There goes August!

What an odd month! We've had rain, wind and temperatures down to 1.5° but today was warm and sunny. We've had plenty of summer squash, tomatoes and beetroot to eat. The Zephyr squash are particularly tasty, but have grown as bush plants rather than climbing up the trellis. The patty pans have been brilliant this year.

Our Lizzano tomatoes are still supplying an abundance of toms and they're so sweet, perfect for eating straight from the plant :-)

The Festival squash have only just started producing fruits so not sure I'll get any to taste this year. They've been rather late to start trailing, so I chopped the extra runners off today in the hope that will encourage some fruits (one will do!) to mature... 

I've had some delicious meals of roasted vegetables and made a meal with seven home-grown ingredients - I love that!

Look at the centre of that pretty sunflower

The dwarf sunflowers have provided a lovely display and kept the bees happy. And the Russian Giant sunflowers have grown impressively tall and on the last day of August the flowers have finally opened.

The runner beans didn't appreciate the cold spell, so not sure whether they'll still be edible. Lots have brown patches which seems to be bruising from wind damage. There are some good long ones which may be suitable for the British Legion Horticultural Show next weekend - longest runner bean entry here I come :-) And I think we'll have something suitable for the funny shaped veg entry....

Look at the red berries in the hedgerow!

The wildflower mix is putting on a lovely display, with plenty of buds to come, if the weather stays good.

The mangetout are only providing enough pods for plot-snacks and, although covered in lovely scarlet flowers, the asparagus pea pods are very sparse so far. I hope I get enough to fry up a plateful, they really are a delight!

Warning - Whinger Alert

Bleah, what a year!

One would think that a month off work would mean that our plots are looking beautiful and we're busy harvesting. Unfortunately that isn't the case as I've been sickly and there are a lot of bare patches where we just haven't had time to sow, plant or grow anything. I hate to admit that as I write this I know there are marigolds, cabbages and leeks drying out in their trays - how awful :-(

Well, we're resigned to not eating much this year! Here are a few pics on the few occasions we have visited.

I'm still hoping to get some mangetout. I was most disappointed, though not surprised, when I saw that the pigeons had visited...

I half-heartedly attached some strips of plastic and there's been a bit of new (un-nibbled) growth, so we'll see...

Apart from the rhubarb and strawbs this is what we've harvested! Lucky I don't have any appetite at the moment. We pulled the Desiree potatoes because the foliage had gone down with something.

I am going to risk saying that my Florence fennel looks good (well, it did a few days ago).

Here's to feeling healthy again quite soon!

Catching Up

A couple of weeks away from work and a few sunny days have made all the difference! I feel much better and the plot is looking at least part-loved again. We've been driving to the allotment and parking next to our plot so I can escape to the car (the shed) as necessary!

This is what we've been living on throughout June - no wonder you've been unwell, you're thinking!! OK, not quite, but it is all we're harvesting at the moment.

The Raspberry Red rhubarb has been amazing; shooting up delicious new stems regularly. The plants are collapsing under the weight of the older leaves and stems now, just look at the size of those two plants!

We've enjoyed quite a lot of air traffic recently because of D Day commemorations and this Dakota flying low over the site was very impressive - take my word for it - the photo does NOT do it justice.

Jamie's just finished sowing some Speedy dwarf French beans for germinating at home, before planting out on the plot. This may mean that our runners and French beans don't all arrive at once...

The Scarlet Empire runners are looking happy since being transplanted on the plot and protected from wind damage by fleece.

Look at that healthy bud, just waiting to become flowers then lovely beanies!

The raised bed crops are looking ok, though the Pak choi leaves may not be edible due to flea beetle damage. We should get some salad and I live in hope that the beets will pull through (though generally seedlings don't appreciate being completely dried out in the early stages of their lives!)

The Florence fennel continues to need regular protection from slugs. They are beginning to bulb up, so I'm looking forward to that!

