My Time

We’ve had a delivery from Apsley Farms. It’s basically a by-product of the organic process to produce bio-gas from arable crops. The history is an interesting read. It’s quite expensive but hopefully worthwhile, especially on some of our not-so-good soil.

I’m using it as a weed suppressant around the tiny fruit trees. There’s an area left clear around each tree. I’m not expecting it to kill the bindweed but my regular hoeing of the area does appear to have helped suppress it already to some extent… well, we’ll see…

We’ve also covered the area where our broad beans will be planted next month. The area has already been dug and conditioned with lime. It’s spread about 10cm deep. And there’s some left over which we’ll use in Spring. It smells quite strong of ammonia initially, like Guinea pig bedding, but not any more.

I took one of the Festival squashes home and had it roasted with tofu, tomatoes, garlic and chard. It's tastier than the butternut I had the other day - can't eat the skin on this squash though.

The song title is provided by Royal Deluxe and is to commemorate getting some time back as I've stepped down from the HAHA Committee. It's kind of a shame, I've enjoyed it for the last 10+ years but it's taken a bit of a turn so I'll take the opportunity to have more time on our plots rather than thinking about or doing HAHA admin and site management.

Rhythm of the Rain

Mmm, is there anything tastier than freshly picked, cooked, buttered, peppered corn on the cob? These Lark variety really are delicious although germination was rather poor this year with only 10 from a whole packet of 25 seeds, but with 1 or 2 cobs per plant we have enough to enjoy for lunches.

Here are the Orca or Yin Yang beans, they’re so fabulous aren’t they! I need to check if any of the other plants have managed to produce any beans for storing. We had another frost this weekend but not too severe and I had netted the dwarf beans so they may continue to mature. The climbing tunnel beans are looking awful after far too much rain so sadly I don’t think I’ll be able to store any of them. Have I mentioned the rain?…

The rain continued to be torrential at the beginning of last week - cheered up a bit when I returned to work on Thursday 🙄. We did go to the allotment most days though, at least to pick a bit of veg and check how the plot was faring. 

We saw plenty of slugs and snails - I thought that snail above was rather pretty and this tiny specimen is an interesting one. I don’t recall seeing a conical one like this before and am still looking for an id.

I picked my two Festival squashes ahead of the frost - they’re quite large and I hope they’re ripe enough. They can stay in the polytunnel for a bit before I eat them. I fleeced the butternuts again as they haven’t had a very long season and the foliage is still looking reasonably healthy.

These tomatoes finally went red so we’re enjoying them in various meals. 

The pretty chard was used in a layered bake which fed me for two evenings: 1. Chard layer 2. Butternut & sage pesto with a few shallots 3. Slices of tomato 4. Quorn ‘ham’ layer, topped with the pesto 5. Thinly sliced Desiree potatoes on top. It was extremely tasty. Took about an hour to cook and, although there was a lot, the chard pretty much disappeared.

We’ve picked lots more tomatoes- ones that have any slight colour change, so hopefully they’ll ripen at home.

We’re pleased to see that the Halloween peppers have actually started going orange. They’re strange. They went from green to black then back to green before going orange!

So, although it’s been so wet we have had some lovely, chilly, blue sky mornings the clouds have soon built up - I thought this was a rather impressive take-over bid! I think the cloud won the day. We’re just going into yet another yellow weather warning for wind and rain overnight.

And, talking of our September weather, there was at least another 57mm of rain last week over 3 days! I mustn’t complain compared to how other towns have been so badly affected though. And a friend, who has recently got an allotment in Abingdon, reported floating squashes on their site 😩. So, that’s why I’ve selected this song by The Cascades - a golden oldie.

Bad Day

That is the top of the allotment site on Friday 13th September - you may not be able to see it, but there’s frost on the ground! And it’s steaming in the bright early morning sunshine. The temperature dropped to 0.8° and walking through the site it was clear that flowers and plants, particularly squashes, had been frosted. By the next day their leaves were black 😖 Too early! We were hoping for an extended growing season after the rough start! It’s the earliest frost we’ve seen since having a plot. I’m pleased I put fleece round my butternut squash, they may be small but I hope they are worth saving. 

