Talking in Tones

On 1st August, between rainy days, we planted 60 leeks. I think that’s the most we’ve ever planted but they’re such a handy Winter vegetable.

We planted them in the usual way; topping and tailing and dropping them in a deep hole so they hopefully grow with a substantial white bit, then fill the hole with water. They’re spaced so that a hoe can get between them.

Apart from dealing with the leeks, we’ve mostly been sitting and watching. 

The weather is dealing with most of the watering, we just do a bit for the weekly feeding and the items in the polytunnel.

Talking of the polytunnel.. it’s been a welcome shelter a few times this holiday! There are lots of peppers, tomatoes and aubergines forming but the plants aren’t as wild as they usually grow.

The sweetcorn has developed its male flowers, rather pretty pinky ones ones on these Incredible plants, though the cobs are expected to be standard yellow.

Talking of yellow, look at the lovely rudbeckia - we have several of these, all offspring from one plant my niece gave me probably 10 years ago. Beautiful.

And, talking of beautiful, here’s the female bullfinch. We hear their hooting call before we see them. Both parents are with their young at the moment. So lovely to see.

Talking of lovely… I did the Big Butterfly Count by the HAHA Wildlife plot yesterday. The numbers were rather low, less than we’re seeing on our buddleja at home:

I was pleased to see that someone else had reported a count from the site on 23rd July - interesting to see the different species.

Talking of interesting … yesterday was our Flying Ant Day. When the ants fly off to start new nests - see this link for more info. We have so many ants nests in the grass paths on site, I think they’ll have a long flight to find a new nesting site!

And, when did black ants start biting? I’m sure it used to only be the red ones.

Talking of biting … <ahem> here’s a couple of recent tasty meals.

Baked halloumi, courgette, tomato bake with potatoes and asparagus pea

Stuffed courgette with cheese, nuts and carrot with mangetout

And talking of mangetout… I pulled the remaining plants but have left the frame so the Cornell’s Delicata squash can grow up it. It’s gone a bit crazy, but that’s good as it’s the only Winter squash we’re growing.

And finally, talking of frames. We’ve picked our first French beans today which we’re growing up the old polytunnel frame. The Borlotti beans on the other side are winning at the moment.

The Charlatans provide the song title which is why I’ve been ‘talking’ a lot in this post. 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.

Different World

On Saturday we decided the time had come to deal with our dalek compost bins on Plot3. Three of them have been composting away for at least two years with new material being added on top but no stirring - it’s quite awkward to get in to mix the contents.

I will try to stir it a bit more in future, there were definite layers of wet and dry which could have broken down more with a bit of human intervention.

The worms, woodlice, slugs and centipedes had done a pretty good job though. Compost worms always look so lovely and clean.

The un-composted contents were moved on to a spare compost, along with the worms, as starters for the next lot of compost. We managed to extract the lovely newly created soil through the little door at the bottom for a bit of sorting - how did all that plastic get in there?!

So as the sun was going down on Saturday (5:15) we left the plot with 3 compost bins ready and waiting for re-filling and 10 bags of humus-rich soil to go in the bottom of the bean trenches. Aah, home-produced compost is very satisfying.

That meant that Sunday was trench-digging day. The squash tunnel is becoming a bean tunnel this year. Digging trenches is such hard work, especially after a few lazy Winter months of barely moving - we took it in turns to dig! The Sun didn't show, which was probably a good thing, but the birds were full of song around us.

We only managed one trench, the other side can wait till next weekend. Does it look like it's getting thinner at the other end..? Hmm, must be something to do with perspective *ahem*

On the breaks between digging we weeded the garlic and leek plot - the leeks are very poor; there are only a few there which are any good unfortunately.

The garlic looks ok so far, but they've got a good few months more to grow so I won't count my chickens!

Talking of chicken, well, definitely not chicken actually "What the cluck" - I prefer to call it 'Cluck' - a plant-based alternative to chicken. I enjoyed two meals at the weekend using Cluck and chestnuts.

Cluck is too chicken-y for Jamie so he has plant-based burgers, which I find too beef-y! I added teriyaki sauce along with our home-grown cavalo nero in the top meal - delicious.

And this second one includes onions and a parsley sauce - Jamie didn't know what he was missing out on 😏 This is served with Sticky Rice which is so white you can hardly see it. I love it - 1 minute in the microwave, perfect.

A final close-up of a potato chit - they're so alien aren't they? They do amuse me 😊 and a segway to this song by Iron Maiden.

The New Year

Two weeks in and Christmas feels long forgotten, what a shame. We had such a lovely break. Here's a post-Christmas snack I made, very tasty along with the home-made carrot and patty pan chutney.

"Sprout Surprise"! The sprouts were from our plot and these little puff pastry cheesy parcels were a very tasty snack.

This beanfeast was flavoured with Rose Harissa and smoked paprika - it covered a couple of easy meals. The leftover celery and olives were added to a can of shop-bought mixed beans (not as good as my home-dried, but did include green beans and sweetcorn) and a carton of passata.

Now it's back to work. Luckily the weather has been so foul - since November it seems! - that there is nothing tempting me out of doors. I have been out a few times this year and we did visit the plot a couple of times but it's just soggy and not very interesting. The rain has been incessant. All the tubs, ponds and rain gauges have been filled to over-flowing. We found a dead frog by our pond 😔

Jamie removed the bottle cloches from the broad beans but a week later the little plants had been blown sideways so we've put netted cloches over them now - normally we'd add them to protect from snow but any snow forecast for us seems to have moved on for the timebeing.

Eurgh, look how soggy it is. And it's been windy so the bench is blown over every time we've visited. The garlic and leeks need weeding but that's not possible until it dries out a bit. The leeks look rather sorry for themselves and the garlic is difficult to spot amongst the grass, but there is actually quite a lot there.

The tunnel is going to be a bean tunnel, rather than a squash tunnel, this year. We figure maybe the ground would appreciate a different type of crop. The squashes didn't survive the freezing December temperature drop and sadly I had to discard most of them. I'll try to eat them quicker this year. Planning and seed buying has begun. There are a couple of new things I've ordered which I'm looking forward to growing - more on them in later posts, I hope.

We just picked some veg this weekend on a quick visit. I was pleased to see that the parsnips don't have canker and the carrots may be small but most aren't slug/fly damaged. The cavolo nero is good, but still covered in whitefly that come back to life when they warm up.

And then we went home and I turned it into a chunky soup with added tomato paste, rosemary, thyme and smoked paprika. Delish!

As I tuck into the last of that soup it's a cold and frosty day which highlights some good things about working from home: no windscreen scraping required, no icy drive on the A34 and no need to go outside (unless I want to).
The song is provided by Death Cab for Cutie. Enjoy and Happy New Year!