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.😞 

Dammit

Forbury Gardens, Reading

We’ve had some glorious sunny weather and the wind finally died down so we had a little taste of Summer. Particularly welcome on Saturday when we took the train to Reading and enjoyed an afternoon in the presence of the huge (31 foot) Maiwand Lion in Forbury Gardens. The Reading Vegan Fiesta was really well-attended and a great place for people-watching.. It was so hot we had to seek shade on occasion but it was a fun, if exhausting, day.

It’s so nice to attend events knowing that all the food on offer is suitable for us, as vegetarians. We stuck with our favourite Vegan Street Diner hot dogs - they’re just too tasty to turn down and had the longest queue of all the food stalls!

Showing off my new hat

On Saturday morning I had the latest Covid jab - have lost count now, but it’s still worth having the vaccine even though Covid is no longer in the news. After that I nipped to the allotment to check all was ok. We didn’t zip up the polytunnel because no frost was forecast - uh-oh … our happy tomatoes were no longer happy…

The temperature in the polytunnel had dropped to -3.1°. One of the tiny pepper seedlings had also been frost-burned and the first leaves that we spotted in the potato row had been caught too. I wishfully thought there was a chance that the tomatoes may recover but by the evening….

Oh dear, what a sad affair. They had really suffered so the frost must have hung around for a bit - well it was a sorry lesson, as I used to say a lot at work “it’s only a forecast”. So yesterday we had another trip to Waitrose and déjà vu we potted on the tomatoes in the polytunnel.

These are different varieties from what we originally bought and are grafted plants: Rubylicious, Honeycomb and Crimson Plum. We’ll take more care this time …

Over the last week I dug a second compost-filled hole for  a courgette on Plot7. We sowed butternut squash and courgette seeds under the grow light at home - the Atena Polka yellow courgettes germinated but we’re still waiting for the butternut. The chard and beetroot seedlings are just appearing in their modules in the polytunnel and I sowed the Snowstar leek seeds outside. I sowed the whole packet as any we don’t grow on or give away can be used like spring onions. We’ve also sown some broad beans in pots in the polytunnel for planting out next month, hopefully. 

I potted on the remaining perennials - it seems that the Geum and Coreopsis plants may not have made it, but there are 40 surviving plants so more than enough for us and a future plant sale.

We cleaned out the Bokashi compost bin;  the solid waste was put in the bottom of one of the squash holes and we have a bottle of liquid fertiliser. It smells SO bad it must be good stuff!!

The apple has blossomed - so pretty - I wonder if it will fruit this year 🤔 The pear and cherry now have leaves, I need to check whether there’s any evidence of fruit on them - here’s a nice little video of a pear from flower to fruit, so I know what to look for on the pear tree.

I’m (so far) keeping on top of weeding ‘the orchard’. It’s rather satisfying to clear the clumps of bindweed when it dares to emerge through the mulch.

So now it’s Monday morning again and I’d better get moving to open up the polytunnel. It is very pleasant to visit the plot early (-ish) in the morning and just sit quietly watching the birds.

The apt song title is provided by Blink 182 and obviously refers to our tomato shenanigans.

This is the Day

Look at that! A month has passed. It’s been a busy month with lots of sowing, a bit of digging and some planting. The weather has been extremely dry and mostly sunny but a northerly wind has consistently caused irritation. Jamie has been walking a lot with regular allotment and shopping trips

We planted our potatoes in April - Kestrel and Duke of York in the ground, with a couple of Nicola in bags. They’ve been earthed up now, managed to avoid a couple of frosts earlier this month. They’re in front of these salsify plants - the flowers open in the morning, but close by lunchtime.

The hedgerow is full of life and we’re peppered with confetti whenever we sit on the bench as the May blossom is just going over, it’s been a good year for blossom, even with the wind.

We sowed our climbing beans (Scarlet Empire runners, borlotti and Gigantes) on 2nd May but only the Gigantes successfully germinated, so they’ve now been planted in a wigwam. We’ll re-sow the others.

The sweetcorn finally got planted out, I meant to do a block, but planted in two rows instead for ease of protection from frost. Lots of the parsnips germinated and I thinned them out this week. It’s so dry the watering is quite a chore, but essential at this time. We’re expecting some broad beans to be ready for harvesting soon, so keep them well-watered. We’ve sown carrots into a green crate and beets, lettuce and radish are sown. Chard and nasturtium are in the raised bed along with parsley, which was a supermarket-bought plant and divided into four.

The plots aren’t looking very tidy but things are growing and that’s the best we can achieve during this difficult year. The weeds are going to love that bare earth when the rain does arrive 😒 I’m fighting the bindweed in the orchard; the mulched ground makes it easy to spot the bindweed, but it just keeps coming back and our little apple and cherry trees got aphid attacked this year.

As long as we harvest a few crops, grow some pretty flowers and get time to sit in the sunshine amongst it I’ll be happy. Sadly, Jamie’s not really enjoying it at the moment, understandably, as he’s still so worn out and not feeling sociable but I hope that will improve along with his health.

The song title, provided by The The, is to mark my change to part-time working. Hopefully more free-time will help with everything!

Early Days

The last couple of weeks we’ve had a mix of hot sunny days, frosty nights and more recently strong winds. We had a couple of showers but not enough rain to make much difference to the dry soil.

I’ve had a lingering cold and had my Covid booster so haven’t felt like working or plotting, but perhaps I’ll manage some today before rain is due this afternoon and I have a week off work after Easter so I hope there are some reasonable days for catching up. On a couple of quick visits we managed to hastily sow a row of parsnips - if they germinate I have a feeling there may be some wonky veg growing there!

