Winter

It was bright this morning so we decided to visit the plot. By the time we got there it wasn’t very bright but it was very cold ... brrr. I’m only slightly sorry that the snow started about 30minutes after we got home.

The ground is far too wet to dig, but we decided to weed and trowel over the area where the shallots will be planted. Quite a satisfying bit of work. We’ll get the shallots planted as soon as it dries a bit. If it doesn’t dry off soon we’ll have to start them off in pots.

While we were working we noticed a flock of redwings; it was at that point we decided to do the Big Garden Birdwatch 😊 and had quite a good count:

No sign of the robin unusually and I didn’t attempt any photos. The kestrel was hovering over the site and then we saw him land on an aerial so I won’t add it to the official count.

Yesterday I went through all the seeds and have a planting plan, (I know! Haven’t been this organised for a few years!) Of course, it doesn’t include any offerings from fellow plotholders which I find so hard to refuse and there are a few things missing, but we know where they’re going eg spuds, toms, peppers,..

All the trailing squashes, apart from the pumpkin, are going to form my squash tunnel which I’ve been talking about for years! Ooh, it’s a dangerous thing... to make a plan in the middle of a pandemic, but fingers crossed. 

Something I planned for, and did yesterday, was to make some of Shaheen’s Sweet Potato & Cumin soup. I’ve had a taster and am very pleased that it should provide me with 3 or 4 tasty workday lunches. Thanks Shaheen! And a few leftover sweet potatoes to make some roasted wedges for tonight - yum!

The song title is by Tori Amos. The snow has stopped now and turned to cold rain with dripping wet trees. Bye-bye January.

You Cross My Path

During our not-so-frequent visits to the plot these days we find the occasional offering from fellow plotholders. They are most welcome and look at the WHOPPER we found today! A giant tromboncino courgette - Thankyou to whoever left it in our polytunnel. I’m thinking of making a courgette cake with some of it.Today it was grey, but not cold or wet so we tackled the strawberry bed. It’ll need a bit more work in the Spring, hopefully the runners I planted up recently will survive the Winter in their little pots.

Left to their own devices the plants rather took over, as you can see. And we didn’t get to eat any of the strawberries, but I’m sure the birds enjoyed them.

There, that’s a bit better. That’s the path that the title refers to, we knew it was there somewhere! We need to re-cover it with weed suppressing fabric.

There’s another path which was blocked by the enormous bramble that we’ve been fighting with. Its prickles are so sharp they pierce my gloves and tear at my skin through my trousers. 

We got rid of much of it but there’s still plenty more to clear. I’d like to cut back the ever-spreading sage, but it’s a haven for over-wintering wildlife. We uncovered lots of interesting creatures today, including this 22-spot ladybird and super-shiny blue shield bug. And the frog in the pond is tiny, only about 6cm, so not our usual frog. We think we have three different-sized visitors which is great.

So after a couple of hours work we returned home feeling that we’d achieved something. Oh, and also, our garlic has sprouted which is always good to see. I had the day off work on Friday. I needed it after last week which was far too busy, I was even dreaming about spreadsheets - not good! We had a long walk in Savernake Forest. Loads of interesting fungi, here are a few pics, and we could hear the male fallow deer calling (sounds like a long belch actually!) and saw a couple of deer flit across a path ahead of us. Aah, long weekends are such a welcome break.

The song title is provided by The Charlatans.

Whats the Buzz

I was very tempted to be lazy yesterday and remain inside but I'm so glad we ventured out. 

As you can see, my macro camera decided to work really well a few times. I love these photos of various insects (Green Bottle Fly, Ivy Mining Bee and Sun Fly) on the ivy flowers in the hedge, it really was full of life. (I’m going to update my wildlife blog with more info).There were lots of other creatures that the camera didn't capture, including wasps, spiders and various other hoverflies. 

We stayed for longer than expected. There was a chilly wind,  but Plot 3 was nicely protected so we got on with more clearing and enjoyed the Autumn sunshine for several hours. The area is cleared but not dug so, if it doesn’t go cold, it’s going to be covered in weeds again. I’m just going to keep hoeing it.

