In the Morning

Early morning visits are the norm now. We have a pleasant hour on sunny mornings, enjoying the wildlife, removing covers in the polytunnel, watering all the seedlings then back home to log in to work. The temperatures have been in low single digits in the early hours but warm up quickly during the day and the polytunnel gets really hot, so we go back in the evening to cover the seedlings up for the night.

Hawthorn - before and after pollination

The hawthorn in the hedgerow has bloomed over the last week and the scent is quite over-whelming. So beautiful especially with the blue sky and sunshine we had this weekend. It was windy so we were being continually showered with confetti.

Jamie mowed the paths while I stared at the tadpoles; there's at least one frog in the pond too, but it's laying low at the moment except for the occasional splosh. Jamie's sown our Lark sweetcorn and we're pleased that the Jack Be Little pumpkins germinated in the week - the plan is for them to trail around/over the sweetcorn plants. The Baby cucumbers, Bush Delicata squash and Mangomel melon are also in that tray. They need to grow at least another pair of leaves before we plant them outside.

I’ve transplanted the Radish Rats Tails and some of the larger of the Asparagus Pea seedlings. The six biggest plants I’ve actually planted out, but I’ve given them some cloche protection as they’re tiny and looked too vulnerable out in the big wide world!

Talking of the big wide World, we went to Newbury for the Vegan Food Market on Sunday. It made a nice change to be out for something other than the allotment or an appointment!

What a treat, people-watching in the lovely warm sunshine. And look at the plant-based hot dog I had - the Colorado Mountain - so delicious, makes me wish I was growing gherkins again as it was stocked up with them and other amazing fillings with a plant-based sausage in there somewhere!

The rest of the weekend was allotment-based and we got a lot of tidying done. Trying to keep our edges neat so the snails have fewer places to hide. I found about 20 giant snails in my 3 chive plants during the week!! I flung them over the hedge (the snails, that is) and they haven’t returned…yet.

The chive flowers are so pretty. I usually start making chive flower vinegar at this time but I’ll let the bees enjoy them for a while because there aren’t many other flowers available on our plot at the moment. (Note the neat edging).

 

We do have a few flowers but these aquilegia are by the polytunnel so aren't very noticeable - it's another area that could do with a tidy and improved edging.

 

All the potatoes have burst through - the ones in the bags have the same amount of growth as these in the ground. We did top them with a bit of soil the other night because we thought there may be a frost, but it was ok. The temperature at Marsh Lane is about 3° lower than in the town so we're keeping a close eye on the forecasts.

I sowed all our beans into root trainers yesterday. Eight of each variety: Yin Yang dwarf beans (home-saved), Scarlet Empire Runner Beans, Blue Lake Climbing French Beans and Firetongue Climbing Borlotti Beans. Hopefully they’ll germinate in the polytunnel and then the climbers will be planted to grow up the old polytunnel frame (previously the squash tunnel).

That was a most enjoyable weekend but now it's time for work. Have a good week all and happy growing! Here are The Coral.

And It's Still Alright

I made these very tasty carrot and bean burgers on Saturday. I used this recipe for my dried borlotti and runner beans from last year and fresh carrot and shallots. Our shallots actually turned out better than we initially thought, so we’ve been using them instead of onions for a few weeks now. I used a little turmeric and cumin rather than coriander and cumin. I didn’t bother adding the flour, they held together well.

Now that we’re halfway through October we’ve not been visiting the plot every morning, it just depends if we need to pick anything, water the tomatoes and peppers or close down the polytunnel. Thursday morning we were swathed in a thick fog - thank goodness for no commute!

Two days before that we had a proper frost and another day to be grateful for working from home. We had to scrape ice off the car and just look at the grass on site. The lowest temperature in the zipped down polytunnel had been -2.8°

That finished off the zinnias and most other things which weren't in sheltered areas on the plot. We noticed that the hedge offered protection from frost as did Ivan's grapevine.

We've almost managed to eat all the sweetcorn this year - probably just one reasonable one left on the plants for this week. And we're taking Crimson Plum tomatoes home as they ripen (or get close). The Lizzano outdoor tomato got frosted so no more tiny toms from that bush - it's yield has been a bit disappointing this year with some of the tomatoes being the size of blackcurrants and a lot splitting - obviously the weather is getting the blame for that as it usually produces delicious cherry tomatoes.

The Love-Lies-Bleeding has also not enjoyed getting so cold. I was thinking of harvesting some of the 'grain' but I don't think I will now - I'll leave it for the birds, though I haven't seen anyone enjoying it so far.

