Hey Jude

This little (Carder?) bee is busy pollinating our Painted Lady runner beans and good to see there are a few beans already growing on that stem. Quite often we’ve seen bumblebees accessing the nectar through a hole in the back of the flower, which bypasses the vital pollen transfer.

Beans have been on the menu this week - broad beans. These are the ones we sowed in May - we usually sow in the Autumn to avoid the bean weevil. I had to throw a few beans away because of evidence of weevil larvae, but there were enough to add to this very tasty egg bake dish (based on this recipe). The courgettes are still a bit wonky but taste good.

All home-grown veg: green and yellow courgettes, broad beans, shallots, garlic and our Paris potatoes. This one plant produced >500g of small spuds. Very tasty and they held together pretty well while cooking - we thought they may fall apart due to being so dry.

I pulled some of the onions because their foliage bent over - they’re drying in the Sun for now, along with some shallots. There are a few more to pull.

As you can see from these photos the weather is still extremely hot. We totally expect 30+° temperatures now, with 26° feeling cool in comparison and there was a cool (quite strong) breeze out there last night and it’s cloudythis morning though we’re expecting that to burn off with no rain forecast till the end of the week. So, watering, watering, watering is still essential but this is a great time of year now we’re harvesting. I pulled two more potato plants yesterday - another Paris and an Orla. And I’m pleased the sweetpeas have had another burst of blooms. Need to keep picking them to keep them blooming and maybe their stems will get longer.

Our Baby Bear pumpkin is still producing tiny fruits, but most are falling off now. There are 3 reasonable-sized ones which are already beginning to ripen - this heat seems to be making for a short season for some plants. But no flowers yet on our Butternut squash plant yet…

The HAHA Wildlife plot is looking colourful at the moment. The bees and butterflies are loving it.

The ground cover is so thick it must be holding water. On our plots, I’m mostly leaving the flowers to find their own water, as watering the vegetables is exercise enough, but I have been giving this self-seeded sunflower a drink everytime I walk back from the water troughs - and it’s just flowered. What a little beauty!

I’m on a go-slow this morning after another gruelling World Cup match win for England which went to extra time, but no penalties 😮‍💨 - we’re through to the semi-finals against Argentina now. So exciting!

And Jude Bellingham was our saviour yet again - what a star, hence the title song originally provided by The Beatles but sung by the England supporters here 😃

Oh, perhaps the original should be here too, though the YouTube police may delete it.

Transformation

We’ve been watching the cygnets this year and noticing the plumage changes as they move towards adulthood. They join in the feeding frenzy when we feed them from the canal or river bank, but only the adults seem to spot the feed that lands out of the water 😊

The war memorial is one of their feeding locations, with our fancy new memorial bench, this tree also puts on a fabulous transformation display. The fallen leaves just add to the display don’t they.

Our neighbours, who are also plotholders, have an excellent display of pumpkins - their largest was 36kg! Amazing considering how dry the year was.

Our display of squashes is rather less impressive but I am hoping to make this recipe from at least one of the fig leaf gourds, but I’m not sure whether they are ripe enough to have the spaghetti-like texture. Will find out, I guess!

We’ve had a couple of plot visits since my last post - I weeded the plot where the onions and garlic have begun to poke through and have done a bit more clearing. Spotted this tiny sunflower that’s made a late appearance - the flower is only about 10cm in diameter!

We’ve had a delivery of Apsley Farms mulch which I can spread once I’ve cleared the planned area, but I need to dig a trench for all the foliage from beans, squash, etc and I can’t face doing that at the moment - we’ve had such a lot of rain it may be a nightmare job.

We got an absolute drenching when we visited the Welford Park Spectacle of Light on Sunday.

Four miles of wandering amongst beautiful fantasy woodland with lovely musical accompaniment.

We really loved it, despite the rain. I really liked these conical lights amongst the trees.

And this area was where we sat having refreshments. The spheres were really great but didn’t photograph too well. But just look at those huge lit-up trees - stunning.

It’s only a few miles from Hungerford - it’s where the Great British Bake-off is filmed. It was fabulous, rather expensive but worth the visit, the drenching and the aching legs! More photos if you fancy a peek.

And here’s another cygnet photo showing a bit more white plumage - the brown feathers moult apparently, though it looks like they’re changing colour to me 🧐

So, you can see why this post’s song title is what it is - by David Gray.

Don’t Give Up

Tomato season has arrived on our plots. I’ve been looking up ways to use the tomatoes and passata was the easiest solution so I have some bags frozen now - they should last 3 months.

We used some of it fresh for this tasty pasta dish - it used up the last of last year’s yin-yang beans which I’d pre-cooked in the slow cooker for 8 hours, avoiding the overnight soak.

The British Tomato Association have some nice recipes so I may use the redcurrant tomatoes for a confit, otherwise they’re mostly good for salads or garnish. I was surprised to see that ‘Tomato Fortnight’ is in June which the Tomato Association consider ‘peak tomato season’ - shows the difference between commercial and home-grown! This was another trug from last week.

The radishes, carrots and aubergine were roasted with potatoes and halloumi and the giant courgette was cut into rings and stuffed with a chestnut stuffing.

Jacob’s Cattle, Greek Gigantes and Borlotti

You can see that I’ve managed to dry some beans, just in time as we’ve had some significant rain over the last few days and have measured 20mm on the plot. I may dry the runner beans too as the meagre amount that we’ve picked have already gone stringy - what a dead loss! 

