Blowin in the Wind

This beauty was on our butterfly bush at home along with two others, a white and a couple of peacocks! I’ll be lucky to see that many when I do my Big Butterfly Count on the allotment later this week.

It’s late July but the weather really isn’t playing fair! It’s been extremely windy and wet, so it’s not great for gardening but it’s good growing weather. 

I’m pleased to report that the only victims of the wind were a nasturtium and part of a bean plant - amazed (and relieved) that our sunflowers were still standing. Luckily most of the Yin-Yang dwarf beans are protected and I’ve secured them with string now that the beans are developing.

The courgettes are coming thick and fast now. They’re featuring in most meals - mainly just sliced and fried in chilli oil. They’re delicious eaten hot or cold. I may get the spiraliser out for our gnocchi meal this evening.

We had left a couple to get a bit bigger (honestly, it was a plan!) for stuffed courgettes with grated carrot, nuts, garlic and mature cheddar cheese yesterday - so delicious. 

The chantenay carrots have grown well. The mangetout and asparagus peas accompany nearly every meal even sandwiches for most of this month! They’ve been prolific this year. The asparagus pea are a pretty plant. The Cornell’s squash (I thought it was a bush variety) is going to swamp them soon though.

I’ve started harvesting the Florence fennel. I’ve kept it under netting in an attempt to stop it going to seed but some of the bulbs are beginning to elongate rather than bulb more.

They’re so tasty and the smell -mmm, delicious! I made this meal from a trugful of goodies the other night.

Frying the courgette chopped tiny like that was a nice addition and the courgette was almost hidden in the passata sauce 🤭

Not satisfied with just our own veg, we’ve also enjoyed some of plot neighbour, Neal’s. The turnips are a lovely peppery addition fried, roasted or raw. I may sow a row myself.

And Ivan’s fruit bushes have given me a little job to do this morning, until the rain stops.

The song title is brought to us by Peter, Paul and Mary - a blast from the past.

Across the Universe

How amazing are the Yin Yang beans! The patterns are great. Unfortunately only three of my seeds germinated this year, so the beans I harvested this week are being saved to try again next year.

They’re also known as Orca beans. That is all the beans I got from the three dwarf plants; I was expecting more but either they aren’t as prolific as Speedy dwarf French beans that we usually grow or the hot weather had an impact.

The  Borlotti beans and a few Gigantes are a bit more colourful and are in the jar for eating over the next year. In fact, I still have some left from last year and will be using them in a meal this week.

These pods had all dried on the plants but there are plenty more which I’ll dry off in the polytunnel if rain threatens. I prefer to let beans and squashes ripen entirely on the vine, but last week we had a frost warning - I know! In mid-September! So, I picked most of the squashes that look ripe and stored them in the polytunnel.

That’s two Festival, two Sunshine, three Butternut, two Winter Celebration and two Spaghetti. You can see how lovely and sunny that day was and the night stayed clear too. The temperature in the zipped-up polytunnel plunged to 1.1°.  At the top of site some plants show signs of frost damage - did I mention? It's mid-September!

Talking of the top of site (actually the southern end) I mowed the central aisle yesterday and this is the view - with lines that <ahem> straight they may ask me not to do it again 🤭

Apart from that, the only jobs we’ve had are watering the polytunnel and pots, dead-heading - a never ending task, until the frost hits our plot - and harvesting. 

Lovely tasty sweetcorn is arriving and, as you can see courgettes haven’t quite stopped yet…

Those three courgettes were nice with carrot and cheese on top of Smokey beans (not home-grown). 

This orzo, marinated tofu, tomato and courgette was delicious, with chilli-oiled chard cooked like crispy seaweed. I even did some baking, well, an apple crumble with forayed cob nuts provided by Ivan and apples from Alfie.

And today, with an extra Bank Holiday Monday due to the Queen’s funeral, Jamie and I enjoyed a barbecue on the warmish-sunnyish allotment with occasional chats with Ivan and other visitors. The birds were busy, including a very noisy duck over the hedge, and the road was quiet so a very pleasant afternoon while it would appear most other people were watching the Queen’s state funeral.

The song title is a dubious association with Yin and Yang - Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts. And it’s a lovely Beatles song by Fiona Apple with a pleasing video, from the film Pleasantville.