Cool for Cats

We’ve had a huge amount of rain again, the rivers are fit to bust again but yesterday we had some extremely welcome sunshine. We were surprised there weren’t more plotholders on site, but the ground is a bit too wet to dig.

We’ve been clearing weeds, edging and pulling the carrots which had been left in the ground way too long. And there were some proper monsters in there, most had severe slug damage so have gone into the green bin at home - our 3 compost bins are already full.

This is Jamie’s extremely neat handiwork last weekend - making way for brassicas. He added lime and chicken manure pellets after clearing all the weeds; the heavy bags of compost will help to firm the soil before the plants go in (well, they aren’t sown yet!). We hope to have Brussels sprouts, purple sprouting broccoli and Cavolo Nero.

Oh, and this is the area I’m prepping for our three mini fruit trees. Jamie and I have rather different clearing techniques as you can see! Well, my bit of ground is much more weedy and I’ve had to dig a new straight-ish edge. Jamie moved on to hand-weeding the potato plot yesterday. We’ve only bought a handful of spuds: Wilja, Rocket and Desiree. They’re chitting under a grow light at home now.

I saw one tiny crocus flower on our plot, but no other flowers yet. This is a macro photo of the hellebore flowers at home. They’re so pretty aren’t they and don’t mind the shade - perfect.

I found a perfect little frog yesterday whilst digging. It was only about 10cm long and golden. I didn’t get a photo because I had to move it out of harm’s way. I see people have started reporting UK spawn sightings - nothing at Marsh Lane yet. I did see a ladybird yesterday and a digger bee last weekend, but it’s too early for them to come out really, we’re still expecting a cold snap. I cleared the old growth from the perennials but have left them on an empty spot for the insects to stay cosy. It means I can now see the weeds on the flower plot and see a few bulbs are emerging, though the slugs have already spotted that fresh new growth 🙄

Talking of which, look at these clumps of growth along the grass path.

They’re wild onion and have really spread over the last couple of years. They have a lovely onion scent - a bit stronger than chives, and can be used in the same way. You can apparently eat the bulbs too, but they must be very tiny. I’ve never seen a flower on these plants, but I’ll try to remember to check this year.

It’s great to see the longer hours of daylight and some dramatic skies like this yesterday. There’s definitely been some overnight rain, but we’re hoping to get a bit of plot-time in later. 

Enjoy the song provided by Squeeze. Look at the handsome cat! He’s such a friendly fellow, but the magpies are very unhappy when he’s around. The active hedgerow was keeping him entertained yesterday. What a life - he’s got the whole site to monitor 😺

Morning Glory

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.

Anyway, that was Saturday as the Sun was just slipping down behind the treeline. Jamie and I enjoyed a barbecue on site and had a couple of games of pétanque in the warm weather. The Sun is setting at 6:30 now and is rising at about 7:30 - this was the lovely sunrise sky on Saturday morning (no filter required).

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!

Changing

The verbena bonariensis is so pretty and I do love the mix of colours with the nicotiana. They’re usually buzzing with life but I didn’t see many bees yesterday, even though it was pretty warm for October (October already!?) and wasn’t breezy.

We had a busy day on the plot and my aching body isn’t used to it! In the morning I weeded and dug this area where the garlic is to be planted. We’ve had a delivery of very well rotted manure to the site so I dug some of that in - a barrowful for £1.50 - bargain. Jamie spent the time clearing, digging and chalking an area where the potatoes had been - for our broad beans to over-Winter.

In the afternoon I spent time clearing the weeds from the leeks bed. The weather has been warm with a bit of rain - the weeds have loved it… the bindweed had started strangling the leeks and the grass and bittercress has also enjoyed a fresh burst of growth. I tried hard to pull out unbroken bindweed roots, but it’ll be back 😩 I’ve cut back the parsnip leaves which had become a slugfest and there's a row of leeks there which have been chomped. Hopefully they'll recover now they can see the light of day again.

Now that the foliage is dying back we can see all the mini Jack-be-Little pumpkins. Those two plants have been happy it seems! We need to get some shelves up in the polytunnel so those little fruits can go in there to cure. Jamie was making some room in the polytunnel today by removing a couple of the pepper plants. I'll use the soil for planting up some bulb pots. So, as well as sweetcorn, we had peppers for our meal last night. They were meant to go orange, but they taste good green too.

