The Day the World Turned Day-Glo

There's been a lot of rain recently - our rain gauge had over-flowed at some stage during the week. And it's been very windy - with rubbish, composters, cloches and polytunnels all making their way to the North-Eastern corner of the site. I'm pleased to say to say most of our belongings stayed put - perhaps we're protected by these two :-)

Something has been enjoying pecking at those pumpkins... could it be this handsome fellow? There are two male pheasants wandering the site at the moment. There isn't much left to eat on site which isn't protected behind netting.

We were only visiting the plot to pick some veg and show a new plotholder round - not the best day for a visit, but now they have their new plot for Christmas. We were watching this redwing, which is enjoying the berries on the hedge near our plot - my photography through a hedge needs improvement :-) But I hope you can see the red patch, which is very bright in real-life and identifies it from a thrush.

Now, obviously this first post of December shouldn't be pumpkin-based, but I thought the three biggest squashes which we have left in the greenhouse look so colourful they deserve another share.

I expect I'll end up chopping them into chunks to share with friends and work colleagues - they're far too big for me. I used half a Festival squash to make my dinner last night and today's lunch. Squash, beetroot, chestnut and onion tart - so tasty, hot or cold, and just a sprinkling of cheddar. I roasted the beetroot, chestnut and squash before adding to the ready-made puff pastry. Delish!

So, why the Day-Glo song title? The colours are nice but not that bright... well, I couldn't go for another week without mentioning my handbag on this blog. (Anyone who knows me is now rolling their eyes). But just look at it....

Quite interesting...

The colours are more obvious when the sun or other bright light shines on it. And for maximum effect, in the blink of an eye - or the flash of a camera...

Amazing, huh? Thanks Lumikay - fantastic design!
So now you see why the XRay Spex song is appropriate :-)

Hazy Shade of Winter

Look how colourful my dinner is! That's carrot, beetroot, onion and chestnuts to stuff a Honey Boat squash. It's in the oven now...

We had a couple of hours on the allotment this afternoon - it wasn't too cold, it wasn't raining or windy but it was such a grey day. What a mess Plot46A looks - we're going to take the structures apart for next year and have it as a straightforward plot for growing - it's our only plot which isn't near the hedge, so it will be novel for us to dig somewhere which isn't invaded by tree roots!

I cleared some of the awful weed from around the kohl rabi - this chickweed (I think) is a pain, it's all over the plot. I'm hoping it'll die off if there's a frost, but I'm not so sure that it will. In the meantime I cleared enough so that I could put some covering over the kohl rabi to keep the pigeons off.

We did what we needed to do, which was to clear all the remains of tomato, pepper and aubergine plants from the greenhouse. There are still squashes stored in there and a few more onions hanging in the roof netting - still bumping our heads on them every time we move! While Jamie finished off in the greenhouse I did a little bit of weeding around our leeks. Really wish we had more leeks! We were too slow to sow them this year.

We were pleased to see that our garlic has sprouted - just a few tips poking through the soil at the moment, but it gives us hope!

Then back home to cook with the ingredients I picked - one of our two celeriacs, carrots, beetroot and a few more onions and shallots.

I've never grown a giant celeriac like they sell in supermarkets, but this is plenty to make a soup with.

Celeriac and chestnut soup - mmm, the celeriac has such a lovely pungent smell and the chestnuts make it a nice creamy soup, but it's not very attractive is it?! But then, the prettiest soup I've ever made was borscht and that tasted nasty.

While that was simmering I was cooking the stuffing for the squash - it looks like a dessert doesn't it! This is the first Honey Boat squash I've eaten. It seems to be very similar to a Cornell's Bush Delicata, so I'm hoping it'll be delicious...

And of course today's song is by the lovely Simon & Garfunkel - aaah.

Golden Brown

What a lovely Autumn weekend we had. It was a bit fresh, but very pleasant in the sunshine.