I chopped all the excess growth and tiny fruits off the other week so the plant could concentrate its energy into these few squashes.

We may have had the last of our Summer squashes now. These have been quite tasty, but a bit too large a seed cavity so not much firm flesh for cooking. The chard is really pretty this year, great stems!

Those lovely spring onions are from fellow-plotholder David. I can never grow them but he has too many! They are really spicy too - delicious. The cucumbers succumbed to the frost and we’re not too unhappy about it - we still have some in the fridge 😀

I’ve started drying my beans in the roof of the polytunnel. I now know why my borlotti beans didn’t grow very tall or turn red - they were dwarf Yin Yang beans 🙄 It seems my labelling got a bit muddled and none of my borlotti survived the Spring slug-fest. I have more Yin Yang beans which I protected on the frosty night as the plants are still green. I’m going to dry the runner and French beans too this year, but they’re not ready to pick yet; they need to start drying on the plant first.

We’ve cleared and dug that area in front of the bean-tunnel for over-Wintering our broad beans. And this area is ready for the garlic to be planted quite soon. It looked straighter than that while I was digging and edging 🫣

September has thrown a lot of weather at us. Thunder was rumbling round for days and we’ve had some torrential rain but it’s really hot again when the Sun re-appears. Have seen some excellent clouds.

I think we left just in time before that storm broke. And this was an interesting sky. I think this was on one of the rumbling days when it was really muggy.

But the sunshine days have been glorious!

There are so many bees and butterflies around. Making the most of the buddleia…

The sunflowers…

And the Autumn Joy sedum.

Harvests continue including our first delicious sweetcorn last night which was added to this halloumi meal. Served with our Desiree potatoes with garlic, shallots and red pepper tapenade - so delicious.

And either kale or chard has been added to a variety of different bean dishes that I’ve made using the last of last year’s beans and our carrots.

This was the last harvest of runner beans for this year. They were just on the edge of going stringy, which is why I’m going to dry them - too many on the plants to waste. And that was the only lettuce I got to pick before slugs and caterpillars had a field day!

Tomatoes are providing meagre pickings but I’m glad the frost didn’t take them out…there are plenty to come if they get a chance to mature..

Song title is a blast from the past (1983) to celebrate Friday 13th - a good song though I had almost forgotten about it and the singer, Carmel.

Convoy

Ohh I do love a wispy cloud - especially when the sky is that blue! No enhancement necessary, beautiful! That was Saturday - a perfect day for Hungerford's D-Day commemoration events. I walked up the High Street and enjoyed seeing all the visitors sitting by the canal and lining the road, which was bedecked with flags and ribbons.

I came back to our less-crowded end of town for the 60-vehicle convoy to pass by. It was a bit late as it got stuck behind a steam engine which was also heading for Hungerford - haha, it's happened to us all! But standing waiting in the sunshine was no chore.

This old 1930s fire engine is driving past Hungerford's old fire station 😊 It was fun watching all the vehicles pass by waving and honking their horns. Oh, here's another cloud photo.

Following that interesting interlude we went back to the allotment. Such a beautiful day to sit, watch and chat but we also had a lot of work to do this weekend. I finally managed to clear the final quarter of Plot7 - almost impossible to dig, but luckily Cavolo Nero doesn't need a soft base. Fellow plotholder Mari responded to my plea for plants (thanks Mari!) so now I have 3 planted. I've put a net over them for now but it will need to be higher than that when they start growing - I'm hoping that the enviromesh will prevent whitefly which kale is so prone to.

The radish and chard that I sowed last weekend have germinated and I've sowed a row of Yin Yang beans alongside the one plant that germinated at home. I think I'll direct-sow some dwarf french beans too as the french beans on the frame on Plot3 are a bit sluggish.

