sweetcorn, sown the day before we went away, have germinated. Not many sunflowers have appeared amongst the sweetcorn but there are a few around the outside and the marigolds have bushed out nicely. The beans that I sowed (Borlotti, Jacob’s Cattle and Gigantes) have been a failure, with just one plant from each. I’ve re-sowed soaked beans now to see if they work better. Luckily the runner bean, dwarf bean plants and broad beans are looking happier.

I pulled the garlic yesterday - some good big cloves and other smaller ones. Can’t believe it’s the Summer solstice already! 

Since being back, I’ve weeded all of Plot7 and it looks much better for it, but I do need to sow a few more veggies there is still a lot of bare earth to welcome the weeds back into. I’ve left plenty of snapdragon and redcurrant tomato seedlings so they can provide a bit of colour and tiny toms. 

The trouble is… if you look the other direction…

Ugh, most of that is Nigella that’s gone to seed and all being choked by bindweed 😫 I’ve weeded round all the growing areas and started chopping down that weedy area to try and get it under control - at least the hollyhocks are looking great and may detract from the weeds once they bloom! In the meantime this creeping red thyme in the herb bed is providing the brightest spot of colour and the hoverflies love it.

Migrant hoverfly

I’ve been watering everything in the morning for the last couple of days and temperatures were mid 20s by 10am. Today is the start of the amber extreme heat warnings with temperatures expected to go up to 35° and maybe more 🥵 And I have a rotten cold - booo! I’ll have to go up a bit later today at least to water in the polytunnel, which is not somewhere to hang around long on a hot day!

We’ve been enjoying home-grown salad (not potatoes yet) with lettuce, sweet turnips, radish and chives plus a few small onions that I pulled whilst weeding.

We’re enjoying watching the World Cup and liking that Hungerford seems a bit more in the spirit for it this time - this is the window of one of our local tearooms (The Tutti Pole) where they always have some sort of Lego display.

And of course we have our England flag and World Cup bunting. COME ON ENGLAND 👏

Fellow plotholder, Maria, and I decided yesterday morning that it’s difficult to improve gardening skills because every year throws us something different. Oh well, we’ll keep trying 🙂 And that is the vague connection to the song title by The Korgis.

Lost

I did some baking 🎉 (it doesn’t happen very often).

Rhubarb, honey & ginger flapjacks

OK so it was only flapjacks but the recipe was specifically chosen to use rhubarb from the allotment and honey from Ivan’s hamper. The honey is locally produced and could include pollen from our allotment as Cobbs Farm is less than 3 miles away as the bee flies. I used this recipe https://foodstak.com/rhubarb-and-ginger-flapjacks/#recipe Adapted slightly; some olive oil as we didn’t have enough butter and a bit of Golden Syrup as I read that honey isn’t always sticky enough. Anyway, it was very tasty and just the right consistency.

The PSB is the only other thing we’re still harvesting though it’s beginning to flower now so not too many more servings to come I don’t think. We’ve been to the allotment every day and have been busy digging the trench for the climbing beans on Plot3 under the old polytunnel frame and I weeded and cleared up the garlic and onion beds.

I snipped off some buds that had grown on a few of the onions and gave all the plants a sprinkle of onion fertiliser. There’s a rogue potato in there so I’ve left it for now, though it did get frosted.

I’ve planted out the mangetout with some sweetpeas at each end and in the middle of the trellis. Hopefully the wire cage will stop the pesky pigeons. We’ve had some sunshine and showers and the plants have already responded quite well. We’ve sown nasturtium and calendula and at the weekend we direct sowed broad beans in the front bed we dug on Plot3 - they have their bottle cloches as mouse deterrent. The broad beans sown in modules haven’t emerged yet, but if they do grow we’ll use them as spares.

We also planted out the Baby Bear pumpkin on the manured hole in the weed suppressant that we dug a few weeks ago. It’s got 3 watering bottles as hopefully the foliage will be so rampant they’ll guide us to where we need to water.

On one really warm day I did some work on the HAHA Wildlife plot, which has been rather neglected of late. Honeysuckle is threatening to take over but there are lots of other plants just emerging which have more light and space now the old dead layer has been cleared. Here are a few of the insects I managed to photograph on there.

Back on our plots, the potatoes have all popped up now so we’re keeping a close eye on the weather forecast - we’ll earth them up today as a frost is forecast overnight. Our last frost date is 13th May, according to historic records, so not too much longer to live with the threat.

Yesterday I dug an area in front of the nursery section. I sowed some  Oasis turnips and transplanted a row of lettuce from the polytunnel - they always look so sad when first put out but hopefully they’ll perk up!

The plots are actually beginning to shape up now, but there are still large areas that need work and I’m not sure where the dwarf beans, carrots and some other items are going yet…

It’s all happening - what a fun time of year! 

The song is provided by the Goo Goo Dolls - we won tickets to see Reading vs Blackpool on Saturday.

By this stage it was pouring with rain and, well, Reading lost - the last match of the season.😞 

Too Late

Autumn really provides us with some lovely Sunrises and Sunsets. This was the view from our window one morning in September and there have been some excellent pink clouds at both ends of the day. At home we’ve noticed bats flitting about when it’s still quite light before dusk and after dark a hedgehog has been trundling through the courtyard.