Saturday was a quick visit to pick some veg. Mainly for soup - I have some chestnuts left over after making the most delicious chestnut and pumpkin stew last week..

Onions/shallots are being steadily eaten, they're surviving pretty well in their netting suspended from the greenhouse roof - some are attempting to re-grow as it's been warm. The beetroot and small carrot were grated for a salad - though the purple radish had been nibbled by something, I only needed a few bits (luckily). The HoneyBoat squash will be stuffed for a meal during the week.

A beautiful calendula which has survived the cold weather and the hot sun has drawn it back into flower. So pretty. But the cold weather coming up will probably stop them in their tracks. Unlike the Californian poppies which seem to be indestructible and have almost covered the plot where we had our sweetcorn. Oh well, they are beautiful and if they pop up between some veg I won't be too upset.

There is still more to harvest - the kohl rabi have recovered after the pigeons pecked most of the leaves - they have more growing to do before we will pick them and there are nice florets on the purple sprouting broccoli, although there are a lot of whitefly. We need a harsh frost to kill them off I think!

Something large has visited our garlic bed, but no sign of garlic appearing yet - I think this is probably a cat, I'm pleased it didn't leave a 'gift' behind :-}

I'm at work, eating my delicious chunky carrot and chestnut soup while there's a very cold wind and rain hitting the window - but I don't mind too much as Jamie and I are going to Oxford this week for a bit of Christmas shopping - I'm feeling quite Christmassy already after seeing the Newbury lights at the weekend.

And, I can't believe I haven't already used this Stranglers song on my blog - this was the second single I bought, such a great song. Enjoy.

Clocks

Yesterday was the first time I've visited the allotment in 3 weeks! It was a good visit because we had a really good Autumn Workday to clear up the site and, although it was really cold, it was a bright sunny start to the day and we had a big bonfire to get rid of all the broken/rotten wood and hedge clippings.

With lots of helpful volunteers ...

Clearing...

Tidying...

Burning...

They're staring at the sky because there were lots of red kites and buzzards swooping over the site.
Very impressive to see

Eating...

A little more eating...courtesy of Richard's master BBQ-ing skills.

And a bit of drinking - Ivan brought some of his Apple and Blackberry & Apple wine along.

We achieved plenty and were so pleased that it was dry, as we needed the warmth of the fire when the sun went in.And I think the phrase 'Work Party' is very appropriate :-)

The previous weekend we had the HAHA versus Hungerford Twinning Association skittles match. The HTA organised the event last year, so we hosted this year. All the attendees brought food for the buffet - what a lovely spread!

There was a good turnout and it was a lot of fun. The raffle meant that we also managed a bit of fundraising for HAHA. We won the cup, so HTA will have to try again next year.

Jamie has been visiting the plot occasionally to pick some veg - we've had the last of the peppers and tomatoes. We pulled Pentland Javelin from one of the potato bags - a good amount of tubers, but they weren't that tasty. The Nicola that we had recently were much tastier.

Oops, there's that cup again :-)

Squashes have provided me with some nice meals including this one stuffed with marinated tofu and black rice.

I'm currently making Festival squash soup for next week's lunches. We saw a good Japanese TV programme about squashes the other day; I'm roughly copying one of their recipes - I've removed the seeds but left the skin on: the squash, garlic, fried onion, salt and pepper are all in the pan with some water bubbling away. The skin has completely softened and I've just tasted it..mmm

No need for any additional flavouring - just a quick blitz and a little more water, - so sweet and smooth, perfect! The skin adds to the aroma (apparently) so it's best to leave it on.

The title is provided by Coldplay - the clocks have gone back today and it's beginning to feel a lot like Winter...

Still Ill

This is my most beautiful squash so far - a Festival.