We had halloumi and roasted veg - I've started just adding the halloumi to the roasting pan towards the end of cooking rather than cooking separately on the hob - it gives it a slightly different texture but still delicious and squeaky. That plateful has home-grown peppers, sweetcorn, garlic, basil and a few tomatoes (but mostly shop-bought). Perhaps we'll try growing our own onions again next year ...

We've had the last of the green beans, although I'm contemplating whether to save some of the runners for drying...

The beans in the polytunnel roof completely dried and they’re now in jars - I have a few left over for sharing. I know borlotti are delicious but the Yin Yang (aka Orca or Calypso bean) are so fabulous looking; I hope they taste good too!

We think we may have had the last of the courgettes, although there are a couple of new ones appearing - we've been eating them since June! The song is provided by Sigma with Paloma Faith.

Painkiller

After a busy working week it was great to have two days entirely laptop-free and to be out in the fresh air. I'm looking forward to early morning pre-work plot visits, but not quite at that stage yet!

Saturday was very windy with Storm Otto passing by to the north of us. It was grey and damp but it wasn’t cold or maybe that was because we were trench-digging. We managed to finish off the bean tunnel preparation which we started last weekend.

I did some clearing on the HAHA wildlife plot including cutting back the buddleja and mallow. I didn't want to clear all of the dead groundcover as we're due a coldspell so the wildlife needs some protection, but there are some unwanted weeds on there that need clearing otherwise they'll take over.

Now that I've cut back the old flag iris leaves I can see new growth in the bog garden. A few bulbs are emerging and perhaps with a bit more light there will be some flowers next weekend.
Meanwhile, Jamie weeded the brassica cage on Plot3. I had the last of the Cavolo Nero with a gnocchi meal at the weekend, but we're still waiting for Purple Sprouting Broccoli harvests - we were tucking into it in January last year.

You can see by my shadow that that photo was taken on Sunday which was a marvellous sunny day. Such a contrast to the day before - Otto must have blown all the clouds away!

The hedgerow was full of birds with 3 robins competing for our mealworms along with the obligatory magpies, dunnocks, long-tailed tits, a male bullfinch. Kites, gulls and buzzards were overhead.

Such a beautiful blue sky and lots of plotholders turned out to make the most of it. We were all pleased and amazed at how warm it was for a February day and so welcome on a weekend! It's good to see areas of plots looking loved and ready for a new year of growing.

That's the flower garden in front of our bench. It has a few perennials just beginning to show fresh growth and the ever-present nigella seedlings. There are bulbs growing in most of those pots but only one tiny iris flower on show at present. The Christmas rose Hellebore that my sister gave me is still full of flower at home though and there are plenty of snowdrops around, just not on our plots!

I’m very happy to see that my Egyptian onions have sprouted in the polytunnel. I hope a slug doesn't discover them, they're only tiny at the moment.

The last bit of clearing and digging that I did was round our rhubarb - we should have split it before now. I hope that's my last year of saying that and we actually do it! It's not budding yet but we'll give it some manure and that may get it started. At least it's free of nigella and weeds for a while.

After a few more chats with plotholders we took our aching bodies home. What a lovely weekend. Not exactly relaxing, but very welcome work - ooh my legs! Hence the song provided by Turin Brakes - enjoy.

Ugly

The weather has been rather changeable. When the sun shone it was lovely but not so good when the cloud took over and that mass brought about 5 spots of rain with it, so the earth is still really dry.

This weekend we had two days of clearing away the three bean wigwams and then we dug the area for our broad beans. We've also managed to do a lot of weeding; it still amazes me how well the weeds grow with so little rain. The nigella have spread seeds and seedlings everywhere - beautiful, but rather a nuisance!

The remaining borlotti beans are drying on netting attached in the top of the polytunnel. The smaller squashes may go up there later when we need to use the chair!

More of the tomatoes are finally ripening but the peppers are remaining obstinately green. With the temperatures dropping to about 4° most nights I wonder if they’ll ever ripen…but you know some good things do come to those who wait. This Chinese Dragon radish was sown months ago, did nothing during the heatwave and finally started to appear a few weeks ago. I thought it would be woody, but no.

It’s hot fresh flavour was a great addition to this lunchtime potato salad with raw beetroot and Chinese cabbage thinnings.

