Reasons to be Cheerful Pt3

England is in lockdown for a month and the weather is gloomy but ... on Tuesday, a little bit of Christmas cheer visited the site. Forbes hasn’t gone completely mad, there is a reason behind this photo, but I’m not revealing today! 😀

I used the last of the focaccia mix. It was supposed to represent the classic Day of the Dead skull, but it didn’t quite turn out as intended 😂 

Oh well, it still tasted ok, dipped in celeriac and squash (thanks Jim & Martine) soup. The squash was really delicious roasted. (I’m missing all our usual home-grown squashes). Jamie bought the celeriac and some braised fennel so I also made a soup with them - my favourite soup. It will be nice to grow our own ingredients again next year.

Anyway, no whinging, this is a cheerful post! Our garlic seedlings are growing well in this mostly-mild Autumn.

Though we did get a frost (-2.5°) which has seen off the runner bean plants and begonias.

Luckily Jamie picked the remaining Gigantes beans on Tuesday, so they’re drying in the polytunnel.

And the broad beans have avoided becoming mouse food in their little cloches.

Yesterday afternoon we visited the plot to just sit awhile in the last of the sunshine and Min gave us a couple of her interesting harvest of Yakon. I hadn’t heard of it before. It grows like Jerusalem artichoke but the flavour sounds quite different. We’re drying them out as that should apparently sweeten them up. It’s always good to get to try something new, don’t you agree?

And the main reason for using Ian Dury’s great song title is the US election Result. How relieved must the non-Trump supporters feel?! Just need to move the big orange baby on now...

Beautiful Ones

Our first poppy of the year has flowered - so intricate in close-up, but they also look good from a distance. We're expecting to have a mass of these quite soon as they are one of plants that has self-seeded rather madly.

And look who we saw in the pond at the weekend - a lovely little frog! I wonder if it's one of our tadpoles from last year.

And then, yesterday, we saw this big fella in there - the monster from the deep!!

We achieved quite a lot last weekend with two visits to the plot. We potted on all the begonias, grown from mini-plugs - thank goodness they're out of the flat at last! I planted out my mangetout, from their drainpipe - their roots had formed a thick mat so I could just slide the whole row out in one go.

We sowed some seeds... some in pots and others in the raised bed. The radish are up just 4 days later. I've had to net them because a big crow stomps round our plot and has pulled some other seedlings out.

We planted the last of our potatoes in bags - Dido, Estima, Foremost and Erika. We did a lot of weeding so Plot8 and Plot3 are looking a bit better.

The self-seeded nigella is everywhere, but so pretty that I'm leaving it to flower and will remove the plants before they spread another load of seeds.

The raspberry, which has done nothing for two years, actually has flowers on it this year. It's in a pot and the bees love it at the moment. It seems that heeding the instructions and severely cutting it back each year wasn't what it wanted after all.

Some things just seem to do better when left to their own devices. Look at this lovely Iris bud.

We have some (currently) healthy-looking broad beans - these are the over-Wintered plants which were severely snow-damaged, but it looks like we should get a couple of meals, if the blackfly steer clear for a bit longer...

I'm happy to say that last week one of my posts got a mention in the Thompson & Morgan Vegetarian Week 'Plot to Plate' post - the other recipes definitely provide some inspiration when we finally start harvesting...

We've had no rain to speak of, though it's been forecast, so we've been watering plenty and the warm days are encouraging plenty of growth - it's all looking rather beautiful, in some spots, hence the title, by Suede!

Two Way

This post is mostly about courgettes. Because I'm on leave at the moment I don't have work-mates to pass the surplus on to. Not surprisingly we haven't found a plotholder to take them off our hands either so here's a post to show how at least 3 of the rather larger specimens have avoided the compost bin.

The first is basically a stuffed courgette - a delicious one.

Cut a wedge out of the courgette and add spring onions, pepper and olive oil. Cook for 30mins on 180, covered in foil.

Then add extra mature cheddar cheese and chopped mixed nuts (plus a few tomatoes) - cover for a further 15mins, then remove the cover for a final 20mins.
Voila! Delicious (I never claimed it was a healthy option!)

The next method is soup and, as you can see, has a few additional ingredients - all freshly picked from the plot. I'm not sure you can actually taste the courgette, but at least it's used!

Fry the florence fennel and chopped (peeled & de-seeded) courgette in a frying pan on a high heat. The onion and fennel stalks are gently fried in the saucepan with the lid on.

Add chopped carrot to the onion pan along with the browned fennel and courgette. Add 800ml of vegetable stock and some curry powder.
Boil, then simmer for 20mins and then blitz.

Mmm, so delicious. The fennel is a subtle flavour behind the curry.
KT Tunstall with James Bay provide the song.

Dont Matter Now

Over the last week we spent a lot of time clearing weeds that we've been ignoring for a few weeks - so much grass, bindweed and occasional giant thistle! So the plots were looking their best for Saturday morning for the Hungerford in Bloom Allotment judging.

Look at that! Not a weed in sight.

