Northern Lights

Ohhh, it’s been a busy time at work so I haven’t posted since the early May and now the end of May is almost upon us! 

The good news is that I’m off work for over a week; the bad news is that the weather forecast looks like this…

We have had some lovely early morning plot visits to water seedlings. It’s a lovely start to a working day, but all the slugs and snails are still making their way to their daytime haunts and they are EVERYWHERE 😖.

Turnips have germinated in the ground under that netting, but I think most of the beetroot became slug food, so will need re-sowing. The mangetout is rather thin on the ground too, so that may just be a frame for ipomoea. We’re feeling very slow this year but areas of the plot are gradually being cleared to make way for plantings quite soon…

This plot with our over-Wintered broad beans, will have sweetcorn and a Festival squash. The Lark sweetcorn have started to germinate (several days after sowing in modules at home) and the squash is growing on in the Polytunnel along with several other squashes and courgettes.

You can see that May has provided some beautiful warm blue sky days as well as torrential rain showers. Sunny late Sunday afternoons have been spent enjoying a wine tasting and picnics with Ivan, Linda and other plot friends who have come to join us. 

The birds seem particularly abundant this year, partly because the Merlin app has made us aware of them. We have at least 4 robins vying for the mealworms we take up each visit and I’ve enjoyed hearing cuckoos and song thrushes among many other birds.

I’ve had two lovely meals with dried Borlotti and Yin Yang beans stored from last year. This one with mascarpone and orzo pasta with tomatoes and spinach.

And this one with harissa pesto mixed into the mascarpone and spaghetti with the remaining spinach - so delicious 🤤 

So, you can see it’s been a good month all-in-all! And, how about the song title? How exciting that the northern lights were visible from Hungerford!! And, of course I was aware of them because Jamie had told me and AuroraWatch was flashing red - just one problem… we were tucked up in bed fast asleep so missed the show 🙄 Luckily plot-chum, Kerry, stayed up and got these shots (Thanks Kerry!).

Jamie and I did enjoy looking at the Sunspots through Solar Eclipse glasses, but that wouldn’t photograph so here’s another of Kerry’s great shots.

I wonder when I’ll get another opportunity to use this blast from the past by Renaissance! Enjoy!

Little Red Corvette

It turned out that my Cornells Bush Delikata squash had survived being stored for nearly 4 months and have become part of this spicy parsnip, squash and leek soup.

All home-grown vegetables and plenty of spices. I have a couple of parsnips left over so I may try making parsnip crisps next time the oven is on - they sound tasty.
 

I cooked it in the slow cooker - on high, so it probably would have been cooked in 3hours. I left it in for 4hours whilst working this morning and it smelled so delicious. It doesn't look as pretty after (over-)cooking but it is very tasty - I decided to leave it chunky.

I'm trying to get used to using the slow cooker. Last week I cooked beans for 8hours on low before using them in several tomato-based meals. My borlotti and yin-yang beans didn't need soaking ahead of time because of the long slow cook.

We had a lovely day on the plot yesterday, enjoying the Winter sunshine - new word alert - APRICITY. I'd never heard that before but that's the kind of thing you learn when chatting with other plotholders.

Jamie weeded the broad bean plants, which have grown rather tall because of the mostly mild weather this Winter. We put the net cloches back over them as they look rather spindly and vulnerable outside of their little plastic cloches.

I spent some time digging out the remains of our enormous rhubarb plant - we should have moved/split it in recent year and it's has given its all. There was nothing living left in the woody hollowed out stems. Well, one thing - a little mouse (maybe a vole) that I disturbed went hopping over to the hedgerow.

So, that wasn't a lot of work but it did feel nice to be digging in the sunshine. And I spent an hour doing the RSPB bird count but started a bit late in the day so it was a very poor show: 2 great tits, 2 blue tits, 2 magpies, 1 dunnock, 1 robin and 2 woodpigeons - not very impressive! And the Sun started to sink so it got rather chilly.

The song is provided by Prince cos we've bought a new car - a lovely shiny red one but it's not a Corvette, that wouldn't be very good for allotment visits 😄

Scary Monsters

It’s that time of year again Halloweeeeen, ooh spooky 👻 

Our mini pumpkin was included in the meal, decorated our dinner table and Jamie even managed to carve one, but it was a bit fiddly.

The scary monster is a yellow dung fly - we’ve had another manure delivery to site. Hooray! We had a 10 tonne delivery and nearly half had been carted off to plots by the end of the weekend - we had a few barrow loads.

Behind the manure are our broad beans Aquadulce Claudia which we sowed at the weekend. As usual, they’re protected by plastic bottle cloches and netting. The netting doesn’t protect from everything though 🙄

Our little visitor is back to his friendly self and he joined us in the polytunnel during a sharp shower.

The showers were torrential at the weekend but it was reasonably warm and very pleasant when the Sun came out. We noticed that that the wasps were making the most of Ivan’s grapes, which have sadly gone to waste this year.

They were definitely drunk on them. All binging together - we’ve all been there 😀

It seems that we’re well into Autumn now - November today, unbelievable! The leaves finally changed colour. This is a Creeping cinquefoil leaf, so pretty throughout the year, but it does take over.

Even my little hazel tree looked autumnal.

The pot has some excellent moss forming the ‘forest floor’ for the little tree.

