Digging Your Scene

I’ve pickled a jar of  tomatoes. We’ve not tried them before but I found the recipe on the British Tomato Growers Association website while searching for inspiration. It’s mainly the tiny redcurrant tomatoes and a few cherry toms from the polytunnel plants which have all been removed now and sent off to the Council green recycling. 

As you can see it has garlic and a few herbs added to the white wine vinegar. Each tiny fruit was stabbed to let the pickling flavours in. We ate one of the small jars of tomato chutney that I made in August, it was very tasty so I hope these same tomatoes are just as flavoursome pickled.

This trug contains the last two courgettes of the year as well as the last tomatoes. I haven’t cooked the pumpkin yet, but the other veggies went into this colourful rice dish - the veg were fried in oak-smoked oil and just soy sauce as an additional flavouring. Yum.

Before going to Slimbridge and since returning I’ve had some tiring but satisfying digging sessions. Although we’ve had some meagre rain the ground is still very dry, but I was pleased to find some worms.

I was hoping to harvest some beetroot but the beets had grown too woody and they looked to have had two growing seasons so they went into our compost bin. I’ve left the chard growing, it didn’t grow very well in the Summer but the leaves and stems can provide a bit of Winter colour, even if it doesn’t get eaten. 

And I couldn’t bring myself to pull the last of the antirrhinum which are still flowering along with bindweed’s prettier cousin Convolvulus which has come to life late in the season and self-seeded so is scrambling on the ground.

The Apsleys mulch was left on top for a few days before the final dig in with chicken manure pellets.

Yesterday I planted 22 cloves of Sultop garlic, from 2 bulbs, and 42 onion sets - a mixture of white, brown and red onions. I’ve netted the onions in an attempt to protect them from birds and mammals. The garlic are planted deeper so don’t usually attract their attention.

The area where the onions were last year, on Plot8, plus some of the salsify forest(!) has been cleared of bindweed (ugh, I know it’ll be back), dug over and covered in a thick layer of Apsleys mulch plus potato fertiliser as that’s where they’ll be planted next year.

At this time of year it’s good to see clear areas with plans for 2027. There’s still a lot more to do and I’m trying to progress before the weather turns hateful and we’ll want to hibernate.

The weather is rather grey today but it has been nice and warm recently. We walked up to town and sat by the canal. The swans have 5 large cygnets now. The female slowly waddled from under the bridge directly towards us. 

She stared at us for a bit then walked off disgruntled as we didn’t have any food (must remember to put some in my handbag). As you can see in the second photo, she has a broken beak but Swan Lifeline have apparently checked her over last year and she’s ok living with it.

The Sun is just appearing and although windy it’s quite warm out there - I think I feel some digging coming on… blasting us back to the 1980s (oh, so 80s) with the Blow Monkeys.

Emergency!

Don’t panic - there’s no emergency! The title is because this is blog post number 999 - my (mostly) allotment diary since 2011. We’ve had Plot7 since 2009 and my records were originally in a notebook but an electronic record is so much better for re-capping, comparing and especially for the photos. 🙂

This is the hottest, driest year we've experienced and the plot isn't looking its best. Even the weeds (except bindweed) are struggling to grow this year.

The bunting is only providing colour, rather than support, now that England were sadly beaten by Argentina in Wednesday night's semi-final. It's been such a great World Cup such a shame for our lovely team.

A happy squad after winning the quarter final

The flags aren’t the only bit of colour but, with barely any rain for over a month now, it’s certainly not the happiest looking plot. Watering the individual plants is so much less effective than the whole area getting a good drenching.

But, if you look closer, there are spots of joy amongst the dry soil and grass. You can see all the self-seeded snapdragons around the edge of that front bed.

And these crinkly daisy flowers in a pot of lobelia - this is one of the perennials I grew on.

The sweetpeas, nicotiana and verbena boriansis are still attempting a show.

The hollyhocks are standing tall, surviving the strong winds that we’ve had this week. New buds are still opening and the bees love them.

The Maximilian sunflowers have begun to flower - smallish flowers on tall stems. They should be pretty, drought tolerant and long-lasting but I have just read that they can grow 8ft tall and come back each year - hmmm, I think I sowed them in the wrong place at the front of that bed 🙄

Under them are the tagetes that were resurrected after the frost appeared to have killed them. The six plants are full of flowers.

