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!
Phew! That was a hot Bank Holiday weekend - how lovely to spend hours in the sunshine on the allotment again. I was pleased with this photo of a recently hatched Cinnabar moth. I particularly like the cape-like wings on this specimen.
I’d normally post this to my Allotment Wildlife Blog, but Cinnabar moths have been posted on there at least twice before; they’re a regular visitor. It’s the first one I’ve seen this year, but I'm sure many more will follow. My camera’s macro was really behaving this weekend.
These are the baby strawberries in the polytunnel - as a result of Jamie's paintbrush pollination (or maybe the abundance of flying insects in there).
And this is a Cardinal beetle - another regular on the wildlife blog as they’re so impressive. They’re not a plot enemy either.
Ok, that’s it for the macro shots. Here’s a sunny shot of our irises by the pond. Notice the may in the hedgerow, a bit later than usual this year, but still May.
I’m pleased that all the squash germinated. I started digging the trenches in the squash tunnel but only got 1metre done as this weekend was too hot for digging like that! 5 more metres to go... well, the plants have more growing to do - I'll just need to feed them prior to planting out as their modules are a bit small.
Our two Rocky cucumbers germinated too. We’re protecting them for the timebeing, we know how slugs enjoy a cucumber seedling!
I earthed-up the potatoes in bags yesterday and added a bit of potato fertiliser for good measure. We were both doing a lot of weeding and tidying - getting rid of the crazy grass edges, it makes such a difference and reduces the slug protection. I dug out some of the thistles from the HAHA wildlife plot, I know they’re good for birds and insects but we need to consider the neighbouring plots and they are rather invasive. It’s definitely greening up and the plants in the bog garden are slowly spreading.
We sowed the Scarlet Empire runner beans and Lingua di Fuoco 2 climbing borlotto beans into modules. The runner bean poles are up and I’m going to use wigwams for the borlotto and Gigantes.
The earth looks very dry, but it’s still wet under the surface. We’re still surviving on rhubarb, but look at this added luxury we had from Ivan on Sunday - it was so delicious! Thanks Ivan!
So that’s the end of the month of May. I'm looking forward to a few days off work this week - allotment all the way, hopefully. The song is by Birdy, because of the cinnabar moth.
We don't need to move to have a lovely new view from our window for a few weeks and the weather has been so dreary that it’s been a welcome spot of brightness even during the day.
Hmm, what else has happened over the last week... well, I had a day off and went to a shop... it was self-service so I didn’t really feel the COVID-shopping experience. I did get to cook the one and only spaghetti squash that we grew this year - it didn’t get looked after as much as it normally would, which I guess is why it only produced the one fruit, but it was quite a big one. I had two meals of it as Jamie doesn’t like it. It was so delicious with Spanish spicy beans and topped with cheese.
Halved and cooked cut-side down for 45 minutes at 180°, then filled and put back in the oven for 15 minutes was just right for keeping the ‘spaghetti’ firm. For the last 15minutes I pricked the skin to let the juices escape.
I also made some thick and tasty chilli, carrot and coriander soup. I’m missing our usual supply of home-grown carrots and squash, we’re so used to eating loads at this time of year, so I put a shopping order in with Jamie 😊 (He's looking forward to me getting the corona virus vaccine before him so that I have to do the shopping!)
We had a couple of hours on the allotment yesterday. It wasn’t foggy, like Saturday, but it was very dull. I cleared the bean poles away and put all the runner bean stalks into the compost bins. Look at that root! I’ve never seen them grown thick like that before and it had a really strong smell of runner beans.
We were watching the birds while we sat having a cup of choca-mocha in the polytunnel.
The robin was enjoying finding grubs where I’d moved a large pot and these goldfinches were chirping away in the trees in the hedge.
And now a question for you growers. I saw this on Facebook:
Is my globe artichoke actually a cardoon? I hope someone can tell me! Or maybe I just need to chop off some of those stems to taste them - what do you think?
We’ve just watched the Hungerford Virtual lights switch on video. Fun to see so many plotholders who are involved in other town groups. Our HAHA Happy Christmas is around 14mins 20secs if you can’t sit through the lot 😁 And the beautiful Hungerford Christmas lights are on - yay, we can see a couple from the flat but I think we'll have to take a wander up the high street one evening next week.
So, Jackson Browne provides the song title with a little poetic licence, just a little bit longer in Lockdown#2, a little bit longer till Christmas and a little bit longer till the vaccine is available to us - hooray, lots to look forward to!
It sure is wet out there! But we needed french beans.
We’ve had hours of heavy rain, I don't think it stopped at all yesterday. At least the pond is full again.
Actually it may have overflowed judging by the amount of water in the buckets!
And this is why we wanted to get the polytunnel up again, though we didn’t stay for long today. The large raised bed in the photo is where I planted the garlic, the only sign is a tiny shoot but it looked like a root rather than a growing tip! I’m sure it’ll correct itself when the rain stops.
Yesterday I made some cherry crumbles. I didn’t realise how annoying it would be to de-stone the cherries! They make a tasty dessert, but I think I’ll stick to stoneless fruit in future.