It's good to have a reason to clear the plots up, but unfortunately we came 4th - so no certificate for us this year. Maybe our plots have a few too many flowers or too many gaps? Well, not to worry I love our plots this year - the weather has been really good for growing (along with plenty of watering).

On Saturday afternoon the Marsh Lane site was open to the public - we didn't get any public (! - there were lots of other local events on) but we got plenty of plotholders and cakes that they had generously made and donated.

So, even though we didn't get to show off our plots to other locals, we got to have a good natter, eat cake and have a drink or two...

And, although we had some rain in the morning, it didn't rain in the afternoon and the wind only flipped the gazebo onto its roof when it was being taken down :-)



I pulled the rest of the garlic as they had all collapsed and the leaves have browned. The ones I pulled a week earlier are drying in the greenhouse surrounded by tomato plants.

The leeks are planted now and, at last, so are the pumpkins! One Atlantic (not so) Giant and two Jack of All Trades. I don't think these will even get us a fourth prize :-) They're planted in holes filled with manure but the ground hasn't been dug very well on that empty plot that a few plotholders are using for the competition.

Lunches and dinners have been involving courgettes quite a lot. We've bought a Spiralizer so at least meals look a bit different, even if they have very similar ingredients :-) That's my first fennel bulb. I'm shaving it into salads this week and eating it with the first of our Chopin potatoes from one of the bags - very tasty, but not a huge haul considering it was two plants - but it'll provide us with about 6 meals in total.

So, you can see where the blog title is derived from - thanks to George Ezra (and my cousin Jen for sharing the song)

What's Up?

What's up with my asters? They really don't look happy. Are they diseased? Will they recover? Nearly every plant has these horrible screwed up leaves :-(

Also, what's up with this annoying windy weather? It's causing irritation all round. Here's our attempt at keeping our Valerian upright - certainly not pretty but it's better than crushed flat like it was during the week.

We've been doing a lot of planting up over the last week. All the sweetcorn (the Lark and the Glass Gem) are planted, with protective bottle cloches. Not sure why this one Glass Gem seedling appears to be albino - I wonder what difference it will make to the cobs...

Jamie sowed two rows each of Speedy dwarf beans and Purple TeePee. He also sowed two more rows of Eskimo carrot as the original rows didn't germinate. On the plus side, my florence fennel seems quite happy in the recycle bins, but they've grown tall quickly so I've had to remove their protective netting - I hope they are ok and not too tempting for slugs.

We've planted up our tomatoes - 3 x Aviditas down one side of the greenhouse; 1 x Tigerella on the other side of the greenhouse and 1 x Redcurrant tomato at the end - this is a "sprawling" variety apparently, so I'm hoping we can use the shelving skeleton as a method of control...

Our greenhouse looking tidier than our flat!

I gave my sister one of the redcurrant tomato plants and the other is braving it outside - albeit with some protection from the wind at the moment... That should be enough sprawling space!

I'm pleased to see that the beetroot is looking healthy - a few nibbles, but not too many.

And I'm also pleased that I'm eating salad lunches from the allotment although I wish I had a few more lettuces growing.. I've added a bit of herb fennel and pak choi.

So, '"what's up" is an appropriate title, with the song provided by 4 Non Blondes.

Pulled Out of the Bag

I've been trying to think of a way to mention the Olympics in this post and today we pulled our Athlete potatoes - see what I did there?! A topical potato if ever there was one! That's a good haul from two tubers planted in a potato bag.

The 31st modern games started in Rio de Janeiro on Friday night with an excellent opening ceremony (I have to admit that is my favourite part of the games!). Rio does look amazing from the images they're showing on TV - I love the enormous Christ the Saviour statue, but this new art installation is pretty impressive too!

We picked lots of other veg today, mostly because I'm back at work tomorrow (eurgh, my lovely break is almost over!) so need some salad bits for lunch. I'm intending to grate or thinly slice some fennel, which has gone over but should still taste nice) into the salad but it'll mostly be lettuce, chard and beetroot. I've also got some of the radish rats tails pods to give it a bit of a peppery flavour.

Dinner is just cooking - obviously it contains our staples of the moment: potato, courgette, garlic, beetroot and halloumi - mmm, we love fried halloumi! The potatoes look interesting now they've been tainted by the beetroot. It looks a bit like a peachy dessert!

Ooh La La - Ail mariné

Or, marinated garlic, which is what I've been making this afternoon. There it is, it's got to wait in the fridge for a couple of weeks before I can have a taster. The authentic french version is apparently delicious...

I used three fresh garlic bulbs, which didn't go as far as you may think - these are only very little jars.

I added salt, one of the jars has this Smoked Cornish salt, and red wine vinegar.

I also picked for my dinner this evening: our first beetroot of the year, this one is in surpisingly good condition; fennel; first carrots of the year - these are thinnings so they're only little; a courgette that's getting a bit too big. I'm roasting the veggies (although I haven't got any garlic left at home - duh!). I'll shallow fry the courgette so it's a bit of a different texture, I'm removing some of the water from it first, using salt.

And raspberries for pud.