We’re enjoying lots of potatoes at the moment. I pulled the remaining Orla plant so we used the largest ones, which were still quite small, to make these tasty double-baked potatoes stuffed with cheese, shallots and chives. So tasty. We have two Baby Lou potato plants to pull and then I’ll be able to plant the leeks in that spot.

This was a nice trug with ingredients for a puff pastry tart, but the puff pastry looked dodgy so we ended up cheering up a boring margarita pizza instead. That’s the last of the broad beans though - too much effort to find so many beans have weevil damage. I really need to get round to Autumn/Winter sowing again this year.

And there are more vegetables waiting in the wings - the beans for drying are on their way, though I don’t know which beans they are at the moment as the germination was so sporadic so my neat rows got a bit confused.

And we have mixed pickings of runner beans and French beans this evening.

We’ve already picked the occasional tomato but they’re ripening in numbers now. They’re so sweet, I think these are all Rubylicious except for the one Crimson Plum and there may be a Honeycomb in there but we were expecting them to be more orange.

The weather continues to be very hot, in the mid-twenties so pleasant especially sitting under a sun umbrella. Morning and afternoon watering continue and no rain forecast for the foreseeable.

999 provide the title track (see what I did there?) and what a great blast from the past.

Hey Jude

This little (Carder?) bee is busy pollinating our Painted Lady runner beans and good to see there are a few beans already growing on that stem. Quite often we’ve seen bumblebees accessing the nectar through a hole in the back of the flower, which bypasses the vital pollen transfer.

Beans have been on the menu this week - broad beans. These are the ones we sowed in May - we usually sow in the Autumn to avoid the bean weevil. I had to throw a few beans away because of evidence of weevil larvae, but there were enough to add to this very tasty egg bake dish (based on this recipe). The courgettes are still a bit wonky but taste good.

All home-grown veg: green and yellow courgettes, broad beans, shallots, garlic and our Paris potatoes. This one plant produced >500g of small spuds. Very tasty and they held together pretty well while cooking - we thought they may fall apart due to being so dry.

I pulled some of the onions because their foliage bent over - they’re drying in the Sun for now, along with some shallots. There are a few more to pull.

As you can see from these photos the weather is still extremely hot. We totally expect 30+° temperatures now, with 26° feeling cool in comparison and there was a cool (quite strong) breeze out there last night and it’s cloudythis morning though we’re expecting that to burn off with no rain forecast till the end of the week. So, watering, watering, watering is still essential but this is a great time of year now we’re harvesting. I pulled two more potato plants yesterday - another Paris and an Orla. And I’m pleased the sweetpeas have had another burst of blooms. Need to keep picking them to keep them blooming and maybe their stems will get longer.

Our Baby Bear pumpkin is still producing tiny fruits, but most are falling off now. There are 3 reasonable-sized ones which are already beginning to ripen - this heat seems to be making for a short season for some plants. But no flowers yet on our Butternut squash plant yet…

The HAHA Wildlife plot is looking colourful at the moment. The bees and butterflies are loving it.

The ground cover is so thick it must be holding water. On our plots, I’m mostly leaving the flowers to find their own water, as watering the vegetables is exercise enough, but I have been giving this self-seeded sunflower a drink everytime I walk back from the water troughs - and it’s just flowered. What a little beauty!

I’m on a go-slow this morning after another gruelling World Cup match win for England which went to extra time, but no penalties 😮‍💨 - we’re through to the semi-finals against Argentina now. So exciting!

And Jude Bellingham was our saviour yet again - what a star, hence the title song originally provided by The Beatles but sung by the England supporters here 😃

Oh, perhaps the original should be here too, though the YouTube police may delete it.

Oh, What a Night

I’m happy (Jamie less so!) that courgettes are on the menu - still managing to pick small at the moment - along with shallots and our first two tiny tomatoes.

Other tomatoes are reddening now following that Rubylicious example.

Also in the polytunnel, tiny baby peppers have started to form and the aubergine has some surprisingly spiky flowers, which will hopefully produce a few fruits.

The hollyhocks are looking lovely towering over our weedy Plot8. They don’t mind the lack of water, but the weeds are helping to keep the soil damp on that plot

I really love this pale pink flower, but there are also some deep purple ones.

We've just entered our third heatwave of the year - our poor plants are gasping, as am I trying to water everything, but even watering at the roots isn’t really providing enough for happy plants.  