And this is the biggest and it's so pleasing! A Boston Winter Squash - the only fruit that developed on that plant - perhaps not surprisingly,

I removed a few of the Honey Boat squash too, in case there is a frost this week, as threatened, they're now in the greenhouse along with the others. Including a barrowful of quite small pumpkins - we're blaming the weather. This variety Jack of all Trades normally grow bigger than this for us.

The greenhouse is looking a bit different because we've suspended net from the ceiling to store our onions and shallots. We decided not to risk putting the squash up there - I already bumped into the onions several times today!

The peppers are changing colour - we can definitely see some yellow, red and orange. Really hope the greenhouse is protection enough from the cold... it would be good if they're still fresh for Hungerford Food Festival in 2 weeks time...

I hacked back quite a bit of tomato plant growth. There are a few small signs of blight, but plenty more tomatoes to pick.

As I'm writing this I should be making carrot soup, but I'm being lazy because I have a horrible cold 😩.

I was pleased it was so rainy yesterday so we stayed indoors most of the day and prepared shallots for soaking in salt water prior to pickling. The Longor shallots grew so big this year, we're just doing one big jar full of pickles.

And I shelled the borlotti and soya beans for storage - I do plan to use them, but I need to find a good recipe. I asked on a forum on Facebook and the second answer to 'what should I do with my dried soyabeans?' was 'BURN THEM' - hahaha, that doesn't bode well!!

So now I really should start on that soup...but first, a song title..aah, The Smiths - perfect 🤧.

Missing

I've started this post off with a pretty Cosmos flower, because I have a few things to whinge about...

Last night the expected wonder of the blood moon was hidden behind thick cloud, so we missed out on our view of the "longest lunar eclipse of the century".

The overnight storms entirely missed Hungerford - unbelievably, just look at the lightning map from last night! We're the little white dot in the South of England and we heard one rumble of thunder and had about 3mm of rain... (I appreciate that not everyone likes a storm, but really?!)

The weather yesterday was overcast and today it's blowing a gale, with an occasional shower, so the butterflies have hidden away and I haven't done my Big Butterfly Count yet. I should have started it when I spotted this lovely Common Blue butterfly in the greenhouse, but it seems like my stats from the allotment may be missing this year - unless we get a sunny weekend in the next two weeks :-(

These are our sprouts. Are they going to grow? They don't look at all happy, but even they look happier than our cauliflowers which are really struggling with the heat and we think it's pollen beetles that are causing the problems with the leaves.

OK, whinging over. Look at our lovely harvest and the courgettes and aubergine were so tasty fried, chilled and added to a salad.

And the Chinese leaf is so delicious - it's a shame only 3 germinated and I had to chop a lot of the outside leaves off because of bug damage - but still, it is much tastier than the normal lettuce - I must sow/grow more next year.
Runner beans are setting on all the plants now and we'll probably be picking some tomorrow... in the meantime we have another supply from Ivan (swapped for an aubergine).

The squashes are growing okay- these are pumpkins, but the ones on my trellis are coming on too.We seem to be way behind a lot of people on site though, who have beachball-sized fruits already!

It's rather worrying that our Crookneck Summer squash is being severely beaten up by the wind today - revealing all the immature vegetables. I hope it doesn't snap off...we tried to secure it but the ground was too hard to do it properly.

We pulled all the shallots today as we don't want them getting wet. There are many more than we thought there were going to be from the 15 we planted. I think the variety is Longor.

The few onions are only just bulbing up so they can stay in the raised bed for as long as possible - but I don't think they'll be winning any 'largest onion' prizes!

The bell peppers in the greenhouse are a good size but aren't changing colour yet - they're all green. As are the tomatoes, but the huge trusses on the Aviditas are just starting to change.

The Lizzano are growing much larger fruits this year - presumably because it's been so hot in the greenhouse (~42°). They look standard size rather than cherries.

So, perhaps I'm just a bit grouchy because I'm going back to work next week and the temperature is about 10° lower today than it was yesterday. It's still been a beautiful Summer (so far) and anyway, I like this song by Everything But the Girl.