That's the old polytunnel frame and I intend to use it for a squash tunnel next year (if things work out better than 2020). So holes will be dug and filled with manure in the Spring. I‘ll need to add some more trellis for the squashes to hold on.

Work has been silly-busy and it makes the weeks whizz by. We managed to pop to the plot for a bit of fresh air on a couple of lunchtimes, just to pick the last of this year's meagre harvests. They’ve been very quick visits, but it wasn’t ‘sitting’ weather anyway.

I cut off the only spaghetti squash that grew on our plant - quite a big one. And Kate kindly let us have one of her lovely Festival squash. They can stay in the polytunnel for a bit.

We had a MacSween veggie haggis in the week. We used it as stuffing for a large courgette,  it needed a bit more flavouring for my taste (I prefer the Stahly haggis). But with the excess I made this layered dish, with potatoes and tomatoes, courtesy of my sister, and our courgette on top, topped with cheese. Now that was tasty!

We added fleece protection around our 3 Speedy French beans in the week. They're the only ones we grew so don't want to miss out on eating them. As it turned out,  we didn't get a frost, but the temperature dipped to about 3° on a couple of nights. 

The song title is from the film Jesus Christ Superstar. Man, I do love those hippies 

Get Up, Stand Up

 Not a sunny bank holiday Monday, but perfect weather for actually getting some work done.

Our new poly tunnel has been waiting to go up since last year, so yesterday was the day to finally do it.

So from this abandoned-looking plot...

To this, aah, that’s more like the Plot7 we know and love. The old polytunnel is going to be used for a squash climbing frame (plans for next year).

We’ve spent quite a few hours on the plot during the extended long weekend. We even cleared some of Plot3, what a mess!

So, it looks better, but what can’t be seen is the million tiny seedlings just waiting for a bit of rain!

It’s a shame to be clearing really, as there’s so much wildlife finding a Winter resting place. I even found another elephant hawk moth caterpillar today! My macro camera has been working quite well. Jamie found this amazing caterpillar. The id has now been confirmed as a Pale Tussock moth caterpillar. More photos on my wildlife blog, which I keep separate for each new creature I spot.

And we saw a couple of Angle Shades moths. Pretty.

And loads of white butterflies,

...along with far too many slugs and snails..!

So, lots of grub for froggy to clear up (but surely they don’t eat snails!?)

We found these rather interesting Hare’s foot inkcap mushrooms in our compost bins last week, which I think are worth a mention. They’re helping to break down all the garden waste we’re putting in the bins, along with plenty of cardboard as ‘brown waste’.

And the song title, with the rather weak link to the blogpost is of course provided by the great Bob Marley.

Light My Fire

We had a HAHA Workday yesterday - our first proper visit to the site for over a month! It was great to be working out in the fresh air again. (I hope this video is working, it's using the slow-motion feature on my new phone).

Luckily the rain stayed off for most of the time and all the volunteers did a great job of clearing the site; chopping back overgrown hedges and getting rid of all the rotten wood around the place thanks to a great big bonfire.

It's been such a wet few weeks I'm sure we were all glad to be out. And naturally, cakes were provided by Ted so we had regular tea-breaks and time for a catch-up.

Jamie and I (with help) spent the time clearing our Plot 46A - we didn't do anything with it this year, so we're clearing it for someone on the waiting list. It would have been nice to have a plot in the middle of the site, but we're stick with our original ones for now.

We were pleased to be able to clear all the structures and all the rotten wood was burned. The barrels full of soil were left by the previous tenant, we didn't manage to empty all of them but we'll help the new ploholder if necessary. They have lovely soil in them, but unfortunately there's a lot of weed seed in there too.

The bonfire provided us with some extra warmth as the sun was going down when we left - well, it's November, it was only about 4:00pm.

Over the last few weeks I've been enjoying the last of our harvest of pumpkin and am still loving the dried beans. I must be sure to pick more for drying next year. This meal I had was so delicious, based roughly on this veggiedesserts recipe.

