When it Rains

 … Everyone gets wet!

Poor little bee, clinging on to his cosmos stalk. We know how he felt! It was the first time in months that we walked to the site because the roads were at a standstill due to the M4 being closed.

We knew it was raining but what rain! We were drenched before we were halfway to the site, but we needed to pick runner beans and it is nice to see the site in all weathers…

I thought I’d practice some macro shots. The Gigantes and Scarlet Empire runner beans are still full of flowers and beans. The weather makes it feel like September so I’m forgetting that we have (probably) another 2 months of growing time for the squashes and at least some of the beans.

The runners, garlic and shallots are key ingredients of our meals at the moment.

And the Nicola potatoes are a really tasty variety. 

They’re delicious hot or cold and we’re really enjoying them mashed too. This meal is based on my mum’s ‘yellow fish pie’, with plant-based This isn’t bacon rather than fish and it is SO DELICIOUS!

The pumpkin foliage has really died back, but the other squashes are still growing. I’ve been checking the squash tunnel for fruits. There are definitely two Boston squashes, two Spaghetti squashes and two Crown Prince squashes, plus quite a few Festivals and Honey Boats. 

There are no giants at the moment (apart from some ridiculous tromboncino!) but that suits me. I must say it’s pleasing standing in the tunnel looking up through the vines. A lot of the fruits seem happier forming closer to the ground, particularly the Festival squash and I gave up trying to get them to grow in the right direction so now the tunnel can only be accessed from one end.

The swifts were gathering on the power lines so perhaps they’re thinking they’ve had enough of our weather too!

Dare I say that the polytunnel tomatoes are still surviving blight and are beginning to go orange. The peppers are refusing to colour up but a branch has snapped off so I’m hoping they’ll ripen in the kitchen window.

So that was it for a day off work on Friday and a soggy Saturday.

The song is provided by Paramore.

Just Got Lucky

I thought I'd start the post on a happy picture, as the next photo is a less happy one - our tomatoes haven't escaped blight so this lunchtime I chopped off all the leaves in the vain hope that some may actually go red. I'm envious of all the tomato harvests I'm seeing on social media!

What a poor show! So it appears that we'll have to keep buying tomatoes for the rest of this year 😔 It's a shame because everything else in most of my meals is home-grown at the moment.

The runner beans are really paying out. And a branch snapped off my dwarf borlotti beans, so I had some of them in their pods along with the first picking of Speedy dwarf beans.

All of the beans apart from the Edamame are producing beans now. The Edamame have only just started to flower, so not sure whether they'll produce in time - the plants look healthy but the weather is definitely feeling like September.

Harvests are a bit more varied, (well, different shaped courgettes!) but how many more courgettes, cucumbers and beans can I eat??

I've made another batch of marrow and carrot soup, flavoured with celeriac stems. I should have removed the centre of the marrow, as the soup is a bit watery; I may need to add a potato to it to thicken it up a bit. I’ll see how it tastes tomorrow.

We have plenty of garlic - good job I'm working from home and not socialising! And I harvested a first Tromboncino for this tasty meal.

That's the before photo and I scoffed half of it before getting a photo after it was cooked, with a bit of cheese on top. It has Ancho chilli flakes added to the carrot, shallots and garlic; they’re not hot but add a lovely flavour - it covered two meals as Jamie's refusing to eat any more Summer squash 😃

That’s me, making holes for planting the leeks at the weekend - look, the sun shone and it was warm. We now have 40 leeks puddled-in, thanks to our plot neighbour Neal. We’d be waiting rather longer if we used our specimens…! How pathetic are they 😄

Leeks are such a tasty addition, particularly as our shallots didn’t produce very much. Jamie’s been trying to buy pickling vinegar to pickle a small jar of shallots but has found that in short supply - along with other items. Is it COVID-related or BREXIT… or maybe a bit of both?

Anyway, (don’t get me started) I’ll drag myself away from my two favourite subjects. The song title is provide by The Jo-Boxers and I’ve chosen it because more and more I’m reminded of how much ‘luck’ can change people’s fortunes - good or, sadly, very bad. Stay safe all.

Colours

Hmm, well, I’m not happy seeing the orange tint to the pumpkins already though I’m not too surprised, there’s been a definite Autumnal feel to the weather of late - obviously we’re all talking about it.

