Hail, Rain or Sunshine

We don’t fancy plotting today as the weather’s turned nasty with showers and such a cold wind. Last Sunday (Easter Day) we were lucky because we had a plot cream tea with Linda and Ivan, with English sparkling Rosé and raspberry jam from Ivan’s hamper. We needed a wind break and the chiminea but it was a lovely afternoon with plenty of sunshine.

And on Bank Holiday Monday the ice cream van visited site which was a most welcome treat on a hot sunny day! We usually hear it travelling around so it was great that he actually stopped.

We’ve been busy in between the snacks over the last week 🙂 We’ve planted our potatoes in manure-enriched trenches; one row of Desiree and another row with Orla, Baby Lou and Paris.

We’ve planted three shop-bought tomatoes in the polytunnel - Gardener’s Delight, Supersteak and Alicante. We’ve hung drip feed waterers up - it’s rather reminiscent of a dialysis ward 😱 and should help while we’re on holiday.

The little row of carrots have germinated in the front of the raised bed and the sweet peas can grow on a bit more before they are planted out along with the mangetout.

Plot-neighbour, Val, kindly gave us a rhubarb crown which was from the Avebury Manor kitchen garden, which I think we should visit in the Summer.

I’ve re-mulched round the fruit trees - the Apsley mulch did a good job of curtailing the spread of bindweed last year. The pear and cherry trees have white blossom and the leaves are appearing now; still waiting for the apple to flower but the leaves have budded so the flowers will follow. Most of the daffodils have been dead-headed but there are a few multi-headed ones still putting on a bit of a show. I’ll leave them to die back but may tie them as I’ve seen other people do.

Jamie weeded the shallots in the raised bed - the bindweed had reached the top of there already - and gave them a bit of onion fertiliser. We only have a few but they served us well last year. Each green stem should produce a bulb so the more stems the better.

I’ve started clearing the front quarter of plot7 and dug the (reasonably) neat edges, mostly to please Ivan and Neal - it does look better, but it’s hard work especially with all the grass and couch grass which has spread onto the plot - of course some would say that’s why I should keep the edges maintained …

I just need to dig/clear the rest now….

I’ve done some weeding in the flower bed so scattered the seeds that my cousin Jen sent. They’ll be lovely additions to fill gaps - I cleared some of the Nigella seedlings which take over each year - they are so pretty but I must be more conscientious and pull them before they set seed. Jamie’s sown a pumpkin in a pot at home - just one, I think he’s feeling positive because his pepper seeds germinated successfully whereas mine are a no-show at present…

I’ve updated my Wildlife Blog recently - the first update was a new addition - a tiny 24-spot ladybird. It’s not rare in Southern England but just not very visible due to being so tiny.

The other update was to an earlier post about the Ashy Mining Bee - there are so many of these around our plot at present and the evidence of the females’ ground nest building. The males wake from Winter first and wait for the females to emerge - I felt sorry for this female, with at least one too many suitors! The bundle was rolling about on the ground with lots of angry buzzing and it went on for ages 🤦‍♀️ 

As I write this, the Sun is on my back through our South-facing window. It’s so lovely and bright but the next April shower could be along any moment and at 10° plus a stiff breeze I'm inclined to sit here a while longer.

Oh, well we did drive up to the plot as it remained sunny, but as we arrived there was a huge hail shower - blowing horizontally across the site - so we waited in the car…

It stopped, hail covered the ground then the bright sunshine returned.

I fed the blueberry bush which has lots of flowers and picked some purple sprouting broccoli, which is now a tasty soup. I added garlic and some plant-based cream. Yum! So it was worth the quick plot visit in the end. At least we know we’re heading in the right direction for Summer; more butterflies are visiting the plot, the birds have paired up and are full of song and we saw our hedgehog amble by at home the other evening; so great to know he/she got through Winter.

The song is provided by The Script and very appropriate for the time of year. It’s a sing-along 😊

Woman

I’m not sure how it’s the 10th of March already, but that’s what life is like these days!

A frosted daffodil

So far March has brought frost, fog and rain, but thank goodness a bit of sunshine too!