And I dug a small plot and sowed mangetout. They’re usually one of our first harvests, but I’ve been a bit slow this year. I’ve put some protection round now they’ve popped up or the pigeons will clear the lot. The shallots in the raised bed have all got healthy looking green shoots now.

The purple sprouting broccoli has been producing lovely shoots - so delicious.

I’ve sown some asparagus pea and chard in modules in the polytunnel. I’ll choose the coloured chard stems to plant out, once an area has been dug.

The seedlings are growing quite slowly because of the fluctuating temperature but that is suiting our slower pace of life at the moment. Jamie’s walking without a stick most of the time, but the fatigue still makes things difficult, but slowly, slowly…

The broad bean gap-fillers that we sowed last month have sprouted and I’m hoping the blossom will be out in our ‘orchard’ when I go up in a bit - shame the sky isn’t this lovely blue today.

Blog title provided by Paul McCartney. Because it is…early days.

Paranoid

I’ve just enjoyed a lunch of celeriac soup. Very tasty with rose harissa and tarragon for additional flavour. 

I used my new hand blender and wish I’d grown the ingredients, but only the garlic was home-grown. We’ve grown celeriac before but never a giant like this! It’s a bit tricky to grow and to be honest I think I’ll stick to buying the occasional one rather than trying again. This giant has made 4 days lunch and a quarter was also included in a root vegetable stew which covered two days meals. I think I’ve had enough celeriac for a while!

I did have some tarragon growing on the plot, but am not sure if it’s still there. It has a slightly aniseed flavour which I love, so I’m seeing if I can root some of the fresh stuff I bought - I only thought to do this after it had been in the fridge for a few days … so it may not work…

You can see the grey sky in that photo - it’s been dull, cold and grey like that for a few days now so we’ve stayed inside. I’ve been working on the planting plan - it’s bound to change and needs a bit more work.

The climbing beans are going to grow up wigwams this year and I’m going to very carefully label them after last year’s mix-up between climbers and dwarf plants 🙄

The squashes are going to provide a squash tunnel again. I’ve bought some Sharks Fin Melon Fig-Leaved Gourd seeds. They sound interesting don’t they, they’re a courgette rather than Winter squash. We’ll probably grow two kinds of climbing Winter squash and two other types of bush courgette.

I wonder if the weather will be more conducive to growth this year….time will tell…

Talking of weather, we had a bit more snow a week ago.

We visited the plot the next day, to drop off some compost and see how things are faring. The garlic and leeks are looking rather sad, but hopefully they’ll recover. And we were sorry to see some of the broad beans have been frosted - should have fleeced them - but they are pretty resilient (usually).

The ground was solid and the snow was covering the hills. We didn’t hang around!

We didn’t visit site for 10 days. Work has started the year busier than 2024 ended so I’m back staring at my screen for 8hours most days. I don’t mind as long as I have my hot water bottle, blanket and the curtains pulled 🤭 And I have my celestial mug (thanks George) and space-themed desk cover to keep my mind on why I’m creating spreadsheets!

We popped to the allotment on Friday and were shocked to see what appeared to be Round-Up (weed killer) footprints leading from the top of site directly to our plot. We don’t think we have any enemies, but the footprints literally tracked around plot 7, onto plot 8 and down to plot 3 stopping at our compost bin!

The worst thoughts enter your head when you think you’ve been sabotaged so I emailed Nia, our chair. She pointed out that it could be frost damage if someone had walked that way when there was frost/snow on the ground. Ah… that would be us then! 🤪 No wonder the route was so targeted!! A perfect opportunity for Black Sabbath to provide the title song. Look at Ozzy Osbourne!

November has Come

We had another picnicker join us on Sunday. The draw of the chimnea’s heat was too good to miss for the allotment cat. He was happy sitting on the bench with Ivan and me, but then Linda stood up and she lost her seat, which happened to be slightly closer to the fire 😀 What we discovered, as we cleared up for the evening, was that he’d killed a rat just behind us! At least he didn't plonk it down in front of us and put us off our cheese and wine. Last weekend we enjoyed roasted (charred) chestnuts which Ivan had foraged - delish!

We’ve finally had a few dry days though the weather has been extremely dull; we’ve been living in a cloud for at least a week. But it’s mild and I’ve only just picked the last of our outdoor tomatoes!

The tomatoes have been included in most of our lunches and were part of this delicious halloumi meal, with garlic, cavolo nero and peppers from the plot.

We've been able to clear some areas of the plots because it's been dry. I cleared up the radishes and bean plants which were surrounding the chard. And I found one borlotti bean plant - trailing along the ground 😅 I knew I'd sown some seeds somewhere and that explains why I had dwarf plants growing 'up' the tunnel 😏 I've saved some bean pods for drying but not sure if they'll be suitable for storage as they've got so wet. The yellow pods are Yin Yang beans.

The main reason for writing this post is to record that we've sown our broad beans Aquadulce. As usual they have their little cloche covers to offer some protection from mice/squirrels and maybe weather. They're planted into the soil below the mulch and, all being well, will be harvested next April/May.

The purple sprouting brocolli and brussels sprouts are the only other thing (apart from weeds) growing on that plot now. The PSB isn't looking too great but, dare I say, the little sprouts are looking pretty good...

I've completely filled our three dalek composters, but there are masses of worms, slugs and other beasties to help it degrade quite quickly. This is a Leopard Slug - amazing pattern - a good guy who deals with compost and also deals with other slugs...

On that note, I need to start work. Halloween provided us with a little celebration and the plot now has two pumpkin heads on sticks - perhaps the squirrels will get to them, but they should be out of reach of the hedgehog. Apparently pumpkins aren't good for them.

But now it's November and The Gorrilaz provide the title song.