Alice in Wonderland

Bye-bye October - it’s been a long month but it’s been a good one. This is one of my favourite displays from the Spectacle of Light at Welford Park. So clever, look closer and you’ll see that the sculpture throwing the shadows is all scrap metal; doesn’t really look like a ballet dancer at all!

The other displays were beautiful especially wandering through the lit-up trees with haunting music playing, just lovely.

We stopped for a drink and a pizza and by the time we moved on nearly everyone else had left! We ended up last so as we strolled through the final elements of the spectacle we were discreetly followed by a couple of security guards so they could lock up as soon as we were out of the gates 😀

Welford Park, you may know, is where The Great British Bake-off is filmed. Which is a spurious link to say I’ve done some more baking - I know, twice in one month 😳 I used the remainder of the glacé cherries to make these Cherry and Almond biscuits - yum yum - the dough stayed in the fridge and I cooked batches over the course of 3 days. The first were impossible to bite through 🤭 but after that batch the rest were a perfect snack with a coffee.

Last night we enjoyed Halloween night. Jamie worked on the Boo pumpkin, much trickier (especially post-stroke) than the traditional carving technique, but it’s a good effect.

And we left a little Jack-o-lantern up the allotment, as is our tradition.

All our pumpkins are small this year, all from one Jack-be-Little plant, but they have plenty of flesh and, obviously, played a key role in our Halloween celebratory meal.

We had pumpkin and red pepper soup as a starter - very tasty, Roughly based on this recipe. Unfortunately we had to buy the peppers as our last surviving three growing in the polytunnel had been eaten by rats ^{* go to end of post} 

The main was just sausages in rolls and then dessert was a pumpkin pie roughly based on this recipe, but I roasted the pumpkin and then forgot to add milk to the mixture, which didn’t seem to cause any issues. (So much cooking in this post!) It still tasted lovely with cream and a few lychees with food colouring to make them look spooky (or perhaps disgusting!).

Then we watched Attack of the Killer tomatoes <hmmm> and ate the treats as no Trick or Treaters visited us.

And the song title, well the Spectacle of light had an Alice in Wonderland theme and we kept hearing the voices of the characters. The Cheshire Cat was particularly good as it evaporated into the trees.

The Disney theme song has been stuck in my head ever since, so now I’ll pass it on to you ☺️ I don’t attempt those high notes out loud - make sure there are no glasses nearby if you choose to!

* how do we know it’s rats? Because we saw two in the polytunnel 😳 They panicked more than we did and ran off - so the remaining squashes went home and the polytunnel got a bit of a tidy. The jack-o-lantern will go into the compost bin rather than being left for wildlife this year. The HAHA committee have had a couple of pest controllers visit to check out the rat situation as some plotholders are worrying. But I’m pleased to say they confirmed it’s not an infestation and that it’s to be expected given our spot by the canal. Phew.

Digging Your Scene

I’ve pickled a jar of  tomatoes. We’ve not tried them before but I found the recipe on the British Tomato Growers Association website while searching for inspiration. It’s mainly the tiny redcurrant tomatoes and a few cherry toms from the polytunnel plants which have all been removed now and sent off to the Council green recycling. 

As you can see it has garlic and a few herbs added to the white wine vinegar. Each tiny fruit was stabbed to let the pickling flavours in. We ate one of the small jars of tomato chutney that I made in August, it was very tasty so I hope these same tomatoes are just as flavoursome pickled.

This trug contains the last two courgettes of the year as well as the last tomatoes. I haven’t cooked the pumpkin yet, but the other veggies went into this colourful rice dish - the veg were fried in oak-smoked oil and just soy sauce as an additional flavouring. Yum.

Before going to Slimbridge and since returning I’ve had some tiring but satisfying digging sessions. Although we’ve had some meagre rain the ground is still very dry, but I was pleased to find some worms.

