Changes

During the week we had our first Pak Choi harvest, I thought it was quite tasty, we had it steamed with dauphinois potatoes and a Quorn fillet. And we harvested our first EVER melon! 

We knew the mangomel was ripe because the skin had turned yellow. And, as you can see, a bird (probably) had also decided it was ripe enough to sample. So the remaining growing fruit now has a protective cage round it.

It weighed over 1.6kg and served us for two breakfasts. It was so deliciously sweet, well worth growing. I wonder if it grew particularly well because of the heatwave and perhaps that’s also why we only got two fruits - apparently it can produce up to five.

Looking back at my blog from last year I was reminded of the carrot and beetroot fritters. So I picked the main ingredients in the morning and cooked them up in the evening. Unfortunately they’re shop-bought shallots.

It’s such a straightforward recipe. Saying that, I probably added a little too much water so it was more sticky than intended but the fritters are so tasty and served me for two dinners. I used the thinnings of Chinese cabbage in the salad.

Last week I commented on it being Autumn and it’s most obvious in the mornings, with mist/fog and condensation in windows. 

The hedgerow is full of berries.

The Love Lies Bleeding is getting redder. This is the biggest of the plants; it’s certainly taken advantage of the space on that patch!

The cucurbits are starting to succumb to mildew, so we’ve nearly (but not quite) reached the end of courgette season.

Temperatures have remained warm and we’ve had some significant rainfall, mostly at night. Early morning plot visits are more relaxed as we only need to water in the polytunnel, but (every silver lining) the rain is really bringing the weeds on well 😣

Talking of the polytunnel, we cleared most of the excess growth and new shoots from the tomato plants. We hope that will provide more light for a few more of those lovely looking Crimson Plum tomatoes to ripen and keep mildew at bay…

The Cleor pepper has lots of long peppers which we also need to turn red… waiting, waiting…

Allotment-time this weekend has mostly been about weeding, clearing and dead-heading but I did plant up some Crocosmia bulbs which fellow plotholder, Martine, put on the freebies shelf. I’ve put some in our flower plot and some on the wildlife plot. We sowed some radish in the potato bag that we emptied today - they’ll go into the polytunnel once the tomatoes are cleared. 

And here’s a photo of the ‘allotment cat’. He’s such a friendly chap, we all like it when he turns up - well, everyone I speak to does ☺️

The song title is provided by Will Young (I’ve used David Bowie before) and what a lot of changes; not just the season and the weather, but with the death of the Queen - I wonder how long before it sounds normal saying ‘King’ - not a personal impact on my life but certainly the loss of a constant. Boris Johnson is no longer our Prime Minister - thank goodness - but time will tell how much of a change Liz Truss offers. Changes are afoot…

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

I remembered we have cucumber moulds, so the continuous supply of Baby cucumbers are now looking different. 

As long as they’re sealed in a plastic bag in the fridge they are still perfect after 3 days. I’ve seen some tasty recipes for them, but we’ve mostly been having them in sandwiches or with hummus dips. Jamie has made this soured cream salad with added tomatoes and salad onions a couple of times which we’ve enjoyed.

The big news this week is, of course, the weather. After the super extreme heat it actually rained - proper rain, with thunder and lightning two evenings in a row! The plots looked much healthier as a result.

On Tuesday morning we were greeted on site by a ‘flight’ of swallows (I prefer the collective noun ‘gulp’ actually) on the overhead cables and it was marvellous when they all swooped off together. And there was also a flock (a ‘charm’) of goldfinches. It was a beautiful morning actually, shame I only had an hour. The birds were clearly relieved that the rain had arrived and the extreme heat had past (thought it was still very warm).

Tuesday evening we had the most torrential downpour. We opened the windows to enjoy that welcome sound and smell.

The next morning the rain gauge showed it to have been a proper drenching - 25mm in one night.

Too late for the French beans (right) which seem to have gone over very quickly but the runners (left) are still producing flowers at the top and the borlotti/gigantes wigwam (centre) is looking bushy and healthy.

I needn’t have fretted last week. As Flighty pointed out, the cob tassels will soon arrive after the flowers start providing the pollen. And here they come on the Lark sweetcorn.

And look! The Lizzano outdoor tomato has given it’s first fruits - what a feast 😁 Well, it’s quality not quantity that counts! And you can see, there should soon be more…

Trugs are colourful at the moment with the chard and more of the Salad Blue potatoes. 

Also a Nicola potato and I podded those French beans to have with orzo (a pasta, which rather seemed like slippery rice on eating), What the Cluck and a sun-dried tomato pasta sauce.

Last night I used chard to make a sort of colcannon with the Nicola potatoes. It was very tasty, but I think I should have made sure there was less water in the chard before mixing with the spuds. Although it wasn’t sloppy, it didn’t quite mash properly. It’s served with What the Cluck and garlicky-shallots.

