Transformation

We’ve been watching the cygnets this year and noticing the plumage changes as they move towards adulthood. They join in the feeding frenzy when we feed them from the canal or river bank, but only the adults seem to spot the feed that lands out of the water 😊

The war memorial is one of their feeding locations, with our fancy new memorial bench, this tree also puts on a fabulous transformation display. The fallen leaves just add to the display don’t they.

Our neighbours, who are also plotholders, have an excellent display of pumpkins - their largest was 36kg! Amazing considering how dry the year was.

Our display of squashes is rather less impressive but I am hoping to make this recipe from at least one of the fig leaf gourds, but I’m not sure whether they are ripe enough to have the spaghetti-like texture. Will find out, I guess!

We’ve had a couple of plot visits since my last post - I weeded the plot where the onions and garlic have begun to poke through and have done a bit more clearing. Spotted this tiny sunflower that’s made a late appearance - the flower is only about 10cm in diameter!

We’ve had a delivery of Apsley Farms mulch which I can spread once I’ve cleared the planned area, but I need to dig a trench for all the foliage from beans, squash, etc and I can’t face doing that at the moment - we’ve had such a lot of rain it may be a nightmare job.

We got an absolute drenching when we visited the Welford Park Spectacle of Light on Sunday.

Four miles of wandering amongst beautiful fantasy woodland with lovely musical accompaniment.

We really loved it, despite the rain. I really liked these conical lights amongst the trees.

And this area was where we sat having refreshments. The spheres were really great but didn’t photograph too well. But just look at those huge lit-up trees - stunning.

It’s only a few miles from Hungerford - it’s where the Great British Bake-off is filmed. It was fabulous, rather expensive but worth the visit, the drenching and the aching legs! More photos if you fancy a peek.

And here’s another cygnet photo showing a bit more white plumage - the brown feathers moult apparently, though it looks like they’re changing colour to me 🧐

So, you can see why this post’s song title is what it is - by David Gray.

Too Late

Autumn really provides us with some lovely Sunrises and Sunsets. This was the view from our window one morning in September and there have been some excellent pink clouds at both ends of the day. At home we’ve noticed bats flitting about when it’s still quite light before dusk and after dark a hedgehog has been trundling through the courtyard.

The allotment is waiting to be cleared, but my heart’s not in it at the moment. That bed has the parsnips and beetroot but almost everywhere else needs clearing. We want to dig a trench under the old polytunnel frame where the climbing beans will grow next year. All the old foliage can go in there but I need to clear the squashes first - maybe I’ll actually do that today…

I’ve planted some daffodil bulbs around the orchard and in the flower plot and I did get round to planting the garlic at the beginning of the month - about 30 Czechmate Wight. Sprinkled onion fertiliser on the leeks, onions and those garlic cloves.

I pulled the last Pink Fir potato from there. Just enough for a couple of meals from some potatoes left on the allotment spares shelf, with 20cm chits! They were very tasty roasted.

At the end of September I cleared the small raised bed - the pak choi had all bolted and the Chinese cabbage disappeared - but I discovered the seed tray where I’d sown All Year Round cauliflower! I hoed and cleared (not dug, brassica don’t want dug soil - luckily!) an area in the brassica cage and stuck 14 seedlings in, so we’ll see…. I don’t know if the whole country is the same but we have hoards of whitefly - in the town as well as at the allotment.

There are still a few redcurrant tomatoes hanging on, but I’m expecting that this was the last meal that included fresh home-grown toms this year - they’ve certainly served us well!

Talking of food - we visited beautiful Oxford yesterday specifically for the regular street food market at Gloucester Green and to visit a museum. 

Gloucester Green didn’t disappoint - so much choice Nepalese, Thai, Lebanese, Italian, Korean with so many veggie options! I opted for a Persian halloumi bowl - so delicious- and Jamie had Chinese dumplings - yum yum 😋 

We browsed the shops including Blackwells Bookstore and visited The Covered Market for coffee and cake at Browns Cafe - it’s a must.

We wandered along streets - a bit dodgy for Jamie at times - admiring the architecture and considering the history in these cobbled alleyways and walls - so beautiful. And spotting the weird features and gargoyles on many of the buildings.