We were lucky that the rain stayed away for the Bank Holiday weekend. Hungerford’s Beer and Music Festival was on for three days. We had two lovely afternoons sitting in the Sun, listening to live music and drinking real ale plus the barbecue had veggie burgers - woohoo!

Cheers!

On Plot3 the squashes are trying to fruit - the Shark’s Fin melon (squash) has a couple of good-sized fruits but I’m not sure that the Festival or Taheri Melon squash are going to achieve anything edible but I do hope so! 

Shark’s Fin melon squash

So today’s the last day of August, it’s seemed a quick, but beautiful Summer and I hope it’ll continue for a few more weeks giving the rest of our sunflowers time to bloom 🙄 Poor little plant desperately needed a drink that day!

Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush provide the positive song title as we move into meteorological Autumn and see what September brings us….

Time

Well, I really don’t know how it’s September already, but it is certainly feeling autumnal and now look! 30 leeks planted for next year…I think this is why the months are flying by, too much thinking/planning ahead but needs must.

The swallows are gathering for their migration later in the month. All chitter-chattering on the wires and then a great spectacle when they swoop off en masse. A flock of swallows is generally called ‘a flight’ and also ‘a gulp’! 😀 A ‘gulp of swallows’ sounds rather 20th century to me!

Our sunflowers are finally flowering. The bees do love them and the birds will enjoy the seeds in a couple of weeks. These are quite tall multi-headed ones and the flowers are at different levels of maturity - fascinating to look closely at the different stages.

And we’ve had a few more Purple Dragon carrots and these were reasonably carrot-shaped, though certainly wouldn’t win any prizes. I like the colour of but they’re orange just below the skin. These and the Desiree potatoes were part of a tasty roasted veg meal with our garlic which is hanging in the polytunnel.

Jamie pulled another Desiree yesterday and there are some real monsters in there! That’s the large trug.

Other harvests have been fairly consistent over the last couple of weeks. Just varying the type of bean!

The cucumbers have begun to grow in this shape, probably because of cool nights - our thermometer even measured 6° the other night 😖

We also managed to grow some heart and star-shaped cucumbers again but I’ll need to buy new moulds for next year. 

Apart from masses of cucumber sandwiches we’ve enjoyed this Asian smashed cucumber salad, with soy and sesame. It’s tasty, with less salt than the recipe suggests!

The brassicas (sprouts and purple sprouting broccoli) are looking a bit weak on Plot3 but there’s plenty more growing time for that. If these critters don’t take over - these are large white caterpillars and they’ve just started to appear. We’re keeping a close eye and removing any we find at each visit.

So, on that note I’ll just share this meal we had last night - another use of runner beans; with fake bacon pieces in red pepper tapenade with garlicky gnocchi - yum yum!

The title is provided by The Alan Parsons Project - haven’t heard this for decades! Enjoy.

Cloudbusting

I took a couple of slices of bread and butter to the plot for a fresh and colourful sandwich 😀 To be honest, it didn’t taste of anything but bread and butter, but it did look pretty.

This sandwich was tastier, with the addition of a freshly picked cucumber, cheese and mayonnaise 😊.  I only recently found out that snapdragons (Antirrhinum) and French marigold (Tagetes) flowers are edible and you can order tubs of ‘fresh’ edible flowers online…! Hoho, I don’t think I’ll bother.

Anyway, enough of that silliness, (though I think my sandwiches may include a few petals more often now). This is a row of nasturtium with self-seeded snapdragons - such beautiful colours, even on a dull day.

We are at the end of July and it’s raining, as it has been for much of this month. But the growth is amazing! This is the Jack Be Little pumpkins and the Incredible sweetcorn.

The Cornell’s Delicata that I sowed is clearly not the bush variety that I’d planned the space for! It’s a Winter squash and I’m pleased to see some fruits now appearing. I’ll try to encourage the plant to grow over the mangetout frame rather than over the path…

Meanwhile our sunflowers have peaked too soon - the measuring is 4 weeks away so we didn’t want them to flower yet. But they do look good and it’s so nice to see them all around site and the bees love them.

This really is perfect growing weather at the moment and it’s a nice temperature for working in - though the HAHA Work on Saturday morning was exhausting - clearing a mass of stingers and brambles from against the site fence near the wildlife plot - my arms were tingling all evening after so much stinging!

Here’s a Timelapse of the lovely bubbling clouds yesterday. We left before the rain started, with a trug full of veggies.

I was eating separately from Jamie so could have chard and fennel which he doesn’t like, oh yes, and asparagus peas 😃 and I used a few baby leeks as spring onions. The courgette had to be picked, but will have to wait a day.

I realise it looks like I was frying coleslaw! This is the mixture of grated carrot, grated fennel, chopped leeks, cornflour and a bit of seasoning. I should have chopped the fennel, or maybe added some of the foliage as the flavour didn’t really come through, but after frying for about 5minutes on each side, then 10minutes in the oven these fritters were very tasty with a satisfying crunch.

This was a teriyaki tofu and courgette meal we had the other night - I found it delicious. No home-grown tomatoes yet but they’re coming on in the polytunnel along with peppers and aubergines.

The French and Borlotti beans are flowering and growing over the old polytunnel frame so we should have some beans to add to our meals in a few weeks…

I’m into my second week of leave (feels like I’ve been work-free for ages) so don’t want to wish the weeks away! We’re enjoying watching England win their matches in the Women’s World Cup - supported by my new gnome 😀 - though the matches are tighter than expected!

Song title provided by Kate Bush - I was amazed to see that I haven’t used this title before. What a great song - but the Cloudbusting can stop now - we’ve had enough rain for the timebeing…