Paranoid

I’ve just enjoyed a lunch of celeriac soup. Very tasty with rose harissa and tarragon for additional flavour. 

I used my new hand blender and wish I’d grown the ingredients, but only the garlic was home-grown. We’ve grown celeriac before but never a giant like this! It’s a bit tricky to grow and to be honest I think I’ll stick to buying the occasional one rather than trying again. This giant has made 4 days lunch and a quarter was also included in a root vegetable stew which covered two days meals. I think I’ve had enough celeriac for a while!

I did have some tarragon growing on the plot, but am not sure if it’s still there. It has a slightly aniseed flavour which I love, so I’m seeing if I can root some of the fresh stuff I bought - I only thought to do this after it had been in the fridge for a few days … so it may not work…

You can see the grey sky in that photo - it’s been dull, cold and grey like that for a few days now so we’ve stayed inside. I’ve been working on the planting plan - it’s bound to change and needs a bit more work.

The climbing beans are going to grow up wigwams this year and I’m going to very carefully label them after last year’s mix-up between climbers and dwarf plants 🙄

The squashes are going to provide a squash tunnel again. I’ve bought some Sharks Fin Melon Fig-Leaved Gourd seeds. They sound interesting don’t they, they’re a courgette rather than Winter squash. We’ll probably grow two kinds of climbing Winter squash and two other types of bush courgette.

I wonder if the weather will be more conducive to growth this year….time will tell…

Talking of weather, we had a bit more snow a week ago.

We visited the plot the next day, to drop off some compost and see how things are faring. The garlic and leeks are looking rather sad, but hopefully they’ll recover. And we were sorry to see some of the broad beans have been frosted - should have fleeced them - but they are pretty resilient (usually).

The ground was solid and the snow was covering the hills. We didn’t hang around!

We didn’t visit site for 10 days. Work has started the year busier than 2024 ended so I’m back staring at my screen for 8hours most days. I don’t mind as long as I have my hot water bottle, blanket and the curtains pulled 🤭 And I have my celestial mug (thanks George) and space-themed desk cover to keep my mind on why I’m creating spreadsheets!

We popped to the allotment on Friday and were shocked to see what appeared to be Round-Up (weed killer) footprints leading from the top of site directly to our plot. We don’t think we have any enemies, but the footprints literally tracked around plot 7, onto plot 8 and down to plot 3 stopping at our compost bin!

The worst thoughts enter your head when you think you’ve been sabotaged so I emailed Nia, our chair. She pointed out that it could be frost damage if someone had walked that way when there was frost/snow on the ground. Ah… that would be us then! 🤪 No wonder the route was so targeted!! A perfect opportunity for Black Sabbath to provide the title song. Look at Ozzy Osbourne!

Party’s Over

Tonight is the twelfth night; the decorations are now down and our living room looks rather bare. Yesterday evening we got snow, so that was good timing as a few Christmas lights were still up.

We had to go for a walk in it as we weren’t expecting it to stay long.

We only walked a mile through the snowy streets.

And there weren’t many people out.

All the snow has gone now as we’ve returned to rain, but it made a nice change (some parts of Britain are expecting substantially more than us).

Before the snow arrived we’ve had some very cold and frosty days. Friday afternoon the Moon and Venus were shining really bright in the freezing clear sky (photo clearly doesn’t do it justice!).

On Thursday morning, before I returned to working, we popped up the frosty plot to pick sprouts. 

Brrrr, -4° so we didn’t hang around.

Jamie made bubble and squeak to eat with a nut loaf I’d made - thanks to Janet, my hairdresser, for the recipe which included cashews, walnuts and chestnuts, with a splosh of red wine. Delish!

So there’s a nice start to the new year. I wonder what else it has to offer - all good things, I hope.

Now, where are those seed catalogues?! 

Song title provided by Rag ‘n’ Bone Man.

 

Cars Hiss by My Window

Sue Garratt wrote on her November blogpost that there hadn’t been “any weather” which was certainly true for the first couple of weeks of November with really gloomy dull days - no rain, no Sun and no wind.

It was unseasonably mild though so we enjoyed a Sunday night (it feels like night at 5pm now) picnic - the cat found the crisps 😄

The next Sunday we enjoyed some sunshine at Newbury’s Vegan market - mmm, that Vegan Street Diner hot dog is so delicious!

This last week has made up for the earlier lack of weather. We had snow flurries on Tuesday, barely settling, but pretty to look out at.

Wednesday brought a severe frost which took out the last of the delicate plants. I had to take the photo through the fence as the gate was frozen shut during our morning visit!

So very cold, brrr. Down to -4° in the polytunnel. And this ice was taken out of the birdbath on Friday morning.

And today the weather is torrential rain and windy as we feel the edge of Storm Bert. It really isn’t an allotment day but we’re having our windows replaced so we thought we’d leave the fitter to get on with it.

We have a skip on-site for the, now postponed, Work Party tomorrow so we’ve been clearing junk from our rather overgrown storage <ahem> wildlife area…

That’s where the great tits nested last year, so we won’t clear it completely (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it). But we’ve cleared some crates which were completely overgrown with ivy and a snail hotel. We’ve seen mice around there too which may be helping reduce the snail population.

It’s a rather colourless world now but the spindleberry was looking beautiful; such great looking berries.

And some rather exciting news - I won a book from Real Seeds! I often buy squash and bean seeds from the company that sells seeds that are sometimes a little bit different from usual suppliers.

So the song for today is provided by The Doors. The cars are hissing more quietly now! Enjoy!

Somebody that I used to Know

March is speeding along and has thrown all kinds of weather at us. The snow arrived at 3am on the 8th so we pulled ourselves out of bed to go for a little stroll. 

