Hungerford allotment blog - grow your own, harvesting and vegetarian cooking. Enjoying allotment wildlife, weather and other things that catch my attention.
Enjoying time on the Marsh Lane Allotment site in Hungerford, Berkshire.
A record of successes, failures and a handy reminder for me.
From 2017 each post title brings a song to add a little extra music to the world - enjoy!
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.
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.
I finally used the macrame kit my sister gave me a while ago (sorry Carolyn, I think it’s been used as a monitor stand for a few years 🤦♀️). I must say it was rather fiddly and I did have to unravel the plant hangers a couple of times. I definitely didn’t follow the instructions properly but they look alright and no-one will look that closely 🙂 Anyway, they’re perfect for that little plant and a re-homed spider-baby plus I bought the white pot for 50p from the Antiques Arcade in Hungerford - bargain!
While I was getting into knots, I grew an affinity with this (not so) little lady Cross Orbweaver spider weaving her web on our window. (I could have done with some extra limbs for the macramé). Sorry for the blurry photo, taken through double-glazing - no way I’m getting close even if we did bond! I’m not a spider fan, but she is fascinating to watch. She sleeps under a leaf and waits for the day to warm up a bit before fixing her web and sitting waiting for anything to cause a vibration, then she’s up and on them. She spent a long time dealing with a leaf; I’m not sure if she ate it or tossed it aside but I did see her deal with a butterfly, which was rather disturbing.
Since my last post the weather has turned dry and cold - especially overnight. I picked all the outdoor melons as the foliage had died back and a frost was threatened - I’m hoping one or two of them will ripen at home. The melon in the trug was from the polytunnel and was so ripe you could smell the sweetness. And it was delicious.
And finally I’ve had some beetroot - so incredibly slow to bulb up this year. I’m trying to blame the weather but I know I should have thinned out the seedlings earlier - along with so many jobs that didn’t get done properly this year, but…. Plot7 did win third prize in the plot judging, I think maybe there wasn’t much competition!
On the last sunny day a week ago I planted 48 Snowball onions - lovely white ones. I put a net over them to deter birds/mice/squirrels from digging them out. The leeks and onions are going to be joined by garlic quite soon and the whole bed is going to be highlighted with salsify judging by the number of seedlings I found. Well, they have a pretty flower, so I don’t mind as long as they don’t get in the way and perhaps I’ll actually get to eat one next year.
I think plot neighbour, Neal’s, busy Lizzie’s are evidence that there was some frost on site, but it’s only hit a few susceptible plants so far.
Our flower plot avoided it and even got some nicotiana which has been attempting to put on a show for months.
And I do love the Cerinthe Major and the sedum which the bees were enjoying today too.
Our scattered sunflowers have taken advantage of what little Sun they’ve seen over the last week but they didn’t know where to look for it today!
The sunshine and showers earlier in the month have encouraged everything to re-grow - this was a bare patch of earth 4 weeks ago, now it’s a whole bed of nigella, valerian, cranesbill geranium, bindweed and probably a few other things - some welcome, others less so… I’ve been hoeing quite a bit but I think that’s just helping the seedlings, until the weather gets really cold - which I don’t really want!
So from that green foliage to the lovely colourful chard - it seems to have enjoyed the raised bed after a dodgy start. It’s so pretty - I just wish Jamie liked the taste of it 😊
We’ve just passed the Autumn equinox now so the days are getting shorter. Pull those curtains and snuggle in, surely all the fruits and berries mean we’re in for a hard Winter…. Brrr, we’ll see…
It’s been a very, very hot week. And dry; showers have passed us by and we’ve literally been able to count the raindrops! That’s not very helpful rain at this time of year so we’ve been watering and watering - backwards and forwards from the troughs. So much walking in fact that I've already exceeded the 68,000 steps for Kidney patients so I need to think about a new target...
This potted rudbeckia fulgida was looking how we felt, but (like us) perked up after a long refreshing drink. Over the weekend we planted up most of the remaining seedlings - I've added a row of rainbow chard and french marigolds to that plot - each plant getting a good splosh of water, but they really want some decent rainfall.