I’ve enjoyed seeing the various poems in shop windows up the High Street for the Hungerford Poetry Festival - what a good idea! I haven’t had an opportunity to pop into the library yet to see all the locally written ones but here’s my offering - a Marsh Lane one, obviously 😊

We had a very pleasant allotment day yesterday, doing various bits of tidying and clearing - mostly not on our plots, but Jamie did finish the potato patch with a sprinkling of sulphur and a final dig through.

I dug and planted up some of Ivan’s irises - it’s a lucky dip for what colours we may get. There are 4 different plants there so hopefully a good mix - lots of plotholders have been taking them before the plots are re-leased to newcomers. 

Lots of us studying last year’s photos to try and work out which plants to go for ☺️ Here’s a reminder of last year’s fabulous display; we will miss it, but it’ll be nice seeing the colours spread around the site. And we’ve bought ‘Ivan’s Bench’ with donations that plotholders have given for the plants - for Ivan and others to sit and rest awhile.

Last weekend it was very wet but I managed to dig three holes and planted our mini-orchard - very mini! One Conference pear, one cherry and one golden apple. The pear and cherry are in bud but the apple is still dormant. I don’t know anything about fruit trees so it’ll be a bit of a learning experience.

After a nice plot day yesterday it has returned to grey skies today and overnight rain, so I’ve been mostly cooking. A curried parsnip soup made with three decent parsnips from the plot and plenty of delicious spices - that will cover a few lunchtimes this week.

Last week I used some of my dried Yin Yang beans with leeks and parsnip for a very tasty stew, made with passata. We also used a few leeks with a cheesy pasta, leek and Quorn lardons bake - so more-ish but we did manage to make it cover two meals.

As well as the soup today, I’ve been making a focaccia, using Waitrose garlic focaccia mix. It’s been very time-consuming with so much resting and turning but it certainly bubbled and expanded!

I thought I’d gone wrong a few times - the dough was so sloppy, but it looks ok now it’s out of the oven. As you can see, I decorated it with chives, peppers, tomatoes and onion - Some of those pre-roasted peppers look a bit too charred ☺️ And, it isn’t meant to be a Union Jack!!

The song is a reference to International Women’s Day last week and, well, it’s a great song by Neneh Cherry - enjoy (though the video is rather depressing)!

Come Together

I feel I need to write a post - February ends tomorrow and it's been such a wet, grey, windy month that even the allotment hasn't been very inspirational.

Thank goodness for the occasional morning walk to see some sunshine before the clouds gather. Sorry to be so whiney, especially after we had such a lovely Saturday - we had a HAHA Work Day.

You can see that a lot of plotholders turned up. We're all so desperate to do something out in the fresh air! We got to work on Ivan's fruit cage, which has now become a HAHA Communal Fruit Plot - look at us all in the cage 😀

Photo courtesy of Forbes Stephenson

The weedy plot in the foreground is one of Ivan's iris plots - the irises are being shared among the community. As you can see the weeds have taken over and the fruit plot looked like that at the start of the day. But a few hours later - voila!

And the grape vine is trimmed and tied back too so we hope to get a good harvest this year. A bit late for trimming really, but it needed to be done to stop it growing through the netting. We were pleased that Ivan came down to inspect and advise.

After working in that spikey fruity environment we enjoyed a gathering for snacks and chat around the bonfire. It was good to meet up with everyone again, including some newcomers and the Sun even shone for a bit.

A couple of weekends ago I did manage to finish clearing the area where our little fruit trees are going to be planted, but it's been too wet to get them in - hopefully this weekend...

At home I've been enjoying Rose harissa-flavoured everything at the moment after Jamie bought a pot of Rose Harissa pesto and it is so delicious, only a hint of heat and such lovely spicy flavour. I made a marvellous soup which included plot-parsnips and parsley along with some frozen veg. It provided me with a week of lunches and I've had two evening meals with rice and What the Cluck cooked on the hob with the remaining harissa.

I was inspired to write a poem this month, for the Hungerford Poetry Festival. If you like poetry you should go along to the Hungerford Hub to see what the actual poets have come up with - I'll share my offering on here next month.