So beautiful to see it before the roads were cleared. It didn’t stay for long so it was worth getting up for. The following week we had gales and it’s been very wet so we didn’t have any plot visits plus Jamie had the lurgy; not THE lurgy I’m pleased to say, but horrible enough to not want to venture out.

I was on strike last Wednesday - first time ever - along with much of the country. I would have liked to join a picket line, but showed my support remotely instead. It was rather nice having an unusual mid-week day off even if I wasn’t paid for it. I’d like to think it’ll make a difference, but sadly I don’t think it will.

We had a quick plot visit to see if the wind had caused any damage. Just the usual collection of bags and compost lids in the North-East corner. But we did find a bunch of frogspawn in a puddle so gathered it up and shared it between our pond and the HAHA Wildlife pond. And this is how it looked yesterday, just 4 days on and it already looks a bit froggy!

On Saturday we had a HAHA Workday. It was really rainy in the morning so we postponed the bonfire but we still had a good turnout in the afternoon. We only had one heavy shower but also had some very pleasant sunshine. Rubbish was cleared; empty plots were made a bit more presentable and the Wildlife plot and bug hotel had a rejuvenation. Clearing the couch grass, ribwort plantain and docks which try to take over. 

The grape hyacinths, daisies, dandelions and cowslip are the first bee attractors but this was the only photo I managed to get of a bumblebee this weekend!

I’m pleased to see that our purple sprouting broccoli has finally developed florets - I’m hoping to have enough to harvest next weekend. Jamie has pulled some leeks this weekend and in the week I slow-cooked some of my dried borlotti beans. Using the slow cooker for 6 hours rather than using the hob for 1.5 hours is about 5 times more energy efficient!

I added a couple of garlic cloves and a few Gigantes and podded runner beans too. They were the basis of a couple of tasty meals with passata, chilli olives, shallots and a splosh of red wine. The second day the ingredients had soaked up the flavours of the sauce and had quite a different taste/texture.

Yesterday (Sunday) we spent a few hours clearing the Wildlife plot’s bog garden of weeds and I planted out my Egyptian walking onions (aka tree onions) which have been growing on in the polytunnel - they shouldn't mind even if the weather takes a turn for the worse again.

At one point we heard a commotion with four magpies protesting very noisily at the top of site. However all the humans we spoke to were pleased to see the return of our little friend ☺️

Such a friendly little chap and he’s a rather weak excuse for me to use this great song by Gotye - I still LOVE it. From 11 years ago, unbelievable. Enjoy.

Arwen’s Song

We enjoyed a bit of snowfall yesterday. Nothing like the weather that Storm Arwen brought to the north of the country, but we don’t usually get much snow so I always think of it as a treat. A little slow-mo video.

We had a freezing night and this morning we awoke to a frozen dusting of snow on rooftops and a beautiful dramatic sky. You can (just about) see the crescent moon in the photo too.

I’m having a long weekend so we went to the allotment this morning to pick a couple of carrots and see how the site looked. Ok, so neither the carrots nor snow are that impressive, but it was nice crunching through the icy grass.

We were glad to have protected the broad beans at the weekend. They looked a bit limp through the tunnel, but not too bad.

Something had left interesting tracks on a plank. I can’t work out what made them. Brrr, chilly little feet!

We didn’t stay outside for long and came home to make a leek & potato soup, using a Jamie Oliver recipe. It only needed two smallish Kestrel potatoes. We really need to dig up the last plant, but not today!

We bought leeks as ours aren’t big enough yet and the soup has celery in it too. The carrot added a bit of colour. We blitzed it rather than leaving it chunky and it has a nice texture and flavour. 

Last night I ate my last spaghetti squash. It’s a shame I only got two fruits this year, but I’ll try again in 2022.

Roasted for 45 minutes then toasting after adding a cheese, nut and paprika topping. It really is a tasty squash variety.

We missed out on the Christmas lights switch-on and preparations for the Hungerford Extravaganza which we’ll also skip this year. We’ll stick to the plan to hopefully avoid Covid-19 including the new Omicron variant which has recently surfaced. We both took antibody tests today, mostly out of interest to compare our results rather than anything else.

I hope the storm didn’t cause you too many problems and this beautiful song from The Lord of the Rings is the only reminder of the first named storm of this season.

Once Around the Block

Look what we woke up to this morning! Such big fluffy flakes!

Finally some snow reached Berkshire, after seeing so many beautiful snow photos from around the country.

Actually the weather forecast did predict it, so Jamie was doing a snow check every hour until it arrived at 7am 🙂 We couldn’t resist going for a little walk in it, just round the block, to hear and feel the crunch underfoot - it’s just so special.

The catkins were highlighted against the monochrome environment.

We weren’t fully convinced we were going to see the forecast snow but thought we’d better protect our broad beans from getting crushed, just in case, so we had a very quick late afternoon visit to the plot yesterday - a good job we did! The broad bean plants can handle the cold but damage from the weight of snow definitely causes a set-back and we do hope to get an early crop.

Our seed potatoes were delivered yesterday, so they’re now chitting in the hall - just a few Nicola and Kestrel.

We still need to check what seeds we have in our stocks, definitely getting the feel of Spring even in the cold and snow! I’m looking forward to cooking with our own home-grown harvests again. I made onion and butter bean soup with Ivan’s giant onion - it was lovely and creamy.

And had delicious halloumi with red onions and peppers in the week. Mmm, halloumi...

The snow has melted from the trees and roads but is remaining on the rooftops so it still looks pretty. I’m glad we were able to see it falling and have a walk.

And it meant I could use the great song title by Badly Drawn Boy from the amazing The Hour of Bewilderbeast album.