I bought a julienne peeler recently and it’s perfect for carrots and radish but the beetroot was a bit too tricky and messy, so I just sliced that really thin. We’ve been enjoying carrots and pak choi in a couple of stir fries recently too, the Blue Dragon sauces make life easy. But as I’m mentioning brands, if you see these Itsu Bao buns for sale, buy them! They’re so delicious! Talking of delicious..Here’s the bean, carrot and courgette meal I made the other day with last years beans, a can of chopped tomatoes flavoured with smoked paprika, garlic and a little rose harissa.

Someone had cut back overgrown sections of the allotment hedge, so I thought I'd pick the rosehips if the birds aren't going to get to eat them - there are still plenty in the hedge for them. This is the recipe I intend to use to make rosehip jelly which I've never made before. The author of that recipe is quite funny and she is so right - the thorns are so nasty!! I'm a bit concerned that the irritable seed hairs get mentioned quite often in recipes, I hope my draining bag is fine enough to capture them...

The zinnia flowers are still creating a buzz - sorry 🤭 - with bees and hoverflies. I think this is a Common Carder bee (David, please correct me if I’m wrong!) and the hedge is alive with buzzing insects on the ivy flowers. We've also seen a dragon fly zipping about recently - such a huge insect but it never sits still for a photo.

So, you may be wondering, why the title song by the Sugababes? Well, Jamie dug up our single Desiree potato plant and …

Oh dear they're really not pretty and though a little scab on a baked spud can add to the flavour I wouldn't want to risk one of them! That’s what a dry Summer can give you. I just hope they taste okay once they are peeled and mashed. And here are the Sugababes.

Day of the Sunflowers

This is the veggie bake I made at the weekend - so pretty, but it took a long time to cook even though I’d thinly sliced the veg. The veg (potato, courgette and tomato on top of fried onions and garlic) was covered in a cheese sauce and baked.

The tomatoes were kindly given to us by fellow plotholder, Iulia. She gave us a bagful of different varieties, which was a real treat. She has said that I can dig some of her abundant horseradish. I saw a Nigella recipe with tomatoes so will have a go at that. When (when!) it rains, the horseradish smells so lovely but I don’t want the meal to be too spicy hot.

Some of those split tomatoes were boiled down with garlic and smoked paprika, which we had with gnocchi (and courgette) last night.

As you can tell, courgettes are still playing a major role in our diets! We thought the plant was dying back a couple of weeks ago but it (and the patty pan) have had a new lease of life. So... we made patty pan and carrot chutney at the weekend. It looks rather like marmalade, but I’m sure it’ll be tasty. It’s using our go-to recipe where we just change the veg for what we have available. We only made one and a half jars this year.

We had a most enjoyable HAHA picnic on Bank Holiday Monday. It’s so nice to sit and chat with our fellow plotholders. I made a colourful purple potato salad for the picnic and we’ve bean eating a few more of our super-sweet Lizzano cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.

And the prizes were awarded by Ted for the Plotholders Choice award (well done to Jenny) and the Tallest Sunflower (well done to Zoe).

Zoe’s sunflower measured a towering 3.51m! Somewhat surprisingly, the first and third tallest on site are both multi-headed sunflowers. They’ve made an impressive display around the site, so I’m sure we’ll run the competition again next year.

Here we are measuring Zoe’s earlier in the day. Jamie’s job was up the ladder (I realise he's not in the photo!). This year’s top two heights were taller than last year’s winner - which was 3.21m.

No ladder required for measuring ours the day before, which now seems a paltry 2.49m.

I bought some potted perennials at the market yesterday (Jacob’s ladder, Coreopsis, Leucanthemum and Scabiosa). I’ve planted them in front of the bench for a more permanent display. I cleared some of the terrible bindweed round the pond and a golden frog appeared to see what was going on.

That was the last day of my long weekend; it was a welcome break from work. Yesterday afternoon we dug an area on Plot3 for planting some of Neal’s leeks. It was quite exhausting, the ground was hard in places and just dust in others, but it looks better now and perhaps we’ll get a bit of rain ahead of the leeks going in at the weekend. 

I peeked under the netting at the Chinese cabbage and pak choi that I sowed at the beginning of the month. I’ve left the enviromesh on to stop it being nibbled so much. I need to thin the cabbage but the pak Choi is probably ok.

And we've been having a few of the thinned baby carrots. Some are really tiny and so tasty.

Jamie sowed some Winter lettuce in the raised bed and then we played with the bubble machine 🤭

I'm eating chard and beetroot with other bits and pieces for lunches. The mornings are still beautiful but the sun is rising later and setting earlier, Autumn is definitely in the air at times.

The song title is provided by Basement Jaxx.