I intended for it to cover 2 meals but ended up going back for seconds and scoffing the lot in one sitting, and with a bit of cheese on top. What a piggy :-)

We've not quite finished all the Dido potatoes - they are a lovely yellow maincrop variety and have been delicious as mash, patties and as wedges. Today's song is, obviously, provided by The Doors - enjoy.

Better Together

Thankyou to all our helpful volunteers! Our mission yesterday was to prepare our 'horsetail plots' which surround the composting toilet.

About 6 poles (150 sq.mtrs) have been covered for at least a couple of years now and have always looked ugly (so ugly that the only 'before' photo showing the area is 2 years old - before the toilet was erected!). Two additional plots alongside the toilet-plot have been recently leased so we'll have a productive growing area there once again.

Look at that sea of covers - the aim was to stop the deep-rooted weed from spreading - we tend to call it MaresTail, (but that's actually its cousin which grows in water). Now here's the 'After photo' - doesn't that look much better!

I've never been convinced that we'll stop the weed as it's growing on the canal towpath, the other side of our hedge. If a plot is worked then the weed doesn't cause too many issues, but if left it can spread up the site, which we don't want. So we figure that if we grass seed the area and keep it cut that should curtail further spreading.

We've also prepared the end furthest from the toilet for wildflower seeds - hopefully the mass of roots will also stop the marestail from spreading - it's an experiment and both methods will look better than the white covers.

It was a particularly windy day for this task but, with enough of us, we managed to keep some control though the dirty puddles ended up all over us and we had a few slip ups in the mud, which caused some amusement.

It may have been windy, but the sun shone a few times and it didn't rain, so it was a good day to be working outside with friends. Now I need to select and buy enough grass seed for 100 sq.mtrs and 25 sq.mtrs of British Wildflower seed - what fun!

Thanks for the photo Kerry

Love this song is by Jack Johnson and the title is very apt - many hands do make light work, though our legs and backs are aching today!

Clocks

Yesterday was the first time I've visited the allotment in 3 weeks! It was a good visit because we had a really good Autumn Workday to clear up the site and, although it was really cold, it was a bright sunny start to the day and we had a big bonfire to get rid of all the broken/rotten wood and hedge clippings.

With lots of helpful volunteers ...

Clearing...

Tidying...

Burning...

They're staring at the sky because there were lots of red kites and buzzards swooping over the site.
Very impressive to see

Eating...

A little more eating...courtesy of Richard's master BBQ-ing skills.

And a bit of drinking - Ivan brought some of his Apple and Blackberry & Apple wine along.

We achieved plenty and were so pleased that it was dry, as we needed the warmth of the fire when the sun went in.And I think the phrase 'Work Party' is very appropriate :-)

The previous weekend we had the HAHA versus Hungerford Twinning Association skittles match. The HTA organised the event last year, so we hosted this year. All the attendees brought food for the buffet - what a lovely spread!

There was a good turnout and it was a lot of fun. The raffle meant that we also managed a bit of fundraising for HAHA. We won the cup, so HTA will have to try again next year.

Jamie has been visiting the plot occasionally to pick some veg - we've had the last of the peppers and tomatoes. We pulled Pentland Javelin from one of the potato bags - a good amount of tubers, but they weren't that tasty. The Nicola that we had recently were much tastier.

Oops, there's that cup again :-)

Squashes have provided me with some nice meals including this one stuffed with marinated tofu and black rice.

I'm currently making Festival squash soup for next week's lunches. We saw a good Japanese TV programme about squashes the other day; I'm roughly copying one of their recipes - I've removed the seeds but left the skin on: the squash, garlic, fried onion, salt and pepper are all in the pan with some water bubbling away. The skin has completely softened and I've just tasted it..mmm

No need for any additional flavouring - just a quick blitz and a little more water, - so sweet and smooth, perfect! The skin adds to the aroma (apparently) so it's best to leave it on.

The title is provided by Coldplay - the clocks have gone back today and it's beginning to feel a lot like Winter...