Dream On

I’ve put that lovely full trug of veggies at the top of this post as I’m a bit moany! That’s our first aubergine of the year and the extremely meagre haul from our first Desiree potato - we would normally expect more than this…

Desiree

We thought it was going to rain yesterday afternoon. The sky filled with dark clouds, the weather apps showed rain all around but not a drop fell on us 😮‍💨 Our last smattering of rain drops was on 22nd June, 40 days ago, no wonder the allotment site’s central pathway looks like this and the grass crunches underfoot.

Of all the squashes, our butternut is struggling the most. It looks so depressed with its drooping leaves; it cheers up after a 10litre drink but by the next day it’s flagging again. There are lots of squashes forming so I’ll keep watering and give it a bit of feed later.

And the rudbeckia has looked sad all Summer - it’s mostly had to fend for itself as I’m not really watering flowers, which is why there aren’t many!

The two Baby Lou plants that I pulled before we went away produced plenty of lovely small tubers.

Baby Lou

They’re mostly clean but one had this interesting damage. I’m not too sure what caused it but I’m surprised that only one tuber was affected. It went home to the green waste bin. Nb. Don’t Google Image it or you’ll be faced with numerous nasty human skin disease photos 😷

We’ve been enjoying these and the Orla potatoes in various meals including skin-on wedges for a fab easy meal with dips or baked Camembert. Yum.

And this pretty dish used up a few more veggies. It was loosely based on a Greek dish - Briami. (That’s red onion rather than aubergine by the way)

I’m trying to keep on top of the tomatoes and courgettes but Jamie’s already bored with them. I’ve frozen 2 portions of passata - 500grams of tomatoes produced 250ml of passata.

and I think I’ll be making more quite soon - these are our most recent harvests…

And everything I cook also includes onions/shallots and/or garlic - ideal really 😋

Onions and shallots drying

The sweetcorn have finally started forming their tassels and the water run-off from watering them is helping the Maximilian Sunflowers, as if they need help! They are pretty bobbing their heads in the breeze. This quarter of Plot7 is still looking the most alive.

The Baby Bear pumpkin plant on Plot3 has produced 3 orange pumpkins already and there seem to be 3 more just beginning to change colour so they’re visible amongst the foliage. We won’t harvest them till the stems have completely dried off.

This post turned out as less of a whinge than I expected. Who can moan when we have all this lovely veg, blue skies and a bore hole providing us with water. The hosepipe ban doesn’t affect us as we use watering cans - usually ~12 x 10litres to do our 3 plots. Backwards and forwards to the water trough - phew and that’s why I don’t need a gym 😉

We’re noticing the emergency services are much busier at the moment and there have been at least two field fires near here, though I fear they may have been aided by humans even more than climate change. Terrifying wild fires in France, Spain, Greece and other countries should be incentive enough to be careful but unfortunately some people are very stupid.

The fabulous song is of course by Aerosmith, from 1973, can you believe it?! And we’ll keep dreaming of rain for the timebeing….

Hey Jude

This little (Carder?) bee is busy pollinating our Painted Lady runner beans and good to see there are a few beans already growing on that stem. Quite often we’ve seen bumblebees accessing the nectar through a hole in the back of the flower, which bypasses the vital pollen transfer.

Beans have been on the menu this week - broad beans. These are the ones we sowed in May - we usually sow in the Autumn to avoid the bean weevil. I had to throw a few beans away because of evidence of weevil larvae, but there were enough to add to this very tasty egg bake dish (based on this recipe). The courgettes are still a bit wonky but taste good.

All home-grown veg: green and yellow courgettes, broad beans, shallots, garlic and our Paris potatoes. This one plant produced >500g of small spuds. Very tasty and they held together pretty well while cooking - we thought they may fall apart due to being so dry.

I pulled some of the onions because their foliage bent over - they’re drying in the Sun for now, along with some shallots. There are a few more to pull.

As you can see from these photos the weather is still extremely hot. We totally expect 30+° temperatures now, with 26° feeling cool in comparison and there was a cool (quite strong) breeze out there last night and it’s cloudythis morning though we’re expecting that to burn off with no rain forecast till the end of the week. So, watering, watering, watering is still essential but this is a great time of year now we’re harvesting. I pulled two more potato plants yesterday - another Paris and an Orla. And I’m pleased the sweetpeas have had another burst of blooms. Need to keep picking them to keep them blooming and maybe their stems will get longer.

Our Baby Bear pumpkin is still producing tiny fruits, but most are falling off now. There are 3 reasonable-sized ones which are already beginning to ripen - this heat seems to be making for a short season for some plants. But no flowers yet on our Butternut squash plant yet…

The HAHA Wildlife plot is looking colourful at the moment. The bees and butterflies are loving it.

The ground cover is so thick it must be holding water. On our plots, I’m mostly leaving the flowers to find their own water, as watering the vegetables is exercise enough, but I have been giving this self-seeded sunflower a drink everytime I walk back from the water troughs - and it’s just flowered. What a little beauty!

I’m on a go-slow this morning after another gruelling World Cup match win for England which went to extra time, but no penalties 😮‍💨 - we’re through to the semi-finals against Argentina now. So exciting!

And Jude Bellingham was our saviour yet again - what a star, hence the title song originally provided by The Beatles but sung by the England supporters here 😃

Oh, perhaps the original should be here too, though the YouTube police may delete it.