But Storm Ciaran is clearing the remaining leaves off the trees today. I have a day off work, so we’ll go up the plot and batten down the hatches later. First I’m having a toasted cheese and beetroot sandwich for lunch. I’ve always liked cheese and beetroot together, but toasted is even better - totally delicious! Talking of delicious, I made this pumpkin and bean curry the other night - mmm, coconut tastiness but unfortunately I didn’t cook the beans for long enough; even though they’d been soaked overnight they would have needed cooking for 30mins I think, not the 15mins I gave them - they were rather hard still.

I had a bit of good news recently - I wrote a poem (I know! Me!?) and WON a £50 voucher from Nomads Clothing. I love their clothes so I was very pleased 😊 Here’s the poem and the coat it’s written about.

The song is provided by David Bowie.

Changing

The verbena bonariensis is so pretty and I do love the mix of colours with the nicotiana. They’re usually buzzing with life but I didn’t see many bees yesterday, even though it was pretty warm for October (October already!?) and wasn’t breezy.

We had a busy day on the plot and my aching body isn’t used to it! In the morning I weeded and dug this area where the garlic is to be planted. We’ve had a delivery of very well rotted manure to the site so I dug some of that in - a barrowful for £1.50 - bargain. Jamie spent the time clearing, digging and chalking an area where the potatoes had been - for our broad beans to over-Winter.

In the afternoon I spent time clearing the weeds from the leeks bed. The weather has been warm with a bit of rain - the weeds have loved it… the bindweed had started strangling the leeks and the grass and bittercress has also enjoyed a fresh burst of growth. I tried hard to pull out unbroken bindweed roots, but it’ll be back 😩 I’ve cut back the parsnip leaves which had become a slugfest and there's a row of leeks there which have been chomped. Hopefully they'll recover now they can see the light of day again.

Now that the foliage is dying back we can see all the mini Jack-be-Little pumpkins. Those two plants have been happy it seems! We need to get some shelves up in the polytunnel so those little fruits can go in there to cure. Jamie was making some room in the polytunnel today by removing a couple of the pepper plants. I'll use the soil for planting up some bulb pots. So, as well as sweetcorn, we had peppers for our meal last night. They were meant to go orange, but they taste good green too.

We had halloumi and roasted veg - I've started just adding the halloumi to the roasting pan towards the end of cooking rather than cooking separately on the hob - it gives it a slightly different texture but still delicious and squeaky. That plateful has home-grown peppers, sweetcorn, garlic, basil and a few tomatoes (but mostly shop-bought). Perhaps we'll try growing our own onions again next year ...

We've had the last of the green beans, although I'm contemplating whether to save some of the runners for drying...

The beans in the polytunnel roof completely dried and they’re now in jars - I have a few left over for sharing. I know borlotti are delicious but the Yin Yang (aka Orca or Calypso bean) are so fabulous looking; I hope they taste good too!

We think we may have had the last of the courgettes, although there are a couple of new ones appearing - we've been eating them since June! The song is provided by Sigma with Paloma Faith.

Summertime

It’s been another mixed bag weatherwise….

We’ve been to the plot to either water or harvest most days. Really hot if the Sun happens to be shining, but at other times it has been distinctly grey!

But it’s been quite warm and the plants really are loving it.

The Borlotti beans are behaving as planned on the frame. They’ll be easier to pick than the Asparagus Pea (aka winged peas) which are so tricky to spot amongst the weeds and squash foliage!

The asparagus peas are still part of most harvests at the moment along with courgettes…

The cucumbers may have produced their last fruits - well, we still have a supply in the fridge. We pickled a couple in white wine vinegar with dill, mustard seeds and a few chive flower buds on 5th August.

And I even resorted to a peanut butter and cucumber roll for lunch - it was actually very tasty!

On our plot visit, ahead of the football yesterday (England beat Colombia to get to the Women’s World Cup Semi-final!) I was hoping to pick a Florence fennel bulb, but (as usual) they have all bolted - I’m sure they looked ok in the week, but they were still under their protective covering. Frustrating, I should have kept a closer eye on them. They’ll just be composted now.

Plot 7 is looking particularly overgrown! There are lots of Yin Yang dwarf beans and the Cornell’s Delicata squash as well as Jack-be-Little mini pumpkins hidden amongst that lot.

I had to clear alongside the polytunnel as snails have been getting in and eating our peppers 😒 They liked the flowerpots and the mass of Creeping Cinquefoil which has taken over that pathway. I chucked about 30 snails over the hedge - I know they may return, but I’ve at least slowed them down and they don’t have such a handy hiding place right next to the food supply! We shall keep a closer eye…

Our first aubergine is on its way and I don’t want something nibbling that. Such a pretty flower and fruit.

But the prettiest flower at the moment is the second flowering of our Delphinium. This photo hasn’t been edited at all - the sky really has been that blue at times! The plant has sent up at least four more spikes, it’s a beauty.

The flowerbed has quite a lot of Nicotiana now and Verbena Bonariensis is just beginning to emerge. I’m waiting (quite) patiently to see what another plant is which I clearly sowed, in a T-shape, but can’t find a record of… Buds are just appearing..

And lastly, this was last night’s dinner - all home-grown and rather pretty. Carrot and beetroot fritters with chard, potatoes and asparagus peas. Not a courgette in sight, or even hidden (though there are three in waiting..!)

The song is provided by the Fun Boy Three - love this version of a beautiful song. Enjoy the song and the Summer…