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!
The temperature last week dipped to -9.2° in the polytunnel. Brrr certainly not gardening weather but bright enough to tempt me out for a brisk early morning walk to see the Sun.
As well as frosty walk weather it’s soup weather so I’m glad I pulled leeks and parsnips last weekend before the ground solidified!
I made this delicious curried leek & parsnip soup - flavoured with garam masala and a bit of curry powder. Hmmm, spicy but not hot - just how I like it and it served me for three lunches. That little bowl was just a taster.
Yesterday we went to the plot but it was far too cold to hang around. The leeks have taken a battering from the cold snap but we expect them to recover now that the temperature has - though Storm Isha is now blasting them with strong winds and more rain 😒 Lucky I puddled them in quite deep.
I did have to check the ice that had formed in the buckets, of course. I should have been more creative but my hands were too cold!
The robin didn’t appear at our visit yesterday, poor little chap out in the cold! The swans don’t seem to mind, but I did wish I’d taken some food for them when I saw them the other morning.
This photo was taken on one of the frostiest mornings last week; idyllic though it looks I think I’d only be good as a Summer boat dweller (and maybe not in Britain ðŸ¤)
And those canal photos have given me the opportunity to use this excellent song by Ocean Colour Scene from 1996 (28 years ago - whaaaat?!). Batten down the hatches everyone!
Yes, it’s filtered, I had to because it was a bit blurry and then Photoshop offered me this and how could I refuse?! It was quite a nice photo with a distant hot air balloon.
They may only be short days now that we’re in October but what a lovely sunny Sunday we had. The flowers are still making the most of it on the plot. Our morning glory took a long time to flower, but look how beautiful they are now.
And my one dahlia has finally developed a flower, after the amazing dahlia year everyone else seems to have had! Oh well, it’s still pretty.
And finally a melon Mangomel had matured enough for us to eat for breakfast - it was tiny, barely a mouthful but super-sweet.
The bees, hoverflies and butterflies are really making the most of the fine weather and on Saturday we were so pleased to see a Hummingbird Hawkmoth enjoying the verbena bonariensis. The antirrhinum have got to be one of the best self-seeded flowers. So many different colours; they’ve been flowering for months and the bumblebees love them.
I planted 2 garlic bulbs, which provided 20 cloves, (Caulk White) on Friday and I’ve now planted up all the flower bulbs I ordered. I’ve put some in pots and some in the ground: various alliums, daffodils and anemones. I hope they don’t get wiped out by mice like they did last year… we’ll see what appears next Spring. A few have gone into the flower bed where I’ve cleared masses of Nigella seedlings, but never fear… they’ll be back!.
And here’s a before-and-after weeding photo at the front of Plot8. I’ve put some bulbs in front of the irises and amongst the grape hyacinths. As you can see, the irises have been trimmed back to 15cm for over-Wintering.
HAHA has a seed swap container in our communal shed, so I’ve packed up a few of our collected seeds this weekend too. Lots of beans and flowers - if plotholders don’t want them we’ll find somewhere else to share them.
Yesterday I had a meal of Yin Yang beans, curly kale (thanks to Nia), tomatoes and onion flavoured with a bit of garlic, oregano, soy, tomato puree with a little finely grated cheese on top - delish and so easy to make!
And, just one last thing - look at this potato! Is it the veggie version of ham-fisted? 😊
The song title is provided by Oasis. What a song, haven't heard that in a while but can't believe it was released 28years ago!
This was the lovely clear view of a very skinny moon early this morning. And the next photo shows the sky looking towards the sunrise, beautiful (my camera made the sky look a bit darker than it really was but the stripes really were that bright). The clear night on Friday slipped the temperature down to 0.4° but there’s not much left growing to be affected by low temperatures now.
In the week Jamie cleared all the remaining tomatoes and the peppers, which still refused to go red. So there is a lot of green pepper added to meals at the moment and these two yellow ones were delicious stuffed with shop-bought veggie fritters for a quick and easy meal. I added cheese for the final 15minutes in the oven, I should have taken a photo as they browned really well and tasted so good.
We had a lovely sunny day on the plot on Saturday. The temperature only reached 6°, but you wouldn’t have known it while in the sunshine. Jamie weeded the potato plot and I did some weeding around the chard and pulled all the remaining beets which all had slug damage.
I wore my hearing aids and was amazed by all the birdsong. Not unusual apparently but I’ve not been using my aids, just turning the sound up on my work laptop and TV - I forgot what I’d been missing! It was mostly robins and great tits but the gulls over the canal were very vocal too. And this huge crow was cawing in the big tree.
