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.

Bridge over Troubled Water

It can be difficult getting into the swing of things after Christmas and 2024 started with such rotten weather that it hasn’t been very motivating.

The rain, brought by Storm Henk, was so torrential that there has been serious flooding in nearby towns and Hungerford’s rivers and canal have all overflowed with some houses needing to be pumped out - not us I’m pleased to say. What a truly horrible way to start the new year 😞

Here's the River Dun by the war memorial, at least 1 metre higher than it should be, with water gushing through from flooded areas upstream. Thank goodness for the marshland around Hungerford to capture most of that excess water. Nearby Marlborough didn’t fair so well…

We’ve had a few visits to the plot, mostly just to plod around thinking how nasty it looks, but our leeks have survived the drenching and continue to grow. This photo shows that there has been some very welcome sunshine this year - makes a nice change to see it on a weekend!

And the broad beans have grown quite tall under their protection as the weather has been mostly mild so far this Winter. We’ll leave them protected for now as the weather has turned frosty and snow is threatening over the next week…

The spindly garlic is the only other sign of good things to come on the allotment.

At home I’m so pleased to see that our hellebore is coming back to life. It’s such a pretty and long-lived flower - perfect for these dull months.

Apart from soggy plot visits, I have regular morning walks up the High Street, just to move a bit! I really like to visit the fruit and veg stall at our market - when we don’t have our home-grown this is the next best thing I reckon.

I’ve bought a few seeds which look interesting including some flowers (Zinnia, penstemon (from one of my mum’s flower lists) and echinacea) and veg (purple dragon carrots, piccolo courgette and biquinho red pepper). We haven’t really started our planting plan yet, but will do soon. 

I haven’t done any interesting cooking yet this year, but after Christmas I made this lovely chestnut & sprout puff pastry ‘thing’ and a delicious parsnip and chestnut soup. I probably should pull another parsnip for soup this weekend actually. I shouldn’t waste them as they’ve grown so well for a change!

Look at that horrible brown water which is usually calm, clean and has trout in. Aah well, it’ll soon be Spring 🫣 But it gave me an excuse to use this beautiful song, of course, provided by the great Simon & Garfunkel. Sit back, relax and sing along. Beautiful.

The Walk

It’s been a wet month, I’ve not been inclined to move very far and work has been keeping me very busy but yesterday we had a long walk in the chilly countryside. It had been a very frosty morning and the temperature remained close to zero, but we were dressed up warm and it felt ok in the sunshine.

We walked a 6-mile circuit to Chilton Foliat, which is a neighbouring village.

It was very beautiful and near the River Kennet much of the time. This was looking West from the Fairy Bridge. The river is swollen and very fast-flowing at the moment after all the rain.

Rather strange to see a lone cygnet but he was enjoying eating the watercress.

We saw some excellent clouds during the walk - I think these are cirrostratus.Edit: Turns out they're cirrocumulus clouds.

And this photo is showing a Sundog (like two small rainbows either side of the Sun) they occur in cold weather and under the right circumstances. This parhelion effect is produced by the Sun’s rays being diffracted through ice crystals and ‘diamond dust’, described by the Met Office here. 

Part of the walk is up this hidden footpath which runs alongside that huge field. One of our previous plotholders has a dedicated bench along there, over-looking the fields surrounding Hungerford.

We’ve seen hares in that field before but yesterday the most interesting wildlife we saw was at the start of our walk - this little muntjac deer.

It was a very cold day, but so pleased that the Sun was shining to show off the Autumn colours in all their glory.

The allotment is looking far less picturesque, this was 2 weeks ago and today has been very dank.

We have had short plot visits each week and the broad beans have germinated. I pulled a parsnip, which had no canker, that’s a rare feat for us! I brought the squashes and parsley home to avoid the frost, but the parsnips should only improve with a bit of frosting.

I had two meals of this mushroom and chestnut casserole - so delicious! Mmm, and look at that roast parsnip - yum yum! And the other meal included a couple of the tiny pumpkins cut into slices and roasted.

I expect my next post will be in December and the Christmas lights are being switched on tonight in Hungerford. It has certainly felt Wintry this week, but definitely still looked like Autumn for our lovely walk.

