Eighth Day

I've been on leave for a week, we've been busy with other things but have also had time on the plot and achieved some stuff, though there's still plenty to do. We still have a few potatoes chitting at home - they're going into bags on the plot, at some point...Looks like an alien with his hands up "I come in peace".

We've had sunshine with some rain and the nights have threatened frost and also reached -1° so we've been fleecing and de-fleecing most mornings and evenings.We have plenty of weeds growing but have cleared areas and taken bagfuls home for the green bin.

But flowers are providing lovely bright spots. We have way too many of these Californian poppies, but they're so beautiful!

And the chives are all flowering so the bees are very happy.

We've potted on all the french marigolds and also some supervivum (houseleek) for the plant sale.

We've braved putting them outside under netting but we are fleecing them overnight if a frost is threatened - it's easier to deal with than in the greenhouse though and they need to toughen up...

The strawberries have so many flowers and tiny fruits forming that we don't want to risk them so they're fleeced each night too. So far they've kept their yellow centres so the frost hasn't got these..

But as well as protecting things and weeding we've been planting - broad beans are in...

Salad is planted in the raised bed with the onions.

And today I planted up a smaller raised bed with Boltardy beetroot, Red and White Salad Onions and Purple and Pink Asian radish. I spent some time yesterday digging out the masses of weeds in that part of the plot. I dug out another part of Plot7 on Bank Holiday Monday - here's a timelapse... you can see why it takes me a long time to dig... apart from having to pick roots (from the hedge) from almost every spadeful it does appear that I do quite a lot of chatting :-)

While I was doing that, Jamie was clearing a large area of Plot 3 and dug the runner bean trench.

It's nice that we're beginning to see areas which are free of weeds. And the beans are planted into pots in the greenhouse - Benchmaster and I have some Pickwick dwarf runner beans that another plotholder gave me.

Our rhubarb is growing monstrous and we've not eaten much of it yet, but did give some to a friend at work to make some rhubarb gin...

We had some torrential rain but no thunder. Anyway that sums up our last week and a bit, and so Hazel O'Connor provides the title track (it should be 9 days, but well, you know..!)

Better Together

Thankyou to all our helpful volunteers! Our mission yesterday was to prepare our 'horsetail plots' which surround the composting toilet.

About 6 poles (150 sq.mtrs) have been covered for at least a couple of years now and have always looked ugly (so ugly that the only 'before' photo showing the area is 2 years old - before the toilet was erected!). Two additional plots alongside the toilet-plot have been recently leased so we'll have a productive growing area there once again.

Look at that sea of covers - the aim was to stop the deep-rooted weed from spreading - we tend to call it MaresTail, (but that's actually its cousin which grows in water). Now here's the 'After photo' - doesn't that look much better!

I've never been convinced that we'll stop the weed as it's growing on the canal towpath, the other side of our hedge. If a plot is worked then the weed doesn't cause too many issues, but if left it can spread up the site, which we don't want. So we figure that if we grass seed the area and keep it cut that should curtail further spreading.

We've also prepared the end furthest from the toilet for wildflower seeds - hopefully the mass of roots will also stop the marestail from spreading - it's an experiment and both methods will look better than the white covers.

It was a particularly windy day for this task but, with enough of us, we managed to keep some control though the dirty puddles ended up all over us and we had a few slip ups in the mud, which caused some amusement.

It may have been windy, but the sun shone a few times and it didn't rain, so it was a good day to be working outside with friends. Now I need to select and buy enough grass seed for 100 sq.mtrs and 25 sq.mtrs of British Wildflower seed - what fun!

Thanks for the photo Kerry

Love this song is by Jack Johnson and the title is very apt - many hands do make light work, though our legs and backs are aching today!

Taste it

Another visit to the plot this afternoon where we didn't achieve anything - it's just too grey to want to stay outside, although it wasn't too cold or wet.

I spoke to Roger, a fellow plotholder, and he's decided to take on another two plots - he and his family are excellent growers and are happy to take on a couple of plots which have horsetail growing on them. Our plot 3 has this stubborn, but interesting, pre-historic weed, but it can be contained with regular digging - we've found.

Not my photo

We have less empty plots than people on the waiting list now (although we're just at renewal month, so that may change). It's great for us to have a waiting list, as we sadly still live with the threat of a short lease hanging over us.

Jamie and I picked a few vegetables for a couple of meals and I'm making soup for lunches. Jamie's going to make one of our favourites: leek and quorn (chicken-style) in a cheese sauce with mashed potato topping. He's also intending to make bubble and squeak (potato and sprout) patties. We were very pleased to see how long the leeks have grown - it seems I must have puddled them in pretty deep as there is a lovely long bit of blanching on them.

My soup is celeriac and leek. Mmmm, I so love the smell of celeriac.

I've used half a stock cube, lots of pepper and some of this seaweed (Kelp) seasoning from Ebb Tides - a Christmas gift from my sister who lives in Devon. Lucky we're just about to have dinner otherwise there may not be much soup left for my lunches next week!

The allotment site had a delivery this weekend - that should be encouragement enough for us to actually do some digging next weekend... hmm, we'll see what the weather is doing at that point...

£1 per wheelbarrow-load to plotholders - what a bargain!

So to the song title...a little bit of INXS - nice. Well I couldn't resist a taste of the soup. The kale has been revitalised, from dry, and has given an extra dimension to the soup - a little bit of chew to each spoonful! Delicious!

We Started Nothing

Back to work last Wednesday for me. I was glad that it was a short week; it was such a struggle getting up early. The weather finally turned cold with some frost and I thought today was going to be awful, but it was actually quite pleasant on the plot this afternoon - though I didn't stay long.