We've planted the two aubergines from the HAHA Plant Swap into the polytunnel - I'm not really keen on aubergine but will eat them if they're home-grown and they are such a lovely looking fruit (yes, like tomatoes they're a fruit not a vegetable - I had to look it up).
I've planted up two flower troughs for HAHA - I'm rather ambitiously hoping that they fill out a bit ahead of next weekend's Open Day, but I think that's rather unlikely!! Oh well, they should look cheerful in July and August.
I'm pleased to say that the mangetout are finally being harvested - a few being chomped on the allotment and others being added to various meals. Even if they don't make it into a meal I pick them to keep them producing so they don't run to seed. On the other hand, I'm pleased to see that these have run to seed. These are the Radish Rats Tails, which should produce long pods for adding to salads, stir fries or for pickling. I'm looking forward to seeing them form.
In the background of that photo you can see the sunflowers and the two mini cucumbers which have been planted up into pots. The mangomel melon is on Plot3 too and is planted into the ground with weed suppressant surrounding it. You can, just about, see it in the background of this sunflowers photo - all 3 plants are surrounded by netting at the moment to give them a fighting chance against everything that may try to stop them growing (which includes the weather).
I'm pleased to see that the Paris Silverskin onions that I sowed about a week ago have germinated. I like onion seedlings with their little bent stems. It makes them easy to spot amongst the weeds. These are sown into the raised bed but in recent years have been purely slug food - would be nice to have a few to ourselves this year....
I was looking at our garlic on Saturday as I was expecting it to be time for them to be pulled however they are still one bulb rather than broken into cloves. The Winter frost is meant to aid the cloves forming. Ivan advised that I should just leave them and in a few more weeks they may well separate into cloves. If they don't it seems that they can still be eaten as 'wet garlic' - they just don't store well.
They look ready, but the bulbs are showing that they're not.
The broad beans are providing us with regular harvests, they are so delicious. We've had several meals including a broad bean curry, broad beans in parsley sauce with souflettes, broad beans in a tomato sauce and in this stir fry with tofu knots (really tasty!) and radish (a nice colourful addition). The tofu knots are dried so I soaked them overnight prior to frying - we had 6 each and there are lots left over so that's a handy stash to keep in the cupboard.
Ivan gave us a plant (I thought it was a weed) that had appeared amongst his irises. It's now flowered and what a beauty! It's a Siberian Larkspur (Delphinium Grandiflorum) and is such a beautiful colour on its tall flower spikes. It's an annual delphinium apparently but will hopefully self-seed in the flower patch. Look at at that colour - it's like ultraviolet in the sunshine.
And Ivan gets another mention as he let me pick some gooseberries - payback was a bit of weeding. I used the nice simple recipe from the BBC Good Food website.
The song title provided by The Jam is in reference to our first courgette of the year - I'm sure there will be many more to follow.
The flower was huge; the courgette tiny 😊 And, I've taken so long writing this that we've had rain - a perfect overnight drenching and some drizzle this morning before the Sun came back out - perfect. Will see this evening what difference it's made to the plots - perhaps the HAHA flower troughs will be full of flowers 😒
March is speeding along and has thrown all kinds of weather at us. The snow arrived at 3am on the 8th so we pulled ourselves out of bed to go for a little stroll.
So beautiful to see it before the roads were cleared. It didn’t stay for long so it was worth getting up for. The following week we had gales and it’s been very wet so we didn’t have any plot visits plus Jamie had the lurgy; not THE lurgy I’m pleased to say, but horrible enough to not want to venture out.
I was on strike last Wednesday - first time ever - along with much of the country. I would have liked to join a picket line, but showed my support remotely instead. It was rather nice having an unusual mid-week day off even if I wasn’t paid for it. I’d like to think it’ll make a difference, but sadly I don’t think it will.
We had a quick plot visit to see if the wind had caused any damage. Just the usual collection of bags and compost lids in the North-East corner. But we did find a bunch of frogspawn in a puddle so gathered it up and shared it between our pond and the HAHA Wildlife pond. And this is how it looked yesterday, just 4 days on and it already looks a bit froggy!