Lost

I did some baking 🎉 (it doesn’t happen very often).

Rhubarb, honey & ginger flapjacks

OK so it was only flapjacks but the recipe was specifically chosen to use rhubarb from the allotment and honey from Ivan’s hamper. The honey is locally produced and could include pollen from our allotment as Cobbs Farm is less than 3 miles away as the bee flies. I used this recipe https://foodstak.com/rhubarb-and-ginger-flapjacks/#recipe Adapted slightly; some olive oil as we didn’t have enough butter and a bit of Golden Syrup as I read that honey isn’t always sticky enough. Anyway, it was very tasty and just the right consistency.

The PSB is the only other thing we’re still harvesting though it’s beginning to flower now so not too many more servings to come I don’t think. We’ve been to the allotment every day and have been busy digging the trench for the climbing beans on Plot3 under the old polytunnel frame and I weeded and cleared up the garlic and onion beds.

I snipped off some buds that had grown on a few of the onions and gave all the plants a sprinkle of onion fertiliser. There’s a rogue potato in there so I’ve left it for now, though it did get frosted.

I’ve planted out the mangetout with some sweetpeas at each end and in the middle of the trellis. Hopefully the wire cage will stop the pesky pigeons. We’ve had some sunshine and showers and the plants have already responded quite well. We’ve sown nasturtium and calendula and at the weekend we direct sowed broad beans in the front bed we dug on Plot3 - they have their bottle cloches as mouse deterrent. The broad beans sown in modules haven’t emerged yet, but if they do grow we’ll use them as spares.

We also planted out the Baby Bear pumpkin on the manured hole in the weed suppressant that we dug a few weeks ago. It’s got 3 watering bottles as hopefully the foliage will be so rampant they’ll guide us to where we need to water.

On one really warm day I did some work on the HAHA Wildlife plot, which has been rather neglected of late. Honeysuckle is threatening to take over but there are lots of other plants just emerging which have more light and space now the old dead layer has been cleared. Here are a few of the insects I managed to photograph on there.

Back on our plots, the potatoes have all popped up now so we’re keeping a close eye on the weather forecast - we’ll earth them up today as a frost is forecast overnight. Our last frost date is 13th May, according to historic records, so not too much longer to live with the threat.

Yesterday I dug an area in front of the nursery section. I sowed some  Oasis turnips and transplanted a row of lettuce from the polytunnel - they always look so sad when first put out but hopefully they’ll perk up!

The plots are actually beginning to shape up now, but there are still large areas that need work and I’m not sure where the dwarf beans, carrots and some other items are going yet…

It’s all happening - what a fun time of year! 

The song is provided by the Goo Goo Dolls - we won tickets to see Reading vs Blackpool on Saturday.

By this stage it was pouring with rain and, well, Reading lost - the last match of the season.😞 

What a Difference a Day Makes

Saturday’s warm sunshine encouraged us to have a few hours on the plot. The ladybirds and bumblebees were out in number along with this lone peacock butterfly which was sunbathing on the grape hyacinths.

The little flowers provide a nice patch of colour and spread like crazy so there are small bunches in various places around the site where I’ve re-planted bulbs over the years.  The nectar lovers are mainly seeking out blues and yellows at the moment. The yellows are provided by daffodils and dandelions on our plots and the paths.

These two tiny tête-à-tête narcissi sneaked onto the pile of wood chips which have been left in the communal area - they’re so sweet!

Look at that lovely blue sky over the blackthorn blossom - what a welcome sight!

Our little fruit trees have all budded - I wonder if this will be our first year for fruit … I think this is the pear, it needs a trim - I’ll leave it to late-Autumn now.

We managed a bit of clearing and even a bit of digging where the potatoes will be planted. There’s an area where I pulled the leeks, due to leek moth damage, where we’ll probably put a few more potatoes too. (As I write this, I remember that’s where the mangetout was going 🤔 I need a better plan) The onions look pretty awful but the garlic still seems to be growing ok so far.

But nothing is growing as fast as the grass, so I strimmed all the edges on Sunday as fellow plotholder Clint kindly mowed the paths for us.

Sunday morning arrived with a beautiful sunrise and from our window I could hear a Great spotted woodpecker tapping away somewhere nearby.

We bought a couple of raised beds for the polytunnel so put one of them together in the afternoon; need to do a bit more tidying before we can fit the other one plus chairs and seed racks (and all the other bits and bobs) in. The rain was torrential so I was getting a drenching due to leaky polytunnel seams, but Jamie was helping from the director’s chair - even after it split 🤭

No sign of frogs or spawn in the tiny pond which was also getting a hammering from the rain.

I also managed some meagre pickings of purple sprouting broccoli - mostly picked from second year plants which was a little bonus. Hardly a feast, but enough to cheer up a rather boring pizza!

It was so nice to get back to a bit of plotting, but my legs and back are feeling it today. A few more sunny days would be welcomed to progress a bit more - we have a lot to do over the next couple of months but feeling positive. I told Jamie that my retirement plan involves achieving one thing every day - don’t want to overdo it 😃 - turns out that’s an actual strategy; I thought I’d made it up! Also it seems I may actually receive some pension income this month, after my original form was ‘lost in the post’ hmmm…

Song title provided by Dinah Washington - an oldie, but sums up the weekend’s weather. Now try to get that song out of your head!

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.