These Days

There’s a spot of colour from when we had some welcome sunshine on Saturday afternoon. That little robin is full of song at the moment. Perhaps like us he was relieved that the rain had stopped! October has continued the extremely wet theme of this Autumn. The ground doesn’t get a chance to dry out between torrential rain or drizzle so it’s difficult to do any clearing.

We’ve also had a couple of frosty nights with temperatures dipping below freezing but some flowers are surviving. My little hazel tree’s leaves are changing colour and there are some buds - Ooh, I wonder if it’ll produce catkins this year 🤞

Our sunflowers are looking less happy and sadly the seedheads have gone mouldy so maybe not ideal for birds to eat.

The birds have been enjoying the teasels though they’ve missed a few seeds on this one - I had to remind myself of what the word for this is - VIVIPARY.

The Wildlife Plot is looking extremely overgrown and, until the most recent frost, it was literally buzzing with activity. There were loads of bees and other insects and Jamie saw a little vole in one of the woodpiles. 

This daddy long legs had found a nice soft new teasel head to warm up on. The grass was full of these crane flies last week; reminded me of filling my desk up with them at primary school - I’m not sure why I did that 🤨

I’ve had fleece protecting my butternut squash but yesterday I decided to pick them now that the foliage has died back. I’m glad the slugs and snails all picked on just the one fruit!

And left the others untouched - they’re very small but just right for individual meals.

We’re still picking tomatoes if they show any coloured blush and they soon ripen at home. The peppers we pick as we need them because they’re in the polytunnel which we’ve been zipping up on the cold nights.

The Halloween peppers are tasty and orange ones were part of this halloumi meal, along with our last sweetcorn, potatoes and some parsley.

We were pleased to see that our garlic didn’t drown and a few green shoots have appeared - that’s about 3 weeks since the cloves were planted. And we’ve spotted some fungi appearing on the plot -  I’m not sure of the type; it may be there because of the manured soil.

I’m pleased to say it hasn’t rained yet today (Sunday) but these days our bodies are moving much slower than the clock so it’ll be an afternoon plot visit. The song title is provided by Nico.

Rhythm of the Rain

Mmm, is there anything tastier than freshly picked, cooked, buttered, peppered corn on the cob? These Lark variety really are delicious although germination was rather poor this year with only 10 from a whole packet of 25 seeds, but with 1 or 2 cobs per plant we have enough to enjoy for lunches.

Here are the Orca or Yin Yang beans, they’re so fabulous aren’t they! I need to check if any of the other plants have managed to produce any beans for storing. We had another frost this weekend but not too severe and I had netted the dwarf beans so they may continue to mature. The climbing tunnel beans are looking awful after far too much rain so sadly I don’t think I’ll be able to store any of them. Have I mentioned the rain?…

The rain continued to be torrential at the beginning of last week - cheered up a bit when I returned to work on Thursday 🙄. We did go to the allotment most days though, at least to pick a bit of veg and check how the plot was faring. 

We saw plenty of slugs and snails - I thought that snail above was rather pretty and this tiny specimen is an interesting one. I don’t recall seeing a conical one like this before and am still looking for an id.

I picked my two Festival squashes ahead of the frost - they’re quite large and I hope they’re ripe enough. They can stay in the polytunnel for a bit before I eat them. I fleeced the butternuts again as they haven’t had a very long season and the foliage is still looking reasonably healthy.

These tomatoes finally went red so we’re enjoying them in various meals. 

The pretty chard was used in a layered bake which fed me for two evenings: 1. Chard layer 2. Butternut & sage pesto with a few shallots 3. Slices of tomato 4. Quorn ‘ham’ layer, topped with the pesto 5. Thinly sliced Desiree potatoes on top. It was extremely tasty. Took about an hour to cook and, although there was a lot, the chard pretty much disappeared.

We’ve picked lots more tomatoes- ones that have any slight colour change, so hopefully they’ll ripen at home.

We’re pleased to see that the Halloween peppers have actually started going orange. They’re strange. They went from green to black then back to green before going orange!

So, although it’s been so wet we have had some lovely, chilly, blue sky mornings the clouds have soon built up - I thought this was a rather impressive take-over bid! I think the cloud won the day. We’re just going into yet another yellow weather warning for wind and rain overnight.

And, talking of our September weather, there was at least another 57mm of rain last week over 3 days! I mustn’t complain compared to how other towns have been so badly affected though. And a friend, who has recently got an allotment in Abingdon, reported floating squashes on their site 😩. So, that’s why I’ve selected this song by The Cascades - a golden oldie.

Iris

Aah, I do love that dewy daisy - it's one of the Ox-Eye daisies on the HAHA Wildlife plot, which is full of growth at the moment with honeysuckle, dog roses and campion all flowering. These flag irises in the bog garden are so pretty.

And that's where this little gathering of snails ended up - there are a few creatures on the Wildlife Plot which would have enjoyed those little snails. Note to us: we really must tidy up the piles of pots on our plots - we're really not helping our situation!!

Our harvests are just broad beans and strawberries at the moment, but that is definitely not a complaint.

They are so delicious and, dare I say, we don’t seem to be sharing quite so many beans with slugs now. The broad beans are making an appearance in most of our evening meals.

That was a tasty tofu with teryaki sauce meal and last night we had beans with bangers and mash - yum yum 😋 The strawberries are sweet and delicious - no wonder our little vole is enjoying them so much, but there are plenty to share.

Ivan's been working on his old fruit bushes, which are now the HAHA Community Plot - he and Linda have pruned and picked masses of gooseberries. Lots have gone to the primary school where they have cookery sessions. We made a tasty gooseberry and strawberry sauce with our supply - the strawberries mean that not much additional sugar is needed.

Mmm, fresh strawberries for breakfast, it must be June (even if the weather isn't playing ball!). The early morning visits to the allotment for watering have been rather chilly recently. The min/max thermometer has been as low as 2.3° and the wind has been horribly cold this week. The fleece and an emergency blanket were called upon for this weekend's picnic! And the brollies were windbreaks rather than rain protection. Not a scene we expect to see in June really, is it?!

We've planted out our Festival squash, Piccolo courgette and Zuccini courgette but they are sulking at the moment because they preferred it in the warm polytunnel. They are protected by slug pellets and surrounded by netting to keep the birds away from the pellets. And these little cloches are protecting morning glory seedlings - can't risk anything these days! These are planted where my mangetout disappeared...

The beetroot and carrots have germinated but no sign of the parsnips or salsify which I sowed yet. Well, there's plenty of time really - it is only June after all...

We've enjoyed seeing 'our' robins feeding their young and now there are four or five more little speckled robins enjoying the mealworms and gathering around the water supply. And we've been seeing/hearing the bullfinches so we think they will be bringing their young out soon - all good and maybe I'll manage to get some photos for next time!

In the meantime, the allotment then work beckons - enjoy this excellent song by The Goo Goo Dolls.

I can't believe I didn't use this all the while Ivan's irises were putting on a fantastic show - remember these beautiful scenes from last year.