Showing posts with label loofah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loofah. Show all posts

Saturday 26 November 2016

Bath Time!

Tonight's the night! The loofah that I've been talking about since buying the seeds last January, is  going to be used!.

Taa-daa! It actually looks like a loofah!
A bit skinnier and darker in colour than what I've seen before. And there do seem to be a few seeds trapped in there, but you surely can't deny it doesn't look out of place in the bathroom :-)
The seeds and pulp took a lot of washing out - it would have been much easier with a hose,
But the skin peeled off quite easily.

Sunday 20 November 2016

My Favourite Colour!

Look at the colour of that Kohl Rabi! I haven't fiddled with the photo but the camera flash has made it a perfect match for the lovely glass bowl. Turns out cameras do lie ;-)
Unfortunately two of the larger pumpkins in the greenhouse were starting to rot at the top, where the rain got at them (we really need to re-seal the roof seams). I chopped a healthy chunk out of one of them and have another week of pumpkin soup - shame, I was looking forward to using parsnips for a change but felt I couldn't waste it.
I think some creatures may enjoy that edible house over the next couple of weeks. I only took a couple of handfuls of the seeds and roasted them in pumpkin oil with paprika and a small sprinkling of sugar.
Less sweet is how our Halloween pumpkin looks now!
I noticed that the Florence fennel in the raised bed has sprouted. I'm hoping that will survive to next week and then maybe I'll have carrot and fennel soup; if I don't look at the pumpkins perhaps they'll go away!
But the big chunk has been turned into curried pumpkin soup this evening. Lovely onions fried in turmeric, cumin and paprika while the pumpkin was roasting in the oven.
The kohl rabi are for tomorrow night's version of  'neeps and tatties' to have with a veggie haggis - we know it's not Burns Night, but still it's so tasty :-)
I ate one of the Jack-Be-Little pumpkins with dinner last night. It was a good way to eat it. I chopped the top off and scraped out the seeds. A little bit of butter and 4 minutes in the microwave - perfect for a light lunch. But I made a fried patty out of the cooked flesh and had it with a tortilla and some chilli beans - very tasty!
That's the loofahs on the lower shelf. I'm taking them into work where our office is so warm and dry they'll hopefully dry out very quickly.

Sunday 28 August 2016

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

Thursday 4 August 2016

Still Time Left

I've been hoping to do my Butterfly Count for the last week but the weather just hasn't been right. It's been really windy over the last couple of days. It's stayed pretty warm and there's been no rain since the 20mm overnight earlier in the week, but I want to do the count on a bright (mostly) sunny day and we haven't really had one of those.
There are a lot of butterflies about - masses of whites and a few more interesting ones, but hopefully the weekend will prove to be the perfect day for counting...
That little tiddler is a loofah! There are 3 so far on the plant in the greenhouse... I wonder if they'll have enough time to grow big.
The black tomatoes Indigo Rose are getting blacker - very pretty and bigger fruits than I expected. We've only grown cherry-sized ones before.
And the red Aviditas tomatoes are going orange...well, one has so far and plenty of time for them to go red.
I put strings around the Speedy dwarf beans - it may support them once the beans start forming - although the pumpkin plants may swamp them and the sweetcorn before that happens.
The Radish Rats Tails (are they just normal radishes that have gone to seed?!) are very pretty and their pods are forming, so they'll be lovely in salad lunches when I'm back at work (ugh, don't mention it!) next week.
Our normal radishes were nice at the beginning of the season but, as they do every year, they went to seed ages ago. If they form pods I'll see if they taste exactly the same as the rats tails.
By the way, it's August now! And if you're reading this and are in Hungerford (or nearby) don't forget our Horticultural Show is on the 20th. We hope to see lots of exhibits and/or fellow growers in the evening for the prize-giving and the produce auction - always good fun!


Tuesday 26 July 2016

Mostly Green

But starting with a bit of colour as the raspberries are doing pretty well on Plot7 this year, obviously leaving them to do their own thing is the answer!
We're disappointed with our 3 grafted pepper plants. We expected them to produce a whole string of peppers... At the moment they're all green but they should colour-up when they're ripe.
Milena - the orange one
Perhaps the colder weather mid-growth stopped them in their tracks.
Britney - the red one
Or maybe it was just not warm enough with the greenhouse door open - but it gets stifling in there during the day if it's shut.
Chelsea - the yellow one
Well, hopefully these five peppers will grow big and tasty, even if they don't produce the 'abundance of tasty peppers' the plants are meant to.
At the end of the greenhouse the loofah is growing tall. It's rather straggly with just one flower and no fruits yet...
The pumpkins on Plot7 are spreading as intended - we want them to grow over and around the sweetcorn as the small pumpkins then hang and stay nice and clean.
The Minicole cabbages on Plot3 are looking more like cabbages now. We weeded most of the plot today and it's looking much happier - though the spuds still look awful!
This ringlet butterfly was in the greenhouse, reminding me that I need to do the Big Butterfly Count but want a nice sunny day to do it on - today wasn't sunny, but was warm. 
And for dinner we have our first runner beans - Benchmaster. They have a red line along the edge. I'd take a photo but they're in the cooking pot right now!