I was hoping to harvest some beetroot but the beets had grown too woody and they looked to have had two growing seasons so they went into our compost bin. I’ve left the chard growing, it didn’t grow very well in the Summer but the leaves and stems can provide a bit of Winter colour, even if it doesn’t get eaten. 

And I couldn’t bring myself to pull the last of the antirrhinum which are still flowering along with bindweed’s prettier cousin Convolvulus which has come to life late in the season and self-seeded so is scrambling on the ground.

The Apsleys mulch was left on top for a few days before the final dig in with chicken manure pellets.

Yesterday I planted 22 cloves of Sultop garlic, from 2 bulbs, and 42 onion sets - a mixture of white, brown and red onions. I’ve netted the onions in an attempt to protect them from birds and mammals. The garlic are planted deeper so don’t usually attract their attention.

The area where the onions were last year, on Plot8, plus some of the salsify forest(!) has been cleared of bindweed (ugh, I know it’ll be back), dug over and covered in a thick layer of Apsleys mulch plus potato fertiliser as that’s where they’ll be planted next year.

At this time of year it’s good to see clear areas with plans for 2027. There’s still a lot more to do and I’m trying to progress before the weather turns hateful and we’ll want to hibernate.

The weather is rather grey today but it has been nice and warm recently. We walked up to town and sat by the canal. The swans have 5 large cygnets now. The female slowly waddled from under the bridge directly towards us. 

She stared at us for a bit then walked off disgruntled as we didn’t have any food (must remember to put some in my handbag). As you can see in the second photo, she has a broken beak but Swan Lifeline have apparently checked her over last year and she’s ok living with it.

The Sun is just appearing and although windy it’s quite warm out there - I think I feel some digging coming on… blasting us back to the 1980s (oh, so 80s) with the Blow Monkeys.

Smash it Up

We have a new pond! It’s only small, but bigger than the bucket it’s replaced. It’s in front of our bench in the flower bed. I only finished it yesterday so it’s still a work in progress.

It took me two mornings to dig it out, exhausting in the hot weather. It probably would have been easier to lay a pond liner rather than making the hole to fit the preformed liner, but I managed it eventually.

We’ve transferred the large stone from the bucket which has brought the duckweed and probably a bit of other wildlife to the clean water. It needs to settle for a week or so before I add the surrounding stones and a few plants. It’s surprising how much soil came out of that hole, though my back and arms remember how many shovel-fuls <groan>.

That soil will be used to top up the raised beds and pots. We’ve had some rainfall but the soil was dry all the way to the bottom of the hole (about 45cm). The mornings are definitely feeling like Autumn but we’ve had a couple of hot days which has been lovely. A week ago we had rain, but not the storm that this sky appeared to be threatening.

The hedgerow knows it’s Autumn - it happens to be the Autumn Equinox today, so it’s downhill from here with the nights closing in - boo!

I’ve actually started a bit of clearing, but lots more to do. We’ve bought a few seeds to sow over Winter, including broad beans and carrots and I need to plant garlic.

The peppers have grown well in the polytunnel, clearly liked the hot weather. And that may be the last of the courgettes.

The Incredible sweetcorn were delicious but the last couple have succumbed to birds/mice/squirrels. Who could blame them?

I made a focaccia the other day. I didn’t do as much decoration as I’ve tried previously because the mixture was so bubbly it was difficult to work with, as you can see.

After 5 hours of raising and folding it could be cooked and it turned out delicious. I’ve frozen half and the other half we had with home-made courgette & tarragon soup.

And I picked the biggest pepper a couple of days ago. There are a few still needing to redden-up and then I’ll be able to clear that raised bed in the polytunnel to sow carrots and salad. I’m sorry that we don’t have any brassica or other Winter crops growing but maybe we’ll be better next year…

That giant pepper stuffed with veggie mince and tomato was joined by a new favourite meal accompaniment, smashed potatoes.