 

I've put a trellis up for purple-podded mangetout and some PeeWee 65 petit pois. I've also sown a row of Asparagus pea, chard and Callalloo. Jamie transplanted the grafted Lizzano tomato plants into high standing pots. We're hoping this will stop us trampling on so many of the toms when they start

I've put a Festival squash to scramble along the ground near the pea trellis and a Sunburst patty pan squash, which is a bush variety, on the legume quarter. Two Zephyr squash have been planted to grow over the squash trellis from last year.

Jamie's sown the carrots and parsnips and we've got Tundra cabbage and multi-coloured beet root seedlings just popping up in the seeding cage by our healthy-looking potato plants.

So, we've been pretty busy - well, Jamie's been busy; I've provided vital morale boosting and support :-)

Potatoes and Beans

We had a successful afternoon on the plot today. It was reasonably warm, though if the chill wind blew while the sun wasn't shining I needed to grab my jacket. The temperature fell to zero over the last couple of nights.

One of our rhubarb plants had sent up this flower head. When the bud starts growing it looks like any other stem, but now the flower has developed it's obvious and easy to remove - to stop the whole plant going to seed.

After cutting the stem off there's a gaping hollow stem.

To avoid it filling with water and rotting I put a cover over the top. The flowers are really pretty, but I'll enjoy them on other people's plots rather than on our's :-)

We achieved today's prime objective and got our spuds in! We've only planted 20 this year: 10 x Chopin and 10 x Desiree. Spread across three rows. The Chopin are on grass clippings and manure while the Desiree also have shredded paper in their trenches. All have a bit of added 6x and of course the nematodes should be doing their thing to keep the slugs at bay.



Rain threatened, but stayed away

Here's Jamie adding Christmas tree sprinkles as a further slug deterrent! (I rather like the shadow in this photo).

Christmas Tree needles

We also sowed some broad beans: 15 x Suttons and 10 x Express - we're hoping these varieties will result in their own succession harvesting...

As usual we protect them immediately with bottle cloches. There's debate at Marsh Lane as to whether the pheasants or mice are the biggest broad beanshoot chompers; they're both unwelcome, but frequent, visitors.

The cat is enjoying all the activity, human, gnome, rodent and feathered!

Gnome Toppling Time

The strawberry flowers make it look like it could be a bumper year, if the frost stays off. I thought it funny that this photo shows flowers on the same plant with 5 and 6-petals - 6 is apparently more common, will have to pay more attention next time I'm on the site

Lunch at the Allotment

I was working from home today and it was such a hot day that we decided to go to the plot for our lunch. It was lovely; certainly could have stayed there for the afternoon!

Jamie picked some long-awaited runner beans for his dad and we picked some bits for our dinner tonight - fried marinaded tofu with veggies (tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, basil).
Our peppers are rather gnarly but they taste fabulous.

I also took some photos of the many 'beasties' and will put entries on the wildlife blog. I'm not a fan of spiders but the one I took a photo of today is quite amazing looking! It's your standard orb weaver garden spider - the type that makes a web across your porch so you walk through it in the morning <shiver>

I meant to post this photo the other day of our pickled silverskin onions, runner bean chutney and tomato & courgette chutney.

We've decided that the pickled onions will provide us with enough for next year too so we won't plant any shallots next year - will give us a bit of space on the plot for something else...

Plans for Pickles and Meals

It's pickling weekend so the flat smells of onions. We peeled all the shallots yesterday and they've been soaking in salt water overnight. We'll start the pickling after I've written this. We went to the allotment earlier, it's been a lovely hot day but we didn't spend as much time on the plot as we intended. Here's a photo of the asparagus pea; I felt it deserved a photo after I was recommending it yesterday. There should be enough on there to have them with a meal later in the week - they need to be eaten when smaller than 2.5cm or they are tough.

The squash are going crazy. A couple of the Uchiki Kuri really look like they're ready, but surely it's too soon..? I read somewhere that it's better to leave them to mature for longer but am a bit concerned that they'll go over if I leave them on the plant too long. The climbing frame has worked, so that can stay for next year.

Our peppers have gone red on the top side where the sun touches them - a lovely shiny red. We've had a couple in salads and they are tasty but the skins are a bit tough. I may add them to the roasting tin of veggies tomorrow. There are lots of green ones on the plants still and they're getting very big, so hopefully the sun will continue to shine for them to go red too.

