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 

Unbelievable

Four full days (so far) of scorching temperatures (high 20s) and sunshine. Of course, we're now moaning that "it's just too hot"! Particularly in the greenhouse where it was 49.1! It also means that the watering each evening is a very busy time on the site, you've got to love a sunny evening on the plot with fellow plotholders.

 Potatoes have such pretty flowers, these are on our Desiree.

On Saturday we had another go at clearing our new plot (46a). It looked like this and our chairman thought it was abandoned and needed spraying - oops! It was just that the other plots took priority - honest!

So after a few hours in the heat on Saturday we had cleared a lot of the most bothersome weeds with seed heads. And Jamie found two blueberry bushes - bonus - and part of the plot now looks like this... Plenty more to do on there though...

I also showed two new plotholders around and they are both happily joining us along with their children, so that's a bonus - we like to see new plotholders!

I'm leaving the cage around the sunflowers, on as the stems will need some support when they reach their full height.

We've let ourselves down with the strawberries. We should have taken runners last Autumn and planted another row. We didn't and our remaining row is producing a pretty poor crop - delicious, but small fruits and ants/woodlice are tasting more than we are at the moment 🙁. Luckily there are also some strawberry plants on the new plot, so perhaps we'll get a few fruits from there...

I pulled one garlic, but it's a bit too early. I've hung it to dry out, as it'll still taste of garlic, but will leave the rest for a few more weeks.

Our Rocky cucumbers and pumpkins haven't germinated! But we bought some Mini Munch little cucumber seeds and two of those are now growing on a bit before they're ready to plant out. We're actually away for Halloween so don't really need pumpkins, but they always look nice and I'll miss the soup!
EMF singing It's Unbelievable, which is a phrase I heard on the plot about the current weather.

Sunny

Wow! What a beautiful weekend that was. It's now Monday and the temperature has dropped, but I don't mind as I'm at work (on lunch break I hasten to add!).

It was a bit too hot for digging, but I did some and Jamie finished off the patch where a compost bin was and where we are growing some sweetcorn this year on Plot 3. The plants on the left are the valerian, which has grown like crazy - it should have some nice white flowers that smell of vanilla.

I found the new packet of leek seeds that I had lost, so we now have another potful sowed - they are called Toledo. Raspberry plants are looking fresh with the buds looking promising - I never did get round to tidying up the bed as intended.

My Tigerella tomato seedlings at work are looking less than happy - our office is just too hot for them, I think. There should be at least a couple which can be transplanted in a week or so, but their stems are so weak they may not survive the move. Luckily our grafted tomato plants should be delivered soon.

We left the site last night after a lovely few hours, with armfuls of rhubarb from plotholder, Lesley - ours isn't quite ready for picking yet.
Today's song is 'Sunny' sung by Marvin Gaye, but now it's back-to-work time...

A little way to go yet...

We've had some really hot days with sultry nights and yesterday we got the storm. I didn't see any lightning but heard thunder rumbling around. The sun and rain are encouraging everything to grow but our sunflowers are shorter than previous years.

Sunflower peeping through

We've been to the plot to harvest and water each evening. This is our one loofah that's formed - it's about 30cm long. The plant is now producing quite a few flowers, but there won't be time to make any more loofahs at this stage.

The peppers are colouring up now; 2 peppers per plant is rather weak. I hope they taste good, we'll wait till they get their full colour before they get eaten - maybe stuffed peppers, mmm.

We've been alternating between courgette-based meals and runner bean & potato meals over the last couple of weeks. The runner beans are beginning to get a bit stringy on the edges now. The potato has been grey-purple because we've been using the Salad Blues- still tasty, but not very pretty! We should have emptied them out of the potato bag earlier then we could have had them as boiled salad potatoes.

All that (apart from the cucumber and raspberries!) went into a lovely roasted vegetable and halloumi meal.
That was the first of the patty pan summer squashes. We think it has a bit more flavour than the courgettes. They were really slow to get going, but look like they're going to swamp us soon! The courgettes I take to work keep disappearing from the kitchen, so they won't go to waste.

The tomatoes we're mostly eating are Aviditas, I think they're more tasty than the Orange Paruche, which split as soon as they're picked. The Indigo Rose are still on their way to ripening... I've tied them up in an attempt to get the green ones and green parts to see more light..

Our sweetcorn has finally formed some cobs. They aren't very big, but hopefully they're still going to fill out. Looking at previous years (aren't blogs handy?) we normally start harvesting it in September, sometimes late September, so we seem to be pretty much on track.

The Jack-Be-Little plants are producing loads of pumpkins and clambering all over the sweetcorn, the trellis, the courgettes.... And the Speedy dwarf beans which are just forming, so we'll have them to replace the runners in our diet.

A mackerel sky