Friday 22 July 2016

Hot, Sunny, Hot, Hot, Hot!

It's still sweltering and pretty sunny. Lovely! But the plants need a LOT of watering, especially in the greenhouse. The Indigo Rose tomatoes are blacking up, only on the side facing the light at the moment.
The loofah has its first flower, but we think this is a male, unless that's a loofah and not just a stem... Time will tell...
I'm drying the garlic outside as it's so hot. I think I'll be giving some away, but want to pickle some in wine vinegar as it's apparently delicious.
We walked home under screeching swifts. They are amazing and gather on the power lines over the allotment. I'll put a video on my wildlife blog, if it's any good when I've uploaded it.

Saturday 9 July 2016

Little Things and Longpods

A warm, windy afternoon on the plot, attempting to make it look like a reasonable entry to Hungerford in Bloom, for the judging tomorrow. We're not expecting great things - we've seen the opposition and their plots have less bare earth and less weeds. But, we've got fresh broads beans for tea, so who cares? :-)
The greenhouse tomatoes all have little fruits appearing, but it looks like we're going to get less on the Indigo Rose at the moment ..
As do the peppers, slowly but surely...
And the loofah is beginning to go a bit wild, but no flowers yet.
The marigolds are flowering though, aw, they're so pretty.
The garlic is beginning to go rusty and I think I may pull one or two up tomorrow. They can start drying off in the greenhouse.
A slightly larger yellow courgette this time. That's part of my tea tomorrow, but I didn't want it to get any bigger on the plant overnight. The broad beans are Longpods and some of them were very long.

Saturday 2 July 2016

Is it Summer yet?

It's easy to be disheartened as an English plotholder this year. The England flags were taken down as soon as England crashed out of the Euros with an awful football performance :-( The slugs are eating anything and everything; The weather has been as grey as the mood of half the country, but... Taaa-daaaah! Here's a welcome scene we haven't seen for a while! Blue sky - yay!
Of course you can't see from the photo that it was blowing a gale, but it was still lovely and warm and we got a lot done. Because of the wind we're leaving protection around our runner beans, pumpkins and the Rocky cucumbers which have today been planted in their pots on Plot3.
We planted up some tubs with flowers. The plan for an amazing display of 12 tall sunflowers has been scuppered by slugs - it'll now be an amazing display of, at most, 5 shorter sunflowers.
The sweetcorn grow quickly once they're planted out. We'll leave their cloches on for now, they may appreciate the extra warmth.
Quite a lot of the parsnips haven't been nibbled so we weeded the area - hope that doesn't make it too easy for the slugs to spot them - there they are, behind the little fence. Beyond the parsnips we've planted the Valeriana Officinalis which we grew from seed. The flowers are meant to smell of vanilla so I hope they grow as intended.
The broad beans are looking ok, but some of them have been got at (probably) by slugs and (possibly) birds, but there should be a few meals-worth of tasty beans for us.
And who's been eating our strawberries? Looks like everyone's having a go!
Never mind, still enough for us too. There's a tiny garlic bulb and a yellow courgette going home too. The feeble garlic looked like it had been pulled up by a bird, along with some of the remaining silverskin onions. The courgette had its end nibbled, but we'll add it to our dinner.
Most of the garlic is fine. It's in the raised bed, behind the onions, which are just beginning to bulb up.
And the loofah is slowly beginning to climb up its trellis in the greenhouse. It likes hot humid weather which it isn't getting at the moment, but now it's July so surely...
Jamie's sowed some Speedy dwarf french beans. We'll germinate them at home and then they'll be planted around the sweetcorn patch. Speedy beans are meant to be harvestable in 8 weeks - hope so! These are our Scarlet Empire runner beans - just beginning to flower
It's Hungerford in Bloom allotment judging next weekend - our plots aren't entry-worthy (it's a bit too early for us) but I like to support this type of thing so the allotments get a bit of publicity. Fingers crossed for just the right growing weather and no slugs over the next week....hmmm!
Plot3 will not be in Hungerford in Bloom!