We heard music and when we turned into Broad Street we stumbled across another street market - what a stroke of luck! Being surrounded by so many different nationalities and languages makes Oxford such an interesting city to sit, watch and listen. Oh, and have a little drink of course ☺️

What a lovely, exhausting day! Now, as we’re well into October and it’s not windy or rainy I really should go to the allotment… Carole King provides the great song because we didn’t make it to the museum on time! That’s ok, we’ll be back.

Many Rivers to Cross

This is the tightly packed leek flower head which is protected by the pointy hat until it dries and pops off - or I release it. Most are white but some are tinted pink. I do love these pom-poms! So pleasing to pat as you walk by, but watch out for wildlife! The pollinators arrive en masse: flies, bees, hoverflies, beetles - they can’t resist a leek flower.

The weather has been hot, hot, hot again but the wind is annoying - really howling at times. I’m glad the towering hollyhocks (seed from my Cousin Jen’s plants) are still upright, but I’m not sure how they’re managing it!

The wind has been so strong that we can hear the army practising on Salisbury Plain (about 30 miles away). I guess the noise is tanks firing, it sounds like thunder. And yesterday we could hear live music from a Summer Event about 3 miles away, that was fun. 

You can see that heat doesn’t necessarily mean blue skies, but, although we’ve had a few torrential downpours, the weather has been mostly dry and the wind and Sun evaporate the rainfall quickly.

Everything needs watering and it’s hard work in the heat. Actually, not everything needs watering - the bindweed is doing just brilliantly finding its own water 😖 Wrapping itself around all the flower stems, it’s so annoying! I pull armfuls out every visit and try to get the root but it soon recovers - infuriating!

I harvested our garlic in the week - all from two bulbs, amazing! We’ve starting cooking with one although it’s still a bit green. The rest are drying in the polytunnel now.

Apart from that we are eating mangetout, broad beans and shallots. I’m expecting asparagus peas to be included in my meals next week. I don’t usually grow a long row as Jamie doesn’t eat the pods, but they’re such a pretty little flower. I’m hoping the plants will grow a bit more upright like they did last year, but may need to provide some support. The radishes have gone a bit woody now. I’ll try planting a few more but I want the original plants to go to seed as they are pretty with white flowers and I like eating the pods. I’ve netted the beetroot again as the pigeons/pheasants are really enjoying the leaves this year.

The tomatoes, cucumber and aubergine plants have started to spread; both outside and polytunnel plants and all the beans - climbers and dwarf- are looking pretty healthy; they’re loving the sunshine as much as us. A couple of the Tahiti Melon squash I sowed direct last week have germinated on the old polytunnel frame on Plot3 and the Sharks fin melon plants have grown more leaves - I’m expecting a jungle from them. Both are varieties of squash, not melons. The Alvaro melons on Plot7 are sitting quietly forming roots before the top growth takes off (I hope!).

On these really hot days Jamie and I have started walking down to the river after dinner, only a few minutes away, to sit and watch the wildlife.

It is a beautiful section of river - the River Kennet - with trout and other large fish as well as plenty of bird life. The other side of the stone road bridge is a private fishery. I got told off for reading my book there about 30 years ago - it still smarts! Otters have been seen here, but not by us - yet… We’re still waiting for news of the Kennet Valley Wetland Reserve which will be across from that wooden walkway, if the plan is approved 🤞 

The River Dun sprouts from the Kennet and runs through Hungerford. This section, with the swan gliding by, is at the War memorial and is one of our stopping places when walking into town. There are plenty of benches for just sitting, it’s just a shame the road is so busy.

Anyway, back at the allotment we had a Sunday picnic last weekend - nice to get back to them. We lit the chimnea because the temperature dipped and we were competing with wind and rain, but we stuck with it, with umbrellas and a windbreak! So British 😀

It’s meant to be hotter today, with an amber heat alert. It was just about 30° in the shade yesterday - phew. Look how dry the earth is and the yellowing grass.

The potatoes have flowered, we don’t have many planted so it’ll be good to get a decent haul from each plant. They look like Nicola flowers, but I think that is where the Kestrels were meant to be planted - or perhaps they’re the Duke of York… oh dear, we really must work on our labelling!

The song title is provided by Jimmy Cliff - what a voice. Singalong, but don’t scare the neighbours!

Daylight

We’re mid-heatwave at the moment - it’s extremely hot (high 20s) but I must say I’m loving it, especially working my part-time hours. We go to the allotment for lunch and stay until we’re flaking out.

