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.Hungerford allotment blog - grow your own, harvesting and vegetarian cooking. Enjoying allotment wildlife, weather and other things that catch my attention. Enjoying time on the Marsh Lane Allotment site in Hungerford, Berkshire. A record of successes, failures and a handy reminder for me. From 2017 each post title brings a song to add a little extra music to the world - enjoy!
Saturday 13 January 2024
Bridge over Troubled Water
Sunday 26 November 2023
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.It was a very cold day, but so pleased that the Sun was shining to show off the Autumn colours in all their glory.
Monday 5 December 2022
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.
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.
Tuesday 7 December 2021
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.
We did a little bit of clearing but the before and after shots didn't look much different on a typical December allotment plot!
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 😏Sunday 7 November 2021
Setting Sun
It’s an hour before sunset and it’s only about 3:30. Time is moving too fast for me at the moment.
After doing a bit of HAHA admin this morning, we got to the plot after lunch to do some November tidying. It felt cold but it was sunny and, after moving about a bit, I soon needed to remove my big coat. The temperature was about 10° today. During the week it dropped to -2.8° and was very frosty; We only visited the plot one lunchtime to collect a honeyboat squash, pick some sage and chard to make this delicious meal. It includes re-hydrated Borlotti, Gigantes and runner beans, shallots and garlic from the allotment too, but I had to buy the chopped tomatoes and it has smoked paprika.
The honeyboat squash is so delicious and the dish has served me for three meals. Final night tonight and I added red chard and also made some crispy seaweed-style chard with sesame oil and seeds. (Neal, if you’re reading this, I owe you some red chard ☺️)The broad beans have grown well over the last 3 weeks. We’ll leave their cloches on for a bit longer but don’t want them to grow too tall. The shallot bulbs have begun to sprout, but no sign of the garlic yet, although popping one back into the soil (probably a bird pulled it out) I could feel that the roots had started to grow.
The polytunnel is clear now, apart from stored squashes and now there’s room for our chairs. While Jamie was riddling the soil from the peppers grow-bags I was collecting Kestrel potatoes; one plant from a bag and one from the ground. I expect the ground-grown ones to have a few slug holes, but they all look pretty good.
We had celeriac for Halloween and this one I used in a chestnut and celeriac soup. It’s very tasty and will cover a few lunches. There are a few chunks of chestnut remaining for a bit of added interest. Yum!So another weekend is over. We’ve had our flu jabs and my 3rd, not booster, third COVID jab is booked for next week. Kidney transplant patients are to have two of the Pfizer jabs this time… hope they do the trick so that life can be a bit more varied and perhaps that will slow time down a bit! The song title is provided by the excellent Chemical Brothers.