And that offered the opportunity to use The Damned song title - one of my favourite bands back in the day.

Get Moving

We visited the plot yesterday as it was warm and sunny. We haven’t been for a few days and we got a nice trugful of goodies. We picked five Baby Bear pumpkins which have dried out stems; there are still a few with green stems so we’ll let them grow on a bit if they want to.

And there are our first Incredible sweetcorn. They’re so delicious, not quite as sweet as our preferred variety Lark, but we couldn’t find any seeds this year. It’s always a bit of guesswork on the plot as to whether they’re ready but they were perfect - with butter, pepper and Desiree potato wedges for dinner. Yum.

We’ve had a quite a lot of rain since my last post and the grass has grown well so the site looks a bit happier, but I tried to plant the poor leeks yesterday and the soil is still too dusty to make a good hole for puddling in.

I’m still watering in the poly tunnel but most other plants are surviving on the nature-provided water. The temperature has been down to 5° at night so there’s probably dew or mist to keep plants damp. We only have one Desiree potato left in the ground now after pulling two plants last week.

There are lots of Redcurrant tomato plants which self-seeded all over the plot. The tiny tomatoes are so sweet most don’t make it home. I have plans for a decorated focaccia so I’ll probably use them on that.

The courgette plants are still producing but not en masse. The yellow one I fried up as a side and the next plot visit there was an even bigger green one (my sister got the aubergines). 

I stuffed the courgette with garlic, onion, cheese and mixed nuts, along with the chopped courgette skin, then topped with cheese - so delicious!

We went to the Hungerford Beer Festival over the Bank holiday weekend. The Saturday was wet and a little cool but the bands and beer were good. Then on Sunday the weather cheered up and there was a great crowd to enjoy the event - it was a lot of fun.

What a difference the weather makes

The song title is provided by the Paper Kings and is a message to myself because I should really be cooking a batch of ratatouille or something similar. Have a good week.

We are the Champions

I’ve made some tomato chutney this week. I followed this very simple recipe, using half measures of the ingredients, so 500g of tomatoes and I used white wine vinegar plus a little balsamic. That produced one normal sized jar plus these two little ones. The chutney looks rather seedy but these little tomatoes are delicious (I think they’re the Rubylicious) so that should be a nice treat later in the year.

It seems to have been a mixed year for tomato growers with some of us having a bumper crop and others having a miserable one. Our tomato-based diet included this lovely pasta sauce last night. We used all Crimson Plum (Roma style) tomatoes so it was very rich.

We have finally had some rain now - after more than 8 weeks - not tremendous amounts but the ground did get totally wet. In fact another downpour woke me up early this morning. And this dark cloud managed to get me as I was heading back to the car after watering in hot sunshine on the plot the other day. We’re still waiting for the corn cobs to fill out …

And I think the squirrel has her eye on that too!

The allotment definitely looks like a late September plot rather than an August one. What a sorry state. On the plus side, I’m not sure our plot has ever been so weed-free at this time of year before! There are a few more spuds in there plus some beetroot. I’m not sure there are enough beans to bother storing them.

We’ve enjoyed a few more cucumbers and the aubergine still has fruits to pick. I thought the courgette plants had given up but noticed a couple of baby green ones the other day. And of course there are pumpkins plus at least one butternut.

I had an enormous yellow courgette in the fridge that I couldn’t bear to compost so I made a simple soup with it - I scooped out most of the flesh so it turned out very yellow and very tasty with crème fraiche stirred in.

Hmm, that yellow matches our hallway which I’m still decorating so plot visits are less frequent. We’ve had such problems with hanging some shelves and our beautiful lamp, but they’re up now and the cupboard doors are finished so just the laminate flooring to do now… That’s today’s rainy day job.

And the song title is because our quiz team actually won the quiz last weekend. So unusual that it deserves a mention 😊

So here’s Queen - a bit over the top for winning a tub of sweets and a little cash perhaps 🤭