We have two New England Pie pumpkin plants; both planted on top of a big hole filled with manure. One has produced more than 6 football-sized fruits with more on the way. The other has only produced 3 and two of those have only just started developing. Either way, we’re going to have a pumpkin feast for Halloween (hope I’ve had my 3rd jab by then and can actually socialise a bit more!).

In between some serious showers this weekend we have managed some lovely harvests. Those are 2 Rocky cucumbers, the two plants are producing masses of fruits. We even resorted to blending those two with a bit of lemon juice and drinking it - we’ll, you’ve got to try these things….if only once! 

The two courgette plants have been causing trouble too - how can we keep up with this silliness - these were all marrow-sized? Luckily a couple were a bit yellow on one side so I didn’t feel guilty about composting them! 

The biggest one has been made into soup with the carrots and celeriac; it’s very tasty with a bit of turmeric and sweet paprika and has a lovely creamy texture. I took the celeriac stems out part way through cooking, but they’ve added a really nice celery flavour. Those celeriac stems were from two plants that were starting to go to seed, so I doubt they’ll bulb up very well.

I’m pleased that runner beans and carrots are on the menu now, they’re always a nice colourful addition to a meal. Like this dish, which I hadn’t made before. These fritters are beetroot, onion, flour and carrot using this recipe. I have to admit that the flavour was mostly of onion but the beetroot came through a bit and they’re a nice colour.

Two were filling enough for me, so I have the other two with roasted patty pan tonight. They’ve lost their crispiness since being in the fridge, so I’ll find out soon if I should have just kept the uncooked mixture which was even more colourful!

I had this salad for several lunches last week with patty pans, beetroot and dried Gigantes beans; my dried stock from last year is running low but the wigwam of plants has plenty of flowers and tiny beans now.

We’ve been assisting the sweetcorn with pollination now that the male flowers and female tassels have grown. Better pollination means more tasty kernels on the cob.

Something that doesn’t need any help with pollination is the tromboncino squash (I know Mal, you did warn me!) Look at that lot just making there way over the framework. At least they can be eaten as a Winter squash as well as a Summer one…. Apparently.

As already mentioned, the weather hasn’t felt like Summer and the damp weather has brought blight to the site. We’ve cleared our infected potato haulms and desperately hoping that tomatoes in the polytunnel will escape infection…  But if plot visits are timed right it’s been rather pleasant and I do like dark clouds like the ones looming as we returned home today.

I’ve been moaning (a bit) that we’ve had so many days of sunshine and showers but hadn’t seen a rainbow. But on Friday one appeared outside our window - perfect and they’re such a pleasure to see, aren’t they?

So the song title for this colourful post is provided by The Avalanches. Enjoy.

Loser

It was Hungerford in Bloom allotment judging at the weekend so it was a busy site on Thursday and Friday, with lots of plot holders making their plots look their best. It’s a nice time to walk around because labels appear so we can see the varieties that people have chosen this year.

All our edges were trimmed - I don’t think they have to be straight ☺️, just tidy 🙂. That was where we uncovered most of the ants nests. Red ants and black ones. They sure get agitated when disturbed and both of them nibble when they get up your arms!

We only entered Plot7 and Plot3 into the competition; plot8 has a mass of weeds which we haven’t had time to clear, it’s the most ‘in bloom’ of all our plots though. At least the tidy edges may reduce the slug and snail damage - 2 of our 5 'tallest' sunflowers have been eaten down to skeletons already and they've definitely eaten more of our lettuce than we have!

We sowed some Chinese Cabbage into modules and leeks into a pot at the weekend. They're in the polytunnel for now but we'll move them outside once they've germinated. Jamie bought a basil plant from Waitrose and has divided it into 3 pots which are in the polytunnel by the tomatoes.

We've just had a quick visit to the plot at lunchtime to pick some broad beans and it's so windy! Lots of our tall bean plants have blown over but plenty more beans are available. Poor broad beans after they survived the hardest frost of the year they now find themselves snapped off in their prime :-(

I hope the wind doesn't cause too much damage, particularly to our runner beans, cucumbers and squashes which are beginning to make their way upwards.

At the weekend we picked the first of our courgettes, there are bound to be more to come given the number of little ones on their way - as long as the wind doesn't snap the plants. We've added some bamboo poles to hopefully hold them in place.

The song is by Beck, because we didn't win any prizes in the competition - well, we knew we were up against some brilliant plots!