Altocumulus clouds

I only visited to show a new plotholder around and pick a few carrots. The sun didn't show itself, but as you can see, the clouds were interesting and there were quite a few plotholders busying themselves with clearing and tidying their plots. I found this in the greenhouse - some little mouse or vole showing off to a prospective mate, perhaps? I know they like to pull leaves down to conceal the entrance, but this feather isn't a very good concealer!

Our plots look a mess, but it's nice to see some new growth - our Spring bulbs are pushing through in all the pots.

The garlic is looking happy.

The broad beans are much taller than we intended them to be at this stage - the weather has been so mild that they've just kept on growing in their mesh cage.

One of the rhubarb plants is showing signs of life but the other two are still in hibernation.

Meanwhile the weeds and grass are continuing to grow...

I did a tiny bit of clearing and put some kitchen waste and dried out stems into the compost bins. At least two of the bins have tunnels leading in through the bottom; presumably for rats, though I stirred the contents up a bit and nothing leaped out at me - thank goodness!

I brought the Honeyboat squash home as I may use that later in the week. I thought I'd check whether the black-skinned turnips are still edible - they look good on the outside, but...

No good for eating - so that's a shame. They'll be more rat-food, I mean, compost.
The song title is by The Ting Tings and it's true, but we really must start soon!

Happy New Year and thank you for reading - this is our 10th year on the allotment, so I hope it's a good one!

Hazy Shade of Winter

Look how colourful my dinner is! That's carrot, beetroot, onion and chestnuts to stuff a Honey Boat squash. It's in the oven now...

We had a couple of hours on the allotment this afternoon - it wasn't too cold, it wasn't raining or windy but it was such a grey day. What a mess Plot46A looks - we're going to take the structures apart for next year and have it as a straightforward plot for growing - it's our only plot which isn't near the hedge, so it will be novel for us to dig somewhere which isn't invaded by tree roots!

I cleared some of the awful weed from around the kohl rabi - this chickweed (I think) is a pain, it's all over the plot. I'm hoping it'll die off if there's a frost, but I'm not so sure that it will. In the meantime I cleared enough so that I could put some covering over the kohl rabi to keep the pigeons off.

We did what we needed to do, which was to clear all the remains of tomato, pepper and aubergine plants from the greenhouse. There are still squashes stored in there and a few more onions hanging in the roof netting - still bumping our heads on them every time we move! While Jamie finished off in the greenhouse I did a little bit of weeding around our leeks. Really wish we had more leeks! We were too slow to sow them this year.

We were pleased to see that our garlic has sprouted - just a few tips poking through the soil at the moment, but it gives us hope!

Then back home to cook with the ingredients I picked - one of our two celeriacs, carrots, beetroot and a few more onions and shallots.

I've never grown a giant celeriac like they sell in supermarkets, but this is plenty to make a soup with.

Celeriac and chestnut soup - mmm, the celeriac has such a lovely pungent smell and the chestnuts make it a nice creamy soup, but it's not very attractive is it?! But then, the prettiest soup I've ever made was borscht and that tasted nasty.

While that was simmering I was cooking the stuffing for the squash - it looks like a dessert doesn't it! This is the first Honey Boat squash I've eaten. It seems to be very similar to a Cornell's Bush Delicata, so I'm hoping it'll be delicious...

And of course today's song is by the lovely Simon & Garfunkel - aaah.

Ça plane pour moi

We had a visit to the plot yesterday, mostly to pick some tomatoes. It was such a warm day that we stayed a bit longer to chat and were glad we did as suddenly there was an air show going on overhead

It was rather fun watching the sky with fellow plotholders and seeing all those bi-planes. And then there were parachutists with red smoke and also apparently wing-walkers - amazing! It was a shame I only had my little camera with me.

And, as if that wasn't excitement enough for one weekend - a frog has moved into our pond!

I took the mesh cover off it last week as I cleared some of the duckweed (it all grew back) and obviously froggy liked the look of it.

Today Jamie and I got on with working - no aerobatics to entertain us today, but the frog's still there. We did a lot of clearing, weeding and edging.

The carrot bed and sprouts plot - look how dry the earth is!

The leeks bed - not many leeks this year but hopefully they'll grow nice and big

The strawberry bed - masses of runners were removed

I also cleared the rest of the dried beans - soya (edamame) and Borlotti. There are quite a lot.... just have to shell them all now...

Jamie is going to pickle some of our Longor shallots this week - we finally bought some pickling vinegar - so they're at home now waiting to be prepared. And we pulled a Nicola potato - they are nice looking tubers; not slug-eaten and quite large.

There are a few of the Aviditas tomatoes which I'm going to add to salad lunches. Jamie made patatas bravas last week and will be making it again this week using the lovely larger tomatoes which are still in the greenhouse - they aren't Lizzano, which they're meant to be, but they are tasty.

My salad lunch is going to be very red this week - beetroot, tomato, red chard and red sweetcorn. I may add a red onion too for good measure :-)

I really wanted the Double Red Sweetcorn for the HAHA stall at Hungerford Food Festival on 7th October, but I'm not sure it's going to last that long; The covering leaves are very dry. And the kohl rabi are only tiny seedlings at the moment so they aren't going to be much of a show in 3 weeks time - luckily there should be plenty of squashes!

Aah, Autumn is definitely upon us, even though it was lovely and warm in the sunshine today - still Everything's Cool For Me as the title translates (apparently). Oh yes, and it has the word 'plane' in the title <ahem>. Enjoy!