Memories

We’ve moved in to October and the cooler, dark nights are upon us though the daytime temperatures have been very pleasant over the last week. We’re still picking a few more tomatoes which I’ve been using with  some basil from my sister to make cheese on toast lunches a bit more interesting.

A cheesey snack

I took the last of the onions and shallots home which have been stored on the allotment since they were harvested in July.

Last weekend Jamie planted our new shallots for next year in the raised bed - it’s been topped-up with more Apsley mulch mixed in with onion fertiliser, the shallots seemed to like it last year. We’ve chosen this long variety this year, Griselle and there are 12 bulbs.

We finally had a single-serving harvest of dwarf beans that we sowed direct in July. We may get a few more but they’ve had a stressful time with droughts and now cold nights. Luckily the green courgette provided me with a bit of side veg for dinner too and I really do think that’s the last one..

I’ve dug, fertilised and mulched the area where we intend to over-Winter the broad beans. We’ll sow them in a few weeks. I’ve also bought garlic and onion sets but I need to do a bit more prep before they can be planted. The Apsleys will need digging in and mixing in the soil for those bulbs whereas the beans should be okay sown directly through the mulch. The leeks are looking rather dry but we have had some rain. One particularly short sharp shower while we were on the plot.

The little pond looks a bit more natural now it has its stoney surround and a bit of gravel in the bottom.

We’ve had a couple of lovely woodland walks, looking for acorns - they are extremely scarce this year, whereas squirrels are abundant 🤔 Savernake Forest is an ancient woodland with some oaks over 1000 years old - amazing isn’t it and very beautiful with the sun dappling through the canopy.

Savernake Forest

The leaves haven’t really started to turn yet but the ground was covered in the super-spikey chestnut cases.

At Greenham Common, Newbury, we walked round the old airbase area. I remember the first time I saw all the barbed wire and armed guards when the US missiles were sited there - it was shocking after we’d been used to going there for the Air Shows when we were younger and Jamie remembers going as a Sea Cadet to hand out pamphlets ☺️

Greenham Common

We parked where the Women’s Peace Camp was in the 1980s, there are information boards about the campaign now, but at the time many Newbury people didn’t look on the peace campers too kindly. I remember going with friends to ‘Embrace the base’ round the USAF base for CND one weekend. It was amazing to see so many thousands of people there. 

It’s returned to its natural state now with no camps, barbed wire fencing, armed guards or missiles - just the missile silos remain - and we wouldn’t fancy eating anything foraged from there.

Greenham Common

Well, after that little bit of reminiscing I really should get moving. We’ve got our flu/covid jabs later so I need to start on that allium bed prep this morning. Just time for one more photo - meet Albie, my sister’s gorgeous new puppy 🥰

Now, please enjoy this song by Maroon 5.

A Forest

So that's the last of this year's squash tunnel photos - I hope I didn’t hear a little cheer - the area is cleared and waiting for the trenches to be re-dug in time for the manure delivery so that I can prepare the bed for next year.

The watering funnels for the squashes do help ensure the water aims for the roots once the foliage makes it hard to tell where the plant starts, but the snails do rather take advantage!

This was last weekend. We found lots of ladybirds enjoying the last heat of the year and a lot of wasps were about too.

It was nice to have another warm weekend, but the weeds will love it if the weather doesn't cool down. We planted the Mersey White garlic bulbs and the Jermor shallots into the raised bed and they got well rained in during the past week.

I removed the remainder of the runner beans, Gigantes and Borlotti from the polytunnel roof drying area and took them home in their pods to dry out a bit more. I podded them today and was interested to find a few pods contained these plain black runner beans. They look lovely; so smooth and shiny. It seems they’re just an aberration of the parent plants, which were Scarlet Empire so I didn’t bother keeping for sowing next year - the pods didn’t look any different.

I’m keeping the beans in a paper bag in the warm for a while to completely dry out. I’ve decided not to bother drying the Gaia soya beans; they’re just too tiny to bother with.

A couple of the Festival squash seemed too small to bother with too, but today I’ve made soup using them. I roasted them first with a bit of oil and cayenne pepper.

There was more flesh than I expected when I scraped them out.

And it’s made a lovely creamy soup. I’ve added some cardamom seed which I hope will give an interesting flavour.

I’m making a pumpkin pie for the first time for Halloween next weekend. I hope it’s easy/tasty so I can use up more of our amassed New England Pie pumpkins. I definitely want the Crown Princes roasted, as they’re such a tasty variety. Not sure what I’ll do with the final green tromboncino - soup probably!

I had an afternoon off in the week. Work has been so busy and I’ve been revising for an exam on Tuesday (I know! An exam at my time of life 🙀) so it was nice to have a bit of time away from the screen. Our planned little walk around Savernake Forest, just down the road in Wiltshire, turned into a 10km walk! 

Our unused-to-walking legs were protesting by the time we reached the car and we never did find the ‘Giant Beech’ but we found the 700 year old ‘Cathedral Oak’ and other very impressive trees and fungi. I was surprised to see that most of the trees are still green.

It’s the time of year for sitting enjoying the last rays of sunshine, with a hot drink - although I was watching Jamie weeding and cutting the edges at the time 😄

The song title is provided by The Cure, there aren’t enough songs by The Cure featured in this blog!