Look at that 😔 Not the lush growth we hope to see at this time of year and the potato haulms are definitely looking past their best - we’re rather concerned whether there will actually be any tubers in that dry soil. We’ve sown a few dwarf beans (Purple teepee) in that front area and I re-planted some lettuce seedlings but I think they may have frazzled. And we finally planted our mini-cucumber out - that’s in a big pot on Plot3 to grow up the bean tunnel.

In between watering it’s nice to sit and watch the bees and plentiful butterflies.

We’ve had another session on the roundabout. Unfortunately our previous work encouraged dormant borage seeds to grow. Normally I’d like a borage-covered roundabout but it was swamping all the perennials so 5 of us spent a few hours carefully pulling out all the borage seedlings - such a shame really.

The ground is rather bare again and would also benefit from a downpour but hopefully the regular watering (thanks to Nia and Kate) will be enough to encourage more flowers. The Britain in Bloom judging is imminent but surely they’ll take the weather into account… and it’s only the second year that Hungerford has been involved.

I really like the Bug Hotel sign that the team have made at the entrance to Hungerford.

Anyway, I really must get up the plot to water before it gets too hot again, it’s meant to reach 29° today. But before I go…

The Mexico v England World Cup match was delayed by an hour - to 2am on Monday (yesterday) morning. It was so worth being awake for. After England took a somewhat unexpected 2-goal lead in the first half, the rest of the match was as stressful as any other England match, particularly after England were down to 10 men. Both teams had penalties and at 2-3 after 60 minutes England heroically defended our goal for the remainder of the game, which included 11 agonising minutes of ‘stoppage time’. Ohhh, the relief and joy when the final whistle blew and England are through to the quarter finals 🥳 Such an amazing match 👏👏🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

And that is the perfect opportunity for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, with a little poetic licence for the title - December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night).

Not Perfect

What an exhausting week! Daytime temperatures exceeding 30° and nighttime temperatures hovering around 20° Phew, it really was too much, especially with my lingering cold 🤧

Morning plot visits to give everything a water, a quiet sit down and then home to recover. Most of the plants seem pretty happy. The hollyhocks and sweet peas have loved it.

The yellow splash in that photo is a big clump of ragwort. I know it’s a weed but the insects really love it and it’s nice to see a bit of yellow. Surprisingly no cinnabar caterpillars or moths yet, but I’m sure they’ll arrive.

The sweet peas are a lovely jewel-coloured mix with a delicious fragrance. I’m picking the flowers regularly in the hope to extend the flowering season. They are sown with some mangetout but they are only producing infrequent pods and by the time I spot them they have already filled out with peas, but they are a tasty plot-snack.

The salad has gone past its best. The lettuces have bolted and lots of the little turnips have brown splodges inside - even though they look perfect on the outside. It seems to be due to boron deficiency so if I grow them again I’ll need to remedy that in the soil. It’s a shame as they are a nice addition to salads. I’m leaving the remaining radish in the ground; the roots have gone woody, but I’ll eat the seed pods once they start to appear.

The runner beans are flowering and climbing up the old polytunnel frame. They are mostly Painted Lady but I think a few Scarlet Empire flowers have appeared too. On the other side of the frame the second sowing of Gigantes and Borlotti have finally germinated.

The dwarf bean plants that we bought from a Garden Centre appear to be climbers, so I put up some netting for them to cling on to. They have small mauve flowers so we’re thinking they’re probably purple French beans. (I’m sure that central post is straighter in real life 🤔)

We have some parsnip seeds germinating on paper towel and sweetcorn kernels soaking so I hope to sow them today or tomorrow. We sowed a couple of mini cucumbers and one has just grown its first true leaf so we’ll be planting that out in a big pot soon - the temperatures have fallen back to normal so we can think of actually achieving a bit more on the plots. Though it has been nice sitting watching the flowers and wildlife. There are lots of butterflies about, including marbled whites like this beauty which I freed from the polytunnel.

Here are a few of the pretty flowers:

Californian Poppies

Verbena Bonariensis, Nicotiana, Dianthus and Coreopsis

Hollyhocks

The song title is provided by Tim Minchin and it’s to celebrate our first trug of the year - Orla potatoes firkled, a few shallots, tiny carrots and wobbly courgettes. Well, they’re definitely not perfect but they were tasty.

Here’s the song, particularly liking the interaction with passers by. Filmed in Leeds by the way.