There’s so much to water now that we’ve pretty much planted all that’s going in … well, there may be some additions if the mood takes me. My row of Jacob’s Cattle drying beans have all germinated and we’ve potted up the polytunnel. Jamie can help with a lot, but needs to sit down even more than me these days, but the allotment is definitely his happy place 😊

In the polytunnel we have:
Aubergine - Graffiti
Aubergine - Meatball
Melon - Alvaro
Tomato - Redcurrant
Tomato - Black Moon

I’ve grown one of the Redcurrant tomatoes and three of the Alvaro melons outside too - just with holes dug through this weed suppressant - hopefully the melon growth will cover that entirely. It was only after I’d planted them that Jamie piped up “why didn’t you plant them in the middle?”. Hmm, good point, of course  I’m wanting them to grow towards the centre of our plot but they’re bound to head the other way 🙄

We’ve planted a Cocktail Crush tomato and a Baby cucumber plant on Plot3. We’re expecting that just one cucumber plant will suffice, rather than swamp us with cucumbers this year! I’ve sown some celtuce, a Chinese salad veg into the raised bed. The radish, mangetout and salad leaves are providing me with some small lunch additions. I’ve used the garlic scapes in various meals and have used a couple of bunches of shallots (picked before fully mature) as I’ve given up with salad onions.

I have pulled one garlic but it needs more drying. I’ll probably wait another week before pulling the rest. And that is our first courgette of the year - we based our whole fajita meal round that tiny specimen 🤭

I’m pleased to see the verbena bonariensis has started to put on its show amongst the feverfew flowers, just as the valerian oficinalis is going over. Zinnia and pot marigolds are on their way too and I hope to have some hollyhocks photos very soon…

I’m also happy to see more ladybirds arrive with the heat. I’ve been collecting them from our stinging nettle pot (it started out as a raspberry pot) and placing them on my Gigantes beans which are climbing well, but the blackfly have found them.

So, today is the longest day and it’s meant to be the hottest. I expect we’ll be doing a lot of watering, a lot of bindweed pulling and a lot of sitting for much of the 16hours and 37minutes of daylight. Enjoy the song by David Kushner.

These Days

There’s a spot of colour from when we had some welcome sunshine on Saturday afternoon. That little robin is full of song at the moment. Perhaps like us he was relieved that the rain had stopped! October has continued the extremely wet theme of this Autumn. The ground doesn’t get a chance to dry out between torrential rain or drizzle so it’s difficult to do any clearing.

We’ve also had a couple of frosty nights with temperatures dipping below freezing but some flowers are surviving. My little hazel tree’s leaves are changing colour and there are some buds - Ooh, I wonder if it’ll produce catkins this year 🤞

Our sunflowers are looking less happy and sadly the seedheads have gone mouldy so maybe not ideal for birds to eat.

The birds have been enjoying the teasels though they’ve missed a few seeds on this one - I had to remind myself of what the word for this is - VIVIPARY.

The Wildlife Plot is looking extremely overgrown and, until the most recent frost, it was literally buzzing with activity. There were loads of bees and other insects and Jamie saw a little vole in one of the woodpiles. 

This daddy long legs had found a nice soft new teasel head to warm up on. The grass was full of these crane flies last week; reminded me of filling my desk up with them at primary school - I’m not sure why I did that 🤨

I’ve had fleece protecting my butternut squash but yesterday I decided to pick them now that the foliage has died back. I’m glad the slugs and snails all picked on just the one fruit!

And left the others untouched - they’re very small but just right for individual meals.

We’re still picking tomatoes if they show any coloured blush and they soon ripen at home. The peppers we pick as we need them because they’re in the polytunnel which we’ve been zipping up on the cold nights.

The Halloween peppers are tasty and orange ones were part of this halloumi meal, along with our last sweetcorn, potatoes and some parsley.

We were pleased to see that our garlic didn’t drown and a few green shoots have appeared - that’s about 3 weeks since the cloves were planted. And we’ve spotted some fungi appearing on the plot -  I’m not sure of the type; it may be there because of the manured soil.

I’m pleased to say it hasn’t rained yet today (Sunday) but these days our bodies are moving much slower than the clock so it’ll be an afternoon plot visit. The song title is provided by Nico.