On Saturday we had a HAHA Workday. It was really rainy in the morning so we postponed the bonfire but we still had a good turnout in the afternoon. We only had one heavy shower but also had some very pleasant sunshine. Rubbish was cleared; empty plots were made a bit more presentable and the Wildlife plot and bug hotel had a rejuvenation. Clearing the couch grass, ribwort plantain and docks which try to take over.
The grape hyacinths, daisies, dandelions and cowslip are the first bee attractors but this was the only photo I managed to get of a bumblebee this weekend!
I’m pleased to see that our purple sprouting broccoli has finally developed florets - I’m hoping to have enough to harvest next weekend. Jamie has pulled some leeks this weekend and in the week I slow-cooked some of my dried borlotti beans. Using the slow cooker for 6 hours rather than using the hob for 1.5 hours is about 5 times more energy efficient!
I added a couple of garlic cloves and a few Gigantes and podded runner beans too. They were the basis of a couple of tasty meals with passata, chilli olives, shallots and a splosh of red wine. The second day the ingredients had soaked up the flavours of the sauce and had quite a different taste/texture.
Yesterday (Sunday) we spent a few hours clearing the Wildlife plot’s bog garden of weeds and I planted out my Egyptian walking onions (aka tree onions) which have been growing on in the polytunnel - they shouldn't mind even if the weather takes a turn for the worse again.
At one point we heard a commotion with four magpies protesting very noisily at the top of site. However all the humans we spoke to were pleased to see the return of our little friend ☺️
Such a friendly little chap and he’s a rather weak excuse for me to use this great song by Gotye - I still LOVE it. From 11 years ago, unbelievable. Enjoy.
After a busy working week it was great to have two days entirely laptop-free and to be out in the fresh air. I'm looking forward to early morning pre-work plot visits, but not quite at that stage yet!
Saturday was very windy with Storm Otto passing by to the north of us. It was grey and damp but it wasn’t cold or maybe that was because we were trench-digging. We managed to finish off the bean tunnel preparation which we started last weekend.
I did some clearing on the HAHA wildlife plot including cutting back the buddleja and mallow. I didn't want to clear all of the dead groundcover as we're due a coldspell so the wildlife needs some protection, but there are some unwanted weeds on there that need clearing otherwise they'll take over.
Now that I've cut back the old flag iris leaves I can see new growth in the bog garden. A few bulbs are emerging and perhaps with a bit more light there will be some flowers next weekend. Meanwhile, Jamie weeded the brassica cage on Plot3. I had the last of the Cavolo Nero with a gnocchi meal at the weekend, but we're still waiting for Purple Sprouting Broccoli harvests - we were tucking into it in January last year.
You can see by my shadow that that photo was taken on Sunday which was a marvellous sunny day. Such a contrast to the day before - Otto must have blown all the clouds away!
The hedgerow was full of birds with 3 robins competing for our mealworms along with the obligatory magpies, dunnocks, long-tailed tits, a male bullfinch. Kites, gulls and buzzards were overhead.
Such a beautiful blue sky and lots of plotholders turned out to make the most of it. We were all pleased and amazed at how warm it was for a February day and so welcome on a weekend! It's good to see areas of plots looking loved and ready for a new year of growing.
That's the flower garden in front of our bench. It has a few perennials just beginning to show fresh growth and the ever-present nigella seedlings. There are bulbs growing in most of those pots but only one tiny iris flower on show at present. The Christmas rose Hellebore that my sister gave me is still full of flower at home though and there are plenty of snowdrops around, just not on our plots!
I’m very happy to see that my Egyptian onions have sprouted in the polytunnel. I hope a slug doesn't discover them, they're only tiny at the moment.
The last bit of clearing and digging that I did was round our rhubarb - we should have split it before now. I hope that's my last year of saying that and we actually do it! It's not budding yet but we'll give it some manure and that may get it started. At least it's free of nigella and weeds for a while.
After a few more chats with plotholders we took our aching bodies home. What a lovely weekend. Not exactly relaxing, but very welcome work - ooh my legs! Hence the song provided by Turin Brakes - enjoy.
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.
