I Cant Help Myself

Thompson & Morgan have added my blogs to their "13 vibrant veg growing blogs"! https://blog.thompson-morgan.com/13-vibrant-veg-growing-blogs/

I hope it means a few more visitors and I hope they will feel inspired. I rather like the words written by T&M, not by me. Maybe it will inspire me to go to the allotment when I get back to Hungerford, which is currently about 20 degrees cooler than Tenerife, where I'm sitting right now!

So, I wouldn't normally write a blogpost while on holiday, but this excited me so I had to share 😃 And The Jeevas provide the title track.

Back to the Real World

We've just had two lovely weeks in Puerto de la Cruz, in the North of Tenerife. I think this is our tenth visit. It's so beautiful and we discover new areas and re-visit favourites each year.

This year we found two other vegetarian restaurants in the town! We didn't get the opportunity to go in because we found them late in the holiday, but it's great to know they are there for next time. We went to our favourite vegetarian restaurant, El Limon, twice.

We arrived at a quiet time that day!

It's funny, though a bit sad, that Puerto de la Cruz caters far better for vegetarians than Hungerford and Newbury do between them! It shouldn't be difficult to put this kind of tasty snack on any menu, surely.

The Risco Bello bar restaurant isn't vegetarian, but it has such a beautiful garden to just sit in. The freshly made mango juice provided refreshment while looking at the plants they were selling and watching the turtles and birds around us.

The barraquito (con liquor) was so fabulous we stayed for two.

We prefer to go self-catering and enjoy the interesting fruits that are available fresh from the island.

Dragon Fruit - looks great, tastes great

Horny Melon - looks great, but lacks flavour

A passion fruit. It never did ripen enough to eat. I should have bought a wrinkly one,
but didn't realise what it was till I studied the receipt!

The cactus jam is amazing! So sweet and delicious on toast. A nice 3-course breakfast is a good start before going out into the ~25° temperatures. We always end up walking long distances up-and-down hills.

And cakes for breakfast too - what a great country :-) No wonder all the walking doesn't stop us gaining weight on holiday!

Lunches were generally cheese or salad rolls. And it's good to share with the locals...

Evening meals weren't always at the apartment, but we had tasty ingredients when we did cook. The little local potatoes are full of flavour and the green mild mojo sauce is coriander-y and creamy.

I've brought a pot of the black garlic home. It's almost licorice-like it's so sweet. I need to work out how to best use it. Spanish peppers grow huge, that one was bigger than my hand and delicious roasted.

Other nights we resorted to more off-the-shelf options, but still interesting Spanish (and German) vegetarian options.

Aah, it's kind of good to be home. We look forward to our next visit to lovely Tenerife x

More photos here, if you're interested.

Home Again...

From our two week holiday in lovely Puerto de la Cruz in the north of Tenerife. It's such a beautiful part of the island and we feel so at home at the Casablanca Apartments.

With the fantastic El Limón vegetarian restaurant nearby in the old town and the bus stop just up the road it's the ideal location for us. The bus journeys are an adventure in themselves and you get to see great views and can peep into the lives and gardens of the locals! It was extremely hot and the hills and heat took their toll so we were quite relieved when the clouds were drawn down from the mountains - still sweltering but you didn't feel the burn quite so much!

Anyway, we're home now so we popped up to the allotment to see how it's looking. I'm pleased to say the sun was shining and though about 10 degrees down on what we've been used to it was lovely to sit for a while. The plots are not so overgrown as we'd expected - the clearing we did before we left was obviously very timely.

Some of the pumpkins are ready - a bit early but they'll keep and we need some for the Hungerford Food Festival next week. And the Cornells Bush Delicata squash are looking good.

The Lizzano and Sungold tomatoes have trusses of lovely ripe toms for us. Some of the tomatillos are huge and have burst through their lantern sheaths.  Thanks to our plot buddies (Neal & Ted) for keeping the greenhouse watered!

The gherkins haven't quite grown as intended - they were meant to be tiny cocktails gherkins...

An unexpected bonus is the radish rats tails. The plants appeared to be devastated by weevils but they had a new lease of life and they're now covered in flowers, bees and tiny radish-flavoured 'chillies'.

While we were away the local newspapers had photos from the Hungerford in Bloom awards. I don't actually call nyself 'Belinda Thompson' but it's all good publicity for the allotments!

Shows and Showing

I've been so busy over the last couple of weeks I haven't had a chance to take photos, let alone blog! Suffice to say we've been living on courgettes, potatoes and cucumbers!
I'm very pleased to say that the Open Day went really well yesterday and, given the dull, wet weather we've had over the last couple of weeks we were extremely lucky that the sun shone for much of the afternoon.