One plant that hasn't been upset by the frost is our cavolo nero. I've seen it looking good in the frost on other people's plots in previous years. The white fly are crazy on site and you just have to touch any brassica leaf to be surrounded by the tiny moths. It seems that they are frost-resistant too.

I stripped a few leaves off yesterday and after much shaking to rid it of whitefly and a good wash I blanched it then stir fried it for a bit with olive oil, garlic and tomatoes. It was a delicious addition to my all-home-grown meal last night. I can see that it's far superiour to chard... It doesn't appear to have been affected by caterpillars/slugs so I wonder if it can be successfully grown outside of the netting - I see a few people on site have done this, I shall have to inspect their leaves!

Yesterday was warm when we visited in the afternoon. As with most visits now it was mostly about tidying. Jamie did some strimming, weeding and clearing the zinnia from the raised bed while I did a bit of digging. I do enjoy digging. Look how dry the earth is, we've had some rain but it disappears quickly. We haven't worked out our plan for next year so we're not sure what's going in this plot in front of the broad beans, but I wanted to clear all the grass and other weeds that were threatening a take-over, as you can see from around the Love-Lies-Bleeding. I couldn't bring myself to pull up the self-seeded broad beans and one of them has flowers on.

In the week Jamie bought me a celeriac and chestnuts to make soup. Unfortunately we had two apples left over and seeing this recipe, I thought I may as well use them up. The apple made it far too sweet for my taste and rather ruined what would have been a delicious soup 😒
My friend from work suggested adding chilli to detract from the sweetness. It worked, to a certain extent ...

So, another weekend passes in a blink of an eye 😔 Back to work, oh, I'm already here! Have a good week all and enjoy the song title provided by Nathanial Rateliff, because the year may be flying by but, no matter what's going on in this mad country we're currently living in, so far, it's still alright...

Ugly

The weather has been rather changeable. When the sun shone it was lovely but not so good when the cloud took over and that mass brought about 5 spots of rain with it, so the earth is still really dry.

This weekend we had two days of clearing away the three bean wigwams and then we dug the area for our broad beans. We've also managed to do a lot of weeding; it still amazes me how well the weeds grow with so little rain. The nigella have spread seeds and seedlings everywhere - beautiful, but rather a nuisance!

The remaining borlotti beans are drying on netting attached in the top of the polytunnel. The smaller squashes may go up there later when we need to use the chair!

More of the tomatoes are finally ripening but the peppers are remaining obstinately green. With the temperatures dropping to about 4° most nights I wonder if they’ll ever ripen…but you know some good things do come to those who wait. This Chinese Dragon radish was sown months ago, did nothing during the heatwave and finally started to appear a few weeks ago. I thought it would be woody, but no.

It’s hot fresh flavour was a great addition to this lunchtime potato salad with raw beetroot and Chinese cabbage thinnings.

I bought a julienne peeler recently and it’s perfect for carrots and radish but the beetroot was a bit too tricky and messy, so I just sliced that really thin. We’ve been enjoying carrots and pak choi in a couple of stir fries recently too, the Blue Dragon sauces make life easy. But as I’m mentioning brands, if you see these Itsu Bao buns for sale, buy them! They’re so delicious! Talking of delicious..Here’s the bean, carrot and courgette meal I made the other day with last years beans, a can of chopped tomatoes flavoured with smoked paprika, garlic and a little rose harissa.

Someone had cut back overgrown sections of the allotment hedge, so I thought I'd pick the rosehips if the birds aren't going to get to eat them - there are still plenty in the hedge for them. This is the recipe I intend to use to make rosehip jelly which I've never made before. The author of that recipe is quite funny and she is so right - the thorns are so nasty!! I'm a bit concerned that the irritable seed hairs get mentioned quite often in recipes, I hope my draining bag is fine enough to capture them...

The zinnia flowers are still creating a buzz - sorry 🤭 - with bees and hoverflies. I think this is a Common Carder bee (David, please correct me if I’m wrong!) and the hedge is alive with buzzing insects on the ivy flowers. We've also seen a dragon fly zipping about recently - such a huge insect but it never sits still for a photo.

So, you may be wondering, why the title song by the Sugababes? Well, Jamie dug up our single Desiree potato plant and …

Oh dear they're really not pretty and though a little scab on a baked spud can add to the flavour I wouldn't want to risk one of them! That’s what a dry Summer can give you. I just hope they taste okay once they are peeled and mashed. And here are the Sugababes.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

I remembered we have cucumber moulds, so the continuous supply of Baby cucumbers are now looking different. 