The allotment is waiting to be cleared, but my heart’s not in it at the moment. That bed has the parsnips and beetroot but almost everywhere else needs clearing. We want to dig a trench under the old polytunnel frame where the climbing beans will grow next year. All the old foliage can go in there but I need to clear the squashes first - maybe I’ll actually do that today…

I’ve planted some daffodil bulbs around the orchard and in the flower plot and I did get round to planting the garlic at the beginning of the month - about 30 Czechmate Wight. Sprinkled onion fertiliser on the leeks, onions and those garlic cloves.

I pulled the last Pink Fir potato from there. Just enough for a couple of meals from some potatoes left on the allotment spares shelf, with 20cm chits! They were very tasty roasted.

At the end of September I cleared the small raised bed - the pak choi had all bolted and the Chinese cabbage disappeared - but I discovered the seed tray where I’d sown All Year Round cauliflower! I hoed and cleared (not dug, brassica don’t want dug soil - luckily!) an area in the brassica cage and stuck 14 seedlings in, so we’ll see…. I don’t know if the whole country is the same but we have hoards of whitefly - in the town as well as at the allotment.

There are still a few redcurrant tomatoes hanging on, but I’m expecting that this was the last meal that included fresh home-grown toms this year - they’ve certainly served us well!

Talking of food - we visited beautiful Oxford yesterday specifically for the regular street food market at Gloucester Green and to visit a museum. 

Gloucester Green didn’t disappoint - so much choice Nepalese, Thai, Lebanese, Italian, Korean with so many veggie options! I opted for a Persian halloumi bowl - so delicious- and Jamie had Chinese dumplings - yum yum 😋 

We browsed the shops including Blackwells Bookstore and visited The Covered Market for coffee and cake at Browns Cafe - it’s a must.

We wandered along streets - a bit dodgy for Jamie at times - admiring the architecture and considering the history in these cobbled alleyways and walls - so beautiful. And spotting the weird features and gargoyles on many of the buildings.

We heard music and when we turned into Broad Street we stumbled across another street market - what a stroke of luck! Being surrounded by so many different nationalities and languages makes Oxford such an interesting city to sit, watch and listen. Oh, and have a little drink of course ☺️

What a lovely, exhausting day! Now, as we’re well into October and it’s not windy or rainy I really should go to the allotment… Carole King provides the great song because we didn’t make it to the museum on time! That’s ok, we’ll be back.

Party’s Over

Tonight is the twelfth night; the decorations are now down and our living room looks rather bare. Yesterday evening we got snow, so that was good timing as a few Christmas lights were still up.

We had to go for a walk in it as we weren’t expecting it to stay long.

We only walked a mile through the snowy streets.

And there weren’t many people out.

All the snow has gone now as we’ve returned to rain, but it made a nice change (some parts of Britain are expecting substantially more than us).

Before the snow arrived we’ve had some very cold and frosty days. Friday afternoon the Moon and Venus were shining really bright in the freezing clear sky (photo clearly doesn’t do it justice!).

On Thursday morning, before I returned to working, we popped up the frosty plot to pick sprouts. 

Brrrr, -4° so we didn’t hang around.

Jamie made bubble and squeak to eat with a nut loaf I’d made - thanks to Janet, my hairdresser, for the recipe which included cashews, walnuts and chestnuts, with a splosh of red wine. Delish!

So there’s a nice start to the new year. I wonder what else it has to offer - all good things, I hope.

Now, where are those seed catalogues?! 

Song title provided by Rag ‘n’ Bone Man.

 

Blurry

We definitely needed the chiminea last Sunday as the temperature wasn’t great before we started our picnic (some call it a wine club, whatever, it’s a lot of fun!).

It was too cloudy for any star gazing that evening but Jamie and I went up after work on Thursday; the one night with clear skies, hoping to see the Comet A3. With Sunset at about 6:00pm and a good western sky view we thought we’d be lucky.

Unfortunately we’ll have to wait another few thousand years to see that one, but we did have a lovely evening nonetheless.

We enjoyed the most amazing Super Moon - so beautiful emerging from a cloud.

And the bats were extremely active.

And very difficult to photograph! They were flitting about really close to us.

The ginger cat was hanging round, but wasn’t interested. Either they were too quick for him or possibly he was too full after catching a mouse in front of us, running away when I tried to stop him and then gobbling part of the mouse when I caught up with him - what a naughty boy!

So, you can see it’s been an exciting week 😊 and also my new pasta spoon arrived - perfect for gnocchi too. We’re trying to get through all the tomatoes which are going red quite quickly in the polytunnel and certainly once we bring them home. Peppers, garlic and cavolo Nero or chard are also included in my meals and I roasted one of the small butternut squashes. The meals were tasty but the squash wasn’t as sweet as I expected.

So that’s it for now. The Sun is shining so we need to make the most of it. No chiminea required today; it’s 15° Woohoo!

Put your feet up and enjoy this title song by Puddle of Mudd in honour of my bat and moon photos!