Enjoy this great song by The Cure.

December will be Magic Again

It’s December and the countdown to Christmas has begun! The weather has turned from a drenching November to a cold start to the month; not frosty, just grey.

That isn't egg nog - it's carrot and chestnut soup, flavoured with garlic, turmeric and cayenne pepper. I just had to have a taster before storing it to be my lunch for the next few days. It's very tasty. I picked the carrots when we visited the plot yesterday - so c-c-c-cold and we're not used to it. Our carrots have been mostly small this year, but there are plenty of them.

Also whilst on the plot, apart from chatting to a handful of other brave souls (well, we've had a manure delivery which is always a draw), Jamie emptied the final potato bag. They were meant to be Nicola potatoes but something must have gone wrong with the labelling - there shouldn't be any pink ones in there! Anyway, a nice haul of muli-coloured little spuds whatever variety they are.

We picked the last pepper and a few remaining tomatoes as the temperature is due to drop below freezing this week. I added the cavolo nero to a tofu curry last night. It such a good flavour, shame about all the whitefly. They're pretty dormant on site at the moment but as soon as they warm up indoors they start flying about 😬 so the leaves need a lot of shaking outside and a thorough wash.

I've been having porridge for breakfast and have been using the rosehip jelly that I made in the Autumn - it did set and melts nicely into the hot porridge. (Not convinced that it tastes any different from sugar though!)

We decided to put the Christmas Tree up, as all the lights are up in town and across the road - if I'm brave enough to go out before the sun is up or after it's gone down I'll get some photos. Our tree looks like it has for the last 30-odd years but it is so pretty with so many little trinkets that we've gathered over the years.

And I received a gift through the post - well, it was a prize actually! I came 2nd for my Christmas card photo for the National Allotment Society competition. Here's my prize - that nice book which has recipes as well as growing hints and a bundle of seeds 😊

And this is the photo I entered - from a snowy day in March 2018.

I was going to use the Smashing Pumpkins Christmastime song, which I love but it seems that I used that in last Christmas's post, so here's a great song instead by Kate Bush. Enjoy.

Sunrise, Sunset

When I opened the curtains on Thursday morning and spotted the moon, I had to dash for my big camera to get a photo and I was pleased to see it was in focus because 10 minutes later the moon was hidden by mist as the Sun arrived.

The HVFB weather vane is on top of the old firestation opposite (now a hairdressers). To be honest, that was the most exciting thing that happened all week. The weather has been cold, though not very frosty and now it's windy and raining as Storm Barra is on its way.

We had a couple of hours on a cold plot on Sunday afternoon, the rain mostly avoided us but we did get to see this nice rainbow. This is a kestrel, but the photo is mostly showing the beautiful clouds. When I see a sky like that I always wish I could paint (or had my good camera with me!)

We did a little bit of clearing but the before and after shots didn't look much different on a typical December allotment plot!

And then it started to go dark, so the Sun provided some photo opportunities. It was more impressive in real life, obviously!

A couple of hours later we took a wander up the High Street to see the Christmas lights.

The blue tree is particularly beautiful and the little trees attached to all the shops are always lovely to see, though the traffic was too busy to show the High Street off in all its glory - perhaps we'll do a late-night visit when the road is empty.

The canal has to be the most photographed part of Hungerford and The Rose of Hungerford often has a starring role. When we drove past earlier there was quite a crowd gathering to have a canal trip with Santa 😊

So apart from that, I have barely moved from the living room in the past week, except to do some cooking...

I made these bean balls with gigantes and runner beans. The smoked paprika tomato sauce was very tasty and the green spinach noodles were a colourful addition. This is the bean balls cooking - I mashed them together with fried shallots and a bit of bell pepper, they were very tasty although not very photogenic.

I'm working my way through a packet of chestnuts and a Festival squash at the moment, so had a ricey-tomatoey meal last night.

And for lunch I've just had cold roasted squash, with chestnuts and a bought salad with lambs lettuce and beetroot slivers.

Sweet and delcious, but now I have to do some more work. I've just seen that a meeting has been cancelled - that's always a bonus! Aah, and a song title from Fiddler on the Roof - haven't seen that beautiful film for years.. maybe it'll be on at Christmas 😏