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!
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.
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.
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 🤭)
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!
Three weeks into January already? How did that happen? January always felt like the longest month of the year. Not in 2022 it seems. To be honest, not much has happened. Weather has been mostly wet and when it’s not wet it’s freezing. I forced myself outside one sunny morning and walked up the High Street. The swan family are looking good and hassling people for food.
They’re so big when they walk up to you out of the water! They spend a lot of time preening to look as beautiful as their parents one day. There are seven cygnets in this family.
We’ve visited the allotment most weekends but it’s been too chilly to hang round and too wet to do much, even if we were so inclined. We actually had an excellent snow shower one work-day afternoon; lovely huge flakes and it quickly settled, but 10minutes later it had all disappeared! I’m still working from home and hope I can continue to do so, at least until after my fourth jab which is due in February.
I made a tasty spicy soup, with a Festival squash which had been stored in the polytunnel over Winter. Unfortunately a lot of the pumpkins went mouldy so we put them outside and they’re being eaten by wildlife now. I think I’ll set up a wildlife camera to see who’s enjoying them.
Ivan gave us a couple of yacons that he harvested last year and had stored in his polytunnel. Fellow plotholder, Min, started growing them and shared some growing tubers. The bushy plants have small yellow flowers. It’s an interesting sweet tasting crunchy fruit and it’s very juicy. We have one more saved in the fridge.
I made a Smokey bean stew, with dried Borlotti and runner beans. Two tasty evening meals and enough for a lunch with these blue corn tortilla chips that were included in a hamper we received for Christmas from my nephews.
I’ve literally only left the flat about eight times this year, with two outings to Swindon last week (one for a blood test and one for a clinic appointment 😄) That’s enough excitement for one week so now I have a couple of days off work. We visited the freezing plot yesterday afternoon. Unsurprisingly no-one else was there. We saw three grey squirrels frolicking in the trees and were joined by a very friendly robin near the wildlife plot. We saw a female bullfinch there last week - I must remember to take my big camera, rather than just my phone.
As I walked back to our plot to get the monocular to look at some other birds, I noticed a movement in the hedgerow. Look at this little bank vole!
He was so unconcerned by me that I’m worried that he may not be long for this world ☹️ So cute and lovely to see.
I never did get the monocular. It was so cold after watching the vole, for about 20 minutes, that we went home. Look at that sky and the weather says that today is going to be more cloudy!
My first post of the year with an appropriate song by Cold War Kids.
It was tempting not to go out today as the weather forecast extremely chilling winds, but we have our shallots that need to be planted and it was actually dry. The top of the site was really windy but Plot3 is quite protected so we got on with some work and I even needed to take my coat off whilst digging the caged area. It’s the brassica cage, but this is the only plant in there - you can’t really see how small it is, but I’m determined to try and get one serving from it!
It was good to be working and Jamie took time to properly dig and add 6X to the patch where the shallots will go. I just turned the soil with a spade, rather than carefully working it like Jamie did. We’ll probably cover it to stop the weeds re-emerging before the brassica planting will happen.
And he weeded round the rhubarb, which is just showing signs of life.
The sky went very dark and we got some sleet but it stayed dry. We’ve started noticing the daylight lasting a little longer each day and Spring flowers are emerging, which are such a welcome sight.
All the purples so far.
We’ve drawn up the planting plan for Plot7, really itching to get started, but all in good time... Really must try to stop wishing the weeks away!
I went up the road in the week and enjoyed a bit of sunshine while Jamie went shopping. It was just me and the swans. I upset that swan and he hissed at me quite soon after getting that shot - clearly not socially distanced!
We celebrated Chinese New Year on Friday night, but discovered on Saturday that it’s not actually till next Friday 🙄 Oh well, it was a tasty meal of tofu chow mein, which I just about managed to eat with chopsticks 🙂
So, that’s how February has begun and the REALLY GOOD NEWS is that I have my vaccine booked for Tuesday! Hooray! I hope the weather doesn’t scupper that plan, more on that next week, I’m sure. The song by Inspiral Carpets is sad, but for this blogpost the title is referring to the weather - I haven’t warmed through yet. I need a bath to remove the chill from my bones! Brrr.
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.