In the meantime, sing-along to Primal Scream. What an excellent addition to the day!

Blowin in the Wind

This beauty was on our butterfly bush at home along with two others, a white and a couple of peacocks! I’ll be lucky to see that many when I do my Big Butterfly Count on the allotment later this week.

It’s late July but the weather really isn’t playing fair! It’s been extremely windy and wet, so it’s not great for gardening but it’s good growing weather. 

I’m pleased to report that the only victims of the wind were a nasturtium and part of a bean plant - amazed (and relieved) that our sunflowers were still standing. Luckily most of the Yin-Yang dwarf beans are protected and I’ve secured them with string now that the beans are developing.

The courgettes are coming thick and fast now. They’re featuring in most meals - mainly just sliced and fried in chilli oil. They’re delicious eaten hot or cold. I may get the spiraliser out for our gnocchi meal this evening.

We had left a couple to get a bit bigger (honestly, it was a plan!) for stuffed courgettes with grated carrot, nuts, garlic and mature cheddar cheese yesterday - so delicious. 

The chantenay carrots have grown well. The mangetout and asparagus peas accompany nearly every meal even sandwiches for most of this month! They’ve been prolific this year. The asparagus pea are a pretty plant. The Cornell’s squash (I thought it was a bush variety) is going to swamp them soon though.

I’ve started harvesting the Florence fennel. I’ve kept it under netting in an attempt to stop it going to seed but some of the bulbs are beginning to elongate rather than bulb more.

They’re so tasty and the smell -mmm, delicious! I made this meal from a trugful of goodies the other night.

Frying the courgette chopped tiny like that was a nice addition and the courgette was almost hidden in the passata sauce 🤭

Not satisfied with just our own veg, we’ve also enjoyed some of plot neighbour, Neal’s. The turnips are a lovely peppery addition fried, roasted or raw. I may sow a row myself.

And Ivan’s fruit bushes have given me a little job to do this morning, until the rain stops.

The song title is brought to us by Peter, Paul and Mary - a blast from the past.

Free Falling

I’ve been working from home for 6 months now. I know lots of people don’t get on with it, but I’ve found it ok. It’s a bit intense, with too many meetings and I miss the general chit-chat and the random corridor chats but I’ve found I’m more productive with work and at home - look, I even made a blackberry & apple crumble! I haven’t done that in a few decades 😀

The blackberries were from the allotment hedge and the apples were windfalls left outside a house we walked past at the weekend (Thanks!). It’s very tasty and I had some for breakfast. I added some almonds to the crumble, but can’t really taste them, I should have added a few more.

We walked to the plot because the East-bound M4 was closed all weekend so all that traffic had to drive along the A4 and was queuing for miles, we didn’t fancy getting caught in that for the sake of a mile walk! You can just about see some of the traffic in this photo from the site’s entrance.

It was a lovely sunny weekend and we spent a good few hours on site both days. We did lots of weed clearing, trimmed the edges, dealt with the compost, hoed everywhere and enjoyed the sun and wildlife. I was given two kale seedlings (Thanks Min!) so planted them in the netted area on Plot3 - the weed seedlings are happy with all the extra space so we’re going to have to hoe it regularly. This is an extreme close-up of a tiny section of ‘bare’ earth!

Jamie spotted this great looking Herald moth on the back of our bench. I love the wing-shape.

We’re still enjoying runner beans which are very long but surprisingly not gnarly yet.

These few went into a stir-fry, made with peanut satay sauce and Naked Glory ‘roast tender strips’. I hadn’t tried them before and they were a really tasty veggie-protein fillet to use as a ‘meat replacement’ - I’m not keen on that phrase but it’s hard not to use it sometimes.

It’s sweltering today (Monday) and it was nice to have a quick lunchtime visit to the allotment - I won’t be able to do that when I eventually make it back to the lab. Talking of which, have you seen the news about life on Venus? Well, maybe not life as we know it 😊

 https://stfc.ukri.org/news/stfc-helps-scientists-find-hints-of-life-on-venus/

Tom Petty provides the title track, though I added the 'g' because I'm just not that cool to get away with it and Blogger can’t handle apostrophes in titles :-D