These are the beans I got from the gnarly runners I picked last week. So pretty when they’re first removed from their pods ...
They’re certainly not so attractive once cooked but I like the flavour. I had a tomato, ‘not chicken’ and bean casserole and marinated the rest in liquid smoke, tomato juice and balsamic vinegar for a tasty lunch.
I also filtered my Parma violet gin, mmm, a delicious addition to a wet October evening.
The song title is courtesy of The Killers - what a great band x
We have a better outlook from Plot3 now. Not only do we have our own weed-free(ish) plot, a gas stove for a brew, but also a nearby plot has been converted from this mess ...
To this...
Four new mini-plots to help reduce our waiting list, which reached double figures during lockdown and continues to grow. We expect those 4 plots to have new tenants very soon.
I took Tuesday off work to join a few of the HAHA committee to clear the 4-pole plot, neaten the edges and make three grass-seeded paths. The plot has been unloved for several years, partly due to mares tail. We've found that mini-plots get tended more often so should keep it at bay. We have mares tail on Plot3 but it hasn’t caused us any trouble.
On Sunday I planted our garlic in the raised bed, sprinkled with a little 6x. Two Carcassonne Wight bulbs provided 30 cloves - I hope we get to look after them unlike last year's batch. We also harvested our first french beans - yay, delicious! I picked a few gnarly runners to eat the beans tonight - apparently it's pretty much only the British who eat the pods, the rest of the World grows them specifically for the beans.
So back in work for a short week - I don’t stand a chance of knowing what day it is 🙄 but I know that today it’s October. What a crazy year. The song title is courtesy of Of Mice and Men.
I’ve been working from home for 6 months now. I know lots of people don’t get on with it, but I’ve found it ok. It’s a bit intense, with too many meetings and I miss the general chit-chat and the random corridor chats but I’ve found I’m more productive with work and at home - look, I even made a blackberry & apple crumble! I haven’t done that in a few decades 😀
The blackberries were from the allotment hedge and the apples were windfalls left outside a house we walked past at the weekend (Thanks!). It’s very tasty and I had some for breakfast. I added some almonds to the crumble, but can’t really taste them, I should have added a few more.
We walked to the plot because the East-bound M4 was closed all weekend so all that traffic had to drive along the A4 and was queuing for miles, we didn’t fancy getting caught in that for the sake of a mile walk! You can just about see some of the traffic in this photo from the site’s entrance.
It was a lovely sunny weekend and we spent a good few hours on site both days. We did lots of weed clearing, trimmed the edges, dealt with the compost, hoed everywhere and enjoyed the sun and wildlife. I was given two kale seedlings (Thanks Min!) so planted them in the netted area on Plot3 - the weed seedlings are happy with all the extra space so we’re going to have to hoe it regularly. This is an extreme close-up of a tiny section of ‘bare’ earth!
Jamie spotted this great looking Herald moth on the back of our bench. I love the wing-shape.
We’re still enjoying runner beans which are very long but surprisingly not gnarly yet.
These few went into a stir-fry, made with peanut satay sauce and Naked Glory ‘roast tender strips’. I hadn’t tried them before and they were a really tasty veggie-protein fillet to use as a ‘meat replacement’ - I’m not keen on that phrase but it’s hard not to use it sometimes.
It’s sweltering today (Monday) and it was nice to have a quick lunchtime visit to the allotment - I won’t be able to do that when I eventually make it back to the lab. Talking of which, have you seen the news about life on Venus? Well, maybe not life as we know it 😊
Tom Petty provides the title track, though I added the 'g' because I'm just not that cool to get away with it and Blogger can’t handle apostrophes in titles :-D
We’ve had two lovely afternoon visits to the plot this weekend. We’ve had no rain to speak of but some great clouds interspersed with warm sunshine.
Yesterday I spent most of the time admiring the hedgerow, it’s full of berries.
We always used to say it’ll be a hard winter when we’d see this many berries, but I don’t think it’s true... we’ll see...
The topmost photo in this post is young ivy berries - the birds love them. I think it looks like the Covid-19 virus. Talking of that, I went to the hairdressers in the week! I kept my mask on throughout the visit and the salon staff all had face shields. The Government are trying to encourage civil servants to return to the office but I don’t think I’ll have to, I hope not anyway.
Jamie and I were both cooking this morning. He was making a tomato sauce, with tomatoes from my sister’s greenhouse. Our tomato plant on site went down with blight along with everyone else’s, but at least we had some tasty fruits from it. And, as you can see, I was making another decorated focaccia, with olives, peppers and basil this time.
It’s very pleasing to make!
We’re still getting a regular supply of courgettes and Ivan gave us some of his Red Rooster potatoes yesterday...
He had plenty to share!
And Neal gave me a couple of lovely beetroot which I roasted and am having for lunches, I’m keeping them in the fridge in vinegar and pepper. They’re so delicious and made a colourful cold snack with runner beans and roasted peppers today.
The beans are leaning after the unseasonal strong winds we had a couple of weeks ago, but they’re still going strong. In fact, they seem to be producing another lot of flowers and beans at the moment.
The title song is provided by Starland Vocal Band.