We've planted our brassica into the cage on Plot3: 4 brussels sprouts and 5 purple sprouting brocolli. The ground there was rock solid too but they should appreciate that...

There are 3 sunflowers (multi-headed) planted out in the sweetcorn patch along with the 2 Festival squash and some zinnia. I'm hoping this is the 'Before' photo and quite soon that will be a lovely lush-looking plot full of flowers and foliage.... We're expecting to finish the last of the broad beans this week - they've been excellent this year - and they'll make way for the leeks in a few weeks time.

The verbena bonariensis is looking good - prettier in real life, but the lower level of the flower bed is looking rather bare. I'm sure the zinnia, marigolds and snapdragons will pretty that up quite soon, if they get a chance to fill out - although, look! It's July already 😯 Looking at last years photo we seem to be about 2 weeks behind at the moment, really hoping we get an extension to the end of the growing season.

I'm sure it'll be fine - just like the England football team who put the fans through hell last night but went on to nick the match in the final minutes! Yay- come on England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

And there's a pretty potato flower - Desiree.
Now, enjoy the song by CW McCall - oh those seventies movies!

And don't forget to VOTE - unless you're voting for the wrong choice in which case don't bother! 😁

Give Me Just a Little More Time

Mmm, look at those little jewels against the blue sky - beautiful! Uh-oh, I see a snail got in the picture to confirm it’s 2024! Jamie made a sauce with the redcurrants from Ivan’s communal fruit cage.

Luckily Ivan is a regular visitor to maintain the fruit bushes as the HAHA ‘community’ element hasn’t gone quite as well as we’d hoped. Perhaps we’ll have a more time later in the year to manage it a bit better. With the weather, work and even our social life slowing our progress we are just about now catching up with things. Not that work and socials have been unwelcome! We enjoyed our second wedding of the year last weekend in the beautiful Shropshire countryside.

What a fun event, interesting slant on the traditional with guests including Darth Vader and Robocop 😀. Our night in the Shepherd’s hut was cosy as the rain poured down but the Sun shone when it needed to on the day, although it was very cold - pity the poor Cypriots who had come over for a Summer wedding and the campers! Great food, company and entertainment kept us cheerful though 🙂

Since being home we’re still enjoying broad beans and strawberries and I’ve included garlic scapes in a couple of meals as a tasty mild garlic addition.

We’ve planted out our beans to grow up both sides of the tunnel frame again: runner beans, French beans and the two borlotti that actually germinated. That’s the valerian in the background, still producing a lovely scent.

The Lark sweetcorn are planted out too - they’re so small we’re leaving their little protective cloches on for a while. And we have two Festival squashes planted in that section to clamber and provide some tasty Winter squash hopefully. The Halloween Orange peppers are planted in the polytunnel and the mini cucumbers are planted in pots on Plot3. So things are progressing at last.

Signs of things to come on the yellow courgette that’s growing in a pot, but not much movement on the ones planted into the ground. We have leek, carrots and beetroot seedlings but I’ll have to get a magnifying glass to see any evidence of salsify or parsnips 😖

We’re mostly doing pre-work visits for watering but last Thursday was the start of a ‘heatwave’ so we enjoyed our lunch sitting in the sunshine for a while. So beautiful as the bare earth is beginning to show signs of planned growth all around. I finally started clearing the unplanned growth on the last quarter on Plot7 today but the earth is like concrete. I cleared the front of weeds and sowed a row of chard and a row of radish, with the intention that some will go to seed to produce the peppery pods.

I was attempting to clear some other weedy areas on Plot8, but there are so many, with bindweed being the worst by far. These two varieties (double or single-flowered) of feverfew arrived naturally and put on a great show each year.

These pretty flowers are spreading on the wildlife plot, they’re so bright and cheerful plus they have a great name ‘Fox and Cubs’ aka Pilosella aurantiaca.

The teasels have almost taken over (we were warned) but they are so impressive and the bees love the flowers then the birds love the seeds.

One more week of June - all going a bit fast, isn’t it?! Leading me to the title song by Chairmen of the Board.