We've pulled our silverskin onions and have them on the drying rack. We should be able to pickle them next weekend, although we really want to get some bean chutney done then and I want to do some tomato chutney - ooh, so much to do!!

I was hoping to make chive vinegar, as shown on the Horticultural Channel but the second lot of flowers which are now coming on our chives don't look as healthy as the flowers in Spring - looks like that plan may have to carry over till next year.

Another thing which will have to wait till next year is the fennel recipes I had planned. My florence fennel plants have gone to seed (such a shame, I should have started harvesting earlier). I've left a couple of the smaller plants in the ground but I think they've probably had their day too.

We left with our trug of goodies. That's our first Kestrel potato plant of this year - one of the tubers weighs over 600g! We hope it's ok on the inside. A lot of them are very scabby but we're hoping to bake a couple of them and scab makes the skin lovely and crispy :-)
There's also a couple of garlic; they've dried out well up the plot, even though we've had quite a lot of rain over the last few days, it's dried out in between and the garlic seem to be unaffected.
 

Today I'm a Fennel Fan

There were a lot of plot holders on site today; the warm.weather and weeds had drawn people out! Jamie's happy because we're now eating runner beans rather than saving them to grow the longest one! I picked a lot of mangetout; turn your back on them for a moment and another crop have appeared. The mangetout went into the freezer - I couldn't face another salad just yet!

As advised by Sue Garrett, we've pulled our garlic so that it doesn't stay in the ground too long and split. I've hung it over the pea support to dry out. No idea what were going to do with it all!

We have taken the cage off the shallots and lifted them slightly to get them to dry too so that we can start pickling. There are some very large shallots there, but we may find that they divide more when we skin them.

You may remember that I grew fennel and celeriac this year specifically to make soup. Things haven't gone to plan: earlier in the year my fennel was being destroyed by slugs and my celeriac was growing too slowly so I had to buy celeriac plants.
There are a couple of plants which look reasonably healthy, but no sign of a bulb (I haven't kept them wet enough). This is what most of the plants look like....rubbish..

And the Florence fennel is ready to pick. So, I decided to try fennel pan fried today. Oh My God! It was sooo tasty! Not so aniseedy as it smells raw. I added the remaining fennel to carrot and onion and made a really delicious Carrot and Fennel soup (albeit a bit thick at the moment). That will cover a few lunches at work, I can hardly wait!

Waiting for Rain and getting some!

We went up in the afternoon yesterday in the hope that we'd get caught in a rainstorm, we watched it moving towards up, getting darker and the wind started up but we only felt a few drops. As we got home the heavens opened and we got a lot of rain overnight and this morning. 11mm in total

The plots look so happy after rain and the weeds appreciate it even more! Above is some of the Asparagus Pea which are very pretty (but don't need a trellis).
Below is one of the Uchiki Kuri squash plants - I'm going to need to cut back some off-shoots. It would happily cover 4 poles I think!

We're a bit concerned about one of our Brussel Sprouts plants - it's leaves are going rather curly. We'll keep an eye on it but may need to pull it up in an attempt to prevent any cross-infection.

I'm also unsure of what to do with my Florence (bulb) fennel. After all the panic as the slugs were munching their way through it earlier in the year, it's come on really well. However, how big are they meant to get before eating? I wanted to keep them for soup but they look like they're mature now.

This is the biggest one - as big as my palm and quite pump. Is it ok to leave it to carry on growing?

 

This is my herb fennel. It's really tall and has flowered. The flying insects really love it, so I'm leaving it to grow as it's not really something I will use much for cooking and it looks very pretty.

The runner beans are also looking beautiful with masses of flowers. There are a few beans forming but not sure whether they'll be ready to win 'longest runner bean' this year (or even come second as we did last year...)

Just as it began to rain again this afternoon, we left the plot with a lovely selection of veggies which will cover us for a few meals.

International Kidney potatoes on the left and Orla on the right. You can tell the Orla as the slugs love them :-(