Plotholders are so generous with their time: cooking delicious cakes, savouries and pickles; digging crops to provide produce and of course helping out with the stalls. Others brought family and friends along to show off our site in all its glory during National Allotment Week. We even gained a couple of new plotholders on the day! No-one visiting the site could imagine that we won't be here this time next year - we should find out the future of the site next month...

It was so tiring yesterday I was happy to have a relaxing day today, picking veg, watering and chatting to plotholders in the warm weather.

I'm selecting a few things for showing at the Horticultural Show next Saturday. It's the first year that HAHA are helping the Royal British Legion so we're hoping lots of plotholders will join in. It's a small affair with the emphasis on fun and friendly competition. Jamie and I won't have very much to show - our runner beans are only just getting big enough to eat, so I'm out of the running for the longest runner this year - damn! That's one of my favourite exhibits. (Looks like there will be runners on the menu this week though!)

 I've hung all the garlic in the greenhouse - cleaned up and dead leaves removed. And there are some onions drying in there too - phewee, it's pretty strong in there!

There are a few of our silverskins drying in there too, but most are still in the raised bed to grow a bit further.

We may have some tomatoes for the show but I'm not sure we'll ever get a whole truss of red ones! These are our Lizzano. Still our favourite variety to grow outside. The Sungold in the greenhouse don't seem so prolific and are more fussy with needing their side-shoots snipping all the time.

Here's another bit of colour - on our raspberries. Not enough for a bowl-ful or jam (at the moment) but perhaps we'll get more, though they aren't under protection.

We emptied one of our potato bags with the Tenerife potatoes. Probably about the same amount as we got from the one growing in the ground.

 Jamie also pulled a Kestrel potato, which had masses of tubers.

In that photo you may notice our first celery, which is rather bitter but seems to have worked, and also our first Crystal Lemon cucumber and one of plot-neighbour Neal's lettuces - I've got a tasty salad planned for lunch tomorrow!

Also one of our purple carrots, though it's not as purple as other purple ones we've grown. What an exciting harvest!

Te presento...

Papas de Tenerife! Our first harvest of Tenerife potatoes!

And they really were that bright - (though we did spray water on the tubers so they show up a bit better against the earth). As you can see, they seem to grow very close to the top of the plant. There weren't any tubers lower than the top mass of roots.

Some of them are tiny (less than 3cm) but we think that's how they're meant to be pulled - the largest is only 6cm. Not sure how the plants in bags have fared, though the haulms appear to be similar to these which were planted in the ground.
Some of those little chaps will become part of the roasted vegetable dinner I'm doing later - it will consist of beetroot, garlic, onion, carrots, courgettes and a couple of florence fennel bulbs. I'll dauphinois some of our rosabelle potatoes to go with the roasted veg. Delicious!

We also got a bit of sowing done in the howling wind: Boltardy beetroot, salad onions, Kohl Rabi, Pak choi, Chinese radish, lettuce and rocket. That should extend our salad eating to coincide with our tomatoes - well, that's the plan... If it doesn't all get blown away!

Our new plot defender!

Loving Life on the Allotment

Two sessions on the plot today as it was so warm and pleasant. In the morning there were lots of plotholders on site tending, planting and sowing which is so good to see. The worked plots on site are looking great at this time of year.
I made a pretty salad at lunchtime from the radish and salad leaf that I had to move in the raised bed. It may be small but it was a hot little plateful with chives and par-cel for extra flavour.

We got a lot done on the second warm, dry day of this bank holiday weekend. Jamie mowed and we trimmed the edges of the grass paths in an attempt to keep the slugs at bay.

Rhubarb is doing rather well this year

I planted out 12 of my fennel (florence - bulb) seedlings - really hope there are still 12 when we go up tomorrow. I added some slug pellets and mesh to stop the birds eating the pellets (or the disgusting remains of poisoned slugs). I have a second lot of seedlings which don't have their second leaves yet, so they can go out in a few weeks time.

Florence fennel in the raised bed

I potted on the French marigolds and the Russian Giant sunflowers. The marigolds will go all over the place as they're so bright and pretty. They're also going alongside our sprouts as they are meant to deter whitefly.

They'd probably be ok going in the ground, but we haven't sorted out where they're going yet, so we're hardening the sunflowers off outside along with the leek seeds and sprout seeds which won't appreciate the heat in the greenhouse.

The courgette and squash really want out too, but they're heading to Plot3...so have a little more waiting to do.

The wild flowers, radish, stocks and Silverskin onions that we sowed last week are up! And 3 little gherkins have germinated - hope the slugs leave this second sowing alone...

The Tenerife potatoes in the bags and the ground are looking ok (well, the foliage is). We're not sure if there may be a frost later this week, so we're holding off earthing up until we know.