World in Motion

Another bonus for home-working. We visited the allotment for an early lunch and, although it was mostly cloudy, we saw the partial solar eclipse. In fact, the cloud helped with the photo.

I do enjoy an astronomical phenomenon!

It’s been a warm, moving on to hot, week and the weekend has been positively sweltering. We’ve spent lots of hours on the allotment and our runner beans are finally in the ground.

Those are Borlotti. Jamie has added wind protection round the Scarlet Empire as they’re a bit susceptible at the front of the plot, at least until they’ve got a hold on the poles.

The courgettes are freed from their mesh protection and seem to be happy. And, so far, all my squashes are intact. The plots are needing a lot of water at the moment, with no rain for a while.

It’s too hot for some of the seeds we sowed last week. The purple sprouting broccoli germinated, but succumbed to the heat yesterday and had collapsed. We’ll re-sow at home. Our peppers have been growing on at home for a while but they’re in the (tidy) polytunnel now in growing bags: Chelsea, Milena and Denver grafted plants.

Harvests are just starting - pretty meagre helpings but for lunch I had a nice salad with cold blanched broad beans, mangetout, salad leaf and chives and we’ve had a few strawberries. We’re hoping for more broad beans later this week. There they are… nearly ready.

The rhubarb has rather collapsed, not sure whether it’s the heat or because it’s so huge. We’re looking forward to this rhubarb and strawberry mixture with ice cream for puddings - it looks prettier before it’s fully cooked and smells amazing.

You may have noticed the England flag is in position - for Euro2020, postponed from last year. We do love a footie tournament and England won against Croatia this afternoon so we’re off to a good start 👏. So the song is one of the best football songs ever, by New Order and has a spurious link to the eclipse too 😊

Cuckoo

Yesterday was my last day of freedom - back to work today (it's too early for work at the moment, if you're wondering!!), still full-time from home so that’s not so bad, but I have so enjoyed the last week that I’m sorry it’s over already. Morning and afternoon visits to a warm, often sunny plot - perfect.

Pink, flavoured vinegar in-progress

The weather for the last two days was very warm, but not too much sunshine which (I hate to say) was a good thing otherwise we wouldn’t have achieved as much as we wanted. Like (drumroll please) my 10 squashes are planted. 

They’re being protected under netting, with slug pellets, until they get established, they look so vulnerable at the moment! The cut-off plastic bottles are for ease of watering when the tunnel has become a jungle (fingers crossed).

Regular visitors may remember that I bought celeriac plants because my seedlings were stuck at the ‘cress’ stage for so long. Well, I'm glad we didn't consign them to the compost as they eventually grew and so I made a trench for them on Plot3.

Neal gave us some Early Bird sweetcorn plants so Jamie dug the area on Plot3 where the manure pile was - clearing the many weeds and tree roots and they're protected by bottle cloches for the timebeing. I intend to try some Glass Gem sweetcorn (again) on Plot7 - I'm going to sow them direct one day this week, well that's the plan.

Plot3 is really looking like a worked-plot now!

But Plot 7 (and 8) will always be the favourites because they were our first. The polytunnel has been re-stocked with the following sown into modules or pots yesterday:

• Borlotto Firetongue (dwarf beans)
• Gaia (dwarf soya beans)
• Speedy (dwarf french beans)
• Gigantes (Greek runner beans)

• Purple Sprouting broccoli - these have been brought home under the grow light
• Moreton's Secret mix - "very mixed lettuces" from RealSeeds. I've sowed these in a tray and put them under the enviromesh with the carrots. The polytunnel would be too hot for them

The Scarlet Empire and Borlotto runner beans have a bit more growing to do before we'll plant them outside. And look at that big strawberry. Jamie assures me that if we wait till today we'll have a handful to eat rather than just one...

The flowers are enjoying the sunshine as much as us.

Aquilegia

Geum

The song title is an aide memoire, because I thought this was interesting but forgot to add to my earlier post. We've been hearing the cuckoo for weeks - it's somewhere over the marsh but the sound has been getting louder and closer over the last week.

Not a cuckoo

We commented that we'd never seen a cuckoo, but then last week the cuckoo and its mate were flying overhead across the allotment from North to South. The male was 'cuckoo-ing' all the way across and as it passed over you could see plotholders look up like some sort of mexican wave! It was quite a sight (and sound)! I'd certainly assumed that they only cuckoo when sitting and looking for a mate.

So here is Rising Appalachia to provide the song.