The magpies and blackbirds got excited when ‘Ginge’ was around, but he was more interested in compost bins on Saturday. He has been seen taking a magpie from the air though!
The Newbury Weekly News covered both of our unhappy news items last week.
Good that they covered them, but we’d rather have more positive news stories than these 😞
Look at our lovely site, even in Winter. How could anyone even consider building on it?! Idiots 😡
I pulled carrots and parsnips for this evening’s meal. I was really pleased with the parsnips… well, I should say… I was really pleased with the first parsnip I pulled - they got progressively worse, but there was plenty to eat, no matter what the shape of them.
The parsnips and carrots became this gratin meal, roughly based on this recipe. Mmm, tasty and enough leftovers for a lunch. I meant to add the tomatoes to the sauce but forgot, so stuck them on top instead 🙄
I posted a photo of spindleberries the other week, but this is when they look their best; with a beautiful blue sky backdrop.
We didn’t go to the allotment today as it was a bit grey, a bit sunny and a bit rainy. Every time the Sun shone We wished we’d gone up, but it did seem a bit chilly. The ground is so wet, but it made it easy to pull weeds yesterday.
The song title is courtesy of Vampire Weekend, in appreciation of my cousins Paula, Jen and Steve for very kindly buying me that replacement fork after thieves stole all our digging tools - THANKYOU SO MUCH xxx
Hands up who else was flagging like this yesterday!
Sagging Patty Pan plant
“When leaves show their undersides, be very sure rain betides” says the Farmer’s Almanac.Well, the rain reached Swindon but missed Hungerford, so I think it was wishful thinking for the beans, or perhaps they wanted us to do some more watering.
Watering just isn’t the same as rainfall, so we had to water twice on the hottest day in Britain EVER. Such hard work ðŸ¤
The temperature in the shade on the allotment was 37° But look at the polytunnel temperature - Ugh! Didn’t stay in there long.
On Monday we got to the allotment for sunrise (05:10am). It felt really cold at 8° but it’s always interesting to see the site waking up and to see how much dew forms on the plants. The magpie family were flying about like they were playing in the squash tunnel and then we saw 3 squirrels frolicking. Perhaps they were dashing about to warm up, as I was.
The sun reached the top of site first.
Jamie took the haulms off one potato plant which had died back - just one Nicola out of the row. We firkled to see how the tubers were doing - no sign of blight, so perhaps the plant just died due to lack of water. Anyway, the potatoes were lovely.
That courgette was one of Neal’s. We had a larger one than that another day and I stuffed it with shallots, garlic, baby carrots and cheese. Really delicious.
They weren’t home-grown shallots, though I have pulled ours now. Not a very impressive haul again this year.
On one of the less-hot days I sowed my seed paper that my clever cousin Jen made - I’m making sure I keep the pot well-watered and look forward to seeing what appears.
Talking of emerging, I found this shiny golden chrysalis on a lettuce. I think it may be a small tortoiseshell.
Rain is threatening again, but I wonder if it’ll actually fall today. We’re back to our average temperature for now which is rather a relief but I have enjoyed the blue skies.
It’s raining!! The song is provided by The Stereophonics. Good video but I don’t like the thought of crunching sand in that bread. 😣
We got to the plot for sunrise. We intended to get there before the birds started their chorus but we were too late. They were singing beautifully all the while we were there and we could hear the cuckoo across the marsh. It was a beautiful morning; just a few clouds and when the sun rose they were a fabulous colour (the photo doesn't do them justice).
5am
The sun reaches the the western hedge well before it lights up our plot.
The hedges round the site are looking beautiful at the moment with their shiny new foliage. The hawthorn with its may blossom is particularly stunning up close. This photo isn't photo-shopped, it's the morning sunlight giving it the pinky hue.
We went back home for a couple of hours and then returned to site about lunchtime. A lovely warm day and although windy at the top of site we found it to be quite still at our plots.
Plants in waiting
I planted up the celeriac - 2 rows about 30cm apart.
Yes, I cheated. My seed-sown celeriac is too pathetic so I bought a tray at the Garden Centre. I'm sure more germinated than are in the tray but something is nibbling them and it's just too slow growing.
Jamie took the netting off the onions and weeded all round them and dug up the persistent potatoes!
The strawberry plants, which we're growing next to our seat for the birds to eat, are looking healthy and, along with the chives, are bringing bees and hoverflies in.
Robbie came to join us as usual and watches our every move. No sign of his youngsters yet; he's still taking them plenty of worms.