Today it’s feeding day for the plot, though it’s certainly beginning to feel a bit Autumnal which is sad. It’s still a lovely temperature and no rain expected today. Even the clouds in the photo below, from yesterday, didn’t produce rain. It’s probably just because we’ve got used to blue skies and sweltering heat. But there are plenty more flowers and veg on their way, lots of deadheading to do and surely more cucumbers and courgettes to pick!

Aah, this song will pretty much sum up today I think. And what a great song by the Small Faces! Can’t believe I haven’t used it before. For the rest of today, I shall be mostly speaking in cock-nay 😆

First of the Year

The last couple of weeks have been mostly warm, with much less rain than was threatened so we had to water every day. And there have been really windy days with sun-cloud-sun. Stupid weather doesn’t know what month it is!

I like this photo of a mallow flower on the wildlife plot, with its own little wildlife visitor. Talking of wildlife, I’ve uncovered two toads over the last few days. No wonder this one looks so fat with all the slugs that are emerging.

There’s evidence of a mole on Plot3, but it’s just circled the pumpkin for some reason. The young plant is being protected from slugs and wind damage, but we’ll have to release it to the elements soon.

The Wildlife plot has another not-so-wild visitor these days! Not very wildlife-friendly is it 🤭

Here’s Plot7 looking good after a shower, so much more effective than watering but the sun and wind soon dried the soil out. I’ve been weeding and thinning between the beetroots and the Florence fennel on that quarter. 

The thinnings make a good addition to salads and I’ve even had the first few small beets chopped up raw in a salad. I need to sow some more of the Chinese Dragon radish as the first sowing are just beginning to go a bit woody and going to seed.

The harvests are fairly meagre but it’s so nice to be eating fresh-picked again. Most of the meals involve broad beans and a handful of mangetout from every plot-visit.

I’ve really taken to the early-morning plot visits. I work from 7am for an hour then have an hour on the plot before working for the rest of the day. It feels less rushed than lunchtime visits and it’s so often sunnier than the rest of the day. Just look at that beautiful sky!

That’s our potato quarter. The salad blue have lovely flowers.

Of course, not every morning visit is sunny…but things still need watering even if we are in raincoats 🤭

We’ve finally planted up our Crimson Plum tomatoes in the polytunnel- look how pathetic they are! Hope they grow quickly before blight strikes, though they are meant to be blight resistant..

And our Lizzano tomato is planted outside on Plot3 and the two Brussels sprout seedlings are in the cage - well-protected by slug pellets. The black-covered area is where our cucumbers will go, in pots.

A couple more meals on the menu this week. First a lovely salad for lunch with lovage leaves adding a delicious celery-flavour topping and Squeaky Bean pastrami-style slices.

And for dinner, I added rice to this tasty mix including What the Cluck chicken-style pieces fried in chilli and garlic oil. It’s so easy being vegetarian these days, even Hungerford sells these meat-alternatives.

And that pan contains our first courgette of the year - it was tiny and very tasty. It’s the first one that’s actually matured rather than dropping off. Plotholder, David, gave the plant to us and it’s growing in a tub. And that is why I chose this song title by Skrillex.

No Rain

April’s a tease; making us think it’s sowing time, or even Summer-time, then going cold and windy.

We had a few hours on the plot last Saturday and Sunday. Lovely in the sunshine; chilly in the easterly breeze.

Hairy legged bee (female) on Dead Nettle

The wildlife plot is a year old this week. The bog garden plants have spread well and the cowslips will definitely need dividing for next year. There are seedlings popping up, along with a few more flowers, though mostly dandelions which we try to clear before they seed but the bees do love them.

The radish seeds sown last week have germinated and something is already enjoying them 🙄

We sowed some more sunflowers and rainbow chard - into modules so that I can plant on the coloured ones rather than the green leafed plants. Also, our grafted tomato plants have been delivered - Crimson Plum. We’ve potted them on and they’ll stay home until the weather behaves or the plants get too straggly.

Look at my Loves Lies Bleeding seedlings! They’re so tiny, like cress at the moment. I'm wondering whether I shouldn't have sown them in clumps.

Jamie put his new toy composter together. It’s a rotator and is meant to produce compost in 3-4 weeks! It doesn't hold very much, but if it's successful we could try a larger model.

Beside the composter there is a pot of snowdrops. I planted those snowdrops about 20 years ago at home and they've never produced a flower or divided! I'm hoping it was their position rather than the actual plant. We'll find out next year...

And I did a bit of digging on Plot3. Trying to keep up with our new neighbours 😀

The strawberries are flowering around the site. The night-time temperatures are close to freezing at the moment though so those flowers may not make it into fruits - as happens most years. These plants are in the polytunnel so may get away with it, as the temperature is held up by about 1°

The song title is brought to you by Blind Melon (although we did have a tiny shower on Monday, you get the gist!)