As long as they’re sealed in a plastic bag in the fridge they are still perfect after 3 days. I’ve seen some tasty recipes for them, but we’ve mostly been having them in sandwiches or with hummus dips. Jamie has made this soured cream salad with added tomatoes and salad onions a couple of times which we’ve enjoyed.

The big news this week is, of course, the weather. After the super extreme heat it actually rained - proper rain, with thunder and lightning two evenings in a row! The plots looked much healthier as a result.

On Tuesday morning we were greeted on site by a ‘flight’ of swallows (I prefer the collective noun ‘gulp’ actually) on the overhead cables and it was marvellous when they all swooped off together. And there was also a flock (a ‘charm’) of goldfinches. It was a beautiful morning actually, shame I only had an hour. The birds were clearly relieved that the rain had arrived and the extreme heat had past (thought it was still very warm).

Tuesday evening we had the most torrential downpour. We opened the windows to enjoy that welcome sound and smell.

The next morning the rain gauge showed it to have been a proper drenching - 25mm in one night.

Too late for the French beans (right) which seem to have gone over very quickly but the runners (left) are still producing flowers at the top and the borlotti/gigantes wigwam (centre) is looking bushy and healthy.

I needn’t have fretted last week. As Flighty pointed out, the cob tassels will soon arrive after the flowers start providing the pollen. And here they come on the Lark sweetcorn.

And look! The Lizzano outdoor tomato has given it’s first fruits - what a feast 😁 Well, it’s quality not quantity that counts! And you can see, there should soon be more…

Trugs are colourful at the moment with the chard and more of the Salad Blue potatoes. 

Also a Nicola potato and I podded those French beans to have with orzo (a pasta, which rather seemed like slippery rice on eating), What the Cluck and a sun-dried tomato pasta sauce.

Last night I used chard to make a sort of colcannon with the Nicola potatoes. It was very tasty, but I think I should have made sure there was less water in the chard before mixing with the spuds. Although it wasn’t sloppy, it didn’t quite mash properly. It’s served with What the Cluck and garlicky-shallots.

Today it’s feeding day for the plot, though it’s certainly beginning to feel a bit Autumnal which is sad. It’s still a lovely temperature and no rain expected today. Even the clouds in the photo below, from yesterday, didn’t produce rain. It’s probably just because we’ve got used to blue skies and sweltering heat. But there are plenty more flowers and veg on their way, lots of deadheading to do and surely more cucumbers and courgettes to pick!

Aah, this song will pretty much sum up today I think. And what a great song by the Small Faces! Can’t believe I haven’t used it before. For the rest of today, I shall be mostly speaking in cock-nay 😆

The Last Film

Our new trug - thanks Joanne

Today we’re hoping to have another drone video filmed over the site by Colin. Thank goodness the wind has died down from the blustery days we’ve just had, would be nice if the sun shone a bit too. This is the film he produced 8 years ago, in April 2014.

The site is looking much more loved now, which I hope will be apparent from the air. It’s just a shame the ground and grass is so parched at present.

I pulled one of the Salad Blue potato plants yesterday. A good number of tubers and they’re certainly blue!

We finished off our first harvest of Nicola potatoes with roasted veg and halloumi last night. The halloumi is on fried courgette slabs (thick slices).

That meal and the cold roasted veg that I had for lunch turned out much better than the large stuffed patty pan I cooked the other day. The patty pan refused to cook through and I had even boiled the whole thing for 15 minutes prior to stuffing. I had to eat round all the hard bits which doesn’t make for an enjoyable meal.

My sister came to visit us on the plot at the weekend. It was lovely chatting in the warmth and showing her what’s growing and what’s not. Her zinnias at home are in flower but ours seem to be rather slow. However, this comparison from 4 weeks previous shows how far they’ve come on though not as much as the pot marigolds.

The chrysanthemum at the back are shorter than I thought they’d be, but they’re extremely pretty up close.

This River Lily on the wildlife bog garden (not so boggy at the moment) is rather beautiful too. While I was doing a bit of weeding there a small frog (about 2cm) bounced in front of me. I wonder if that is one of our home-grown ones.

Our pumpkin plant has grown one pumpkin, it’s already football-sized (“Come on England!” 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿) but the plant seems to be stopping any other fruits from growing; they drop off very early. We think it may be due to the weather, or perhaps we’re going to have one GIANT pumpkin!

I attempted to plait my garlic, but couldn’t do it, so I have a knot of garlic instead - that’s fine 🙂 and it’s already been used in most of the meals I’ve mentioned. 

The song title, provided by Kissing The Pink (loved this song) is obviously about the 2014 footage, which I’ll just watch again ☺️