Vapourer Moth caterpillar

Went up the plot this evening to pick peas for tea - very pleased to find that these later-sown ones was much better than the early ones. That is, we only found 2 with pea moth larvae - much happier podding this lot!
I also had to pick a courgette which had grown too massive over the last 2 days so that'll be going to work!
We found this amazing looking caterpillar sitting (and eating) our basil. It's the vapourer moth caterpillar, but a bit disappointed to see the moth it develops into isn't anywhere near as interesting looking. Best looking caterpillar I've ever seen though!!

Raspberry Vodka

Well, now we know that the raspberries that we inherited when we took over plot 8A are Autumn ones - they're better than the harvest we got in Spring (not that we look after them at all). I picked as many as I could and we made up Raspberry vodka (raspberries, vodka and sugar) - should be good to drink in at least 3 months...

Manure and Compost

Nantes Carrots. Congo potato plants

We spent most of the morning on the plot. My friend gave us a big bucketful of well-rotted horse manure so we've put all the compost into the black composter - it's full to the brim now - and put the manure into the green one. There's a problem with some manures at the moment, due to contamination by herbicides. For this reason we're growing a bean in the manure before we risk spreading it across our plot.
Andy's confirmed that he's seen veggies growing in the manure without curled leaves so it should be fine - GOOD!
The Congo potato plants are still looking amazing. Jamie put his hand around the roots and didn't find any potatoes - hopefully they're there though!!

Some of the cabbages have got proper heads now but there's a lot of holes and I found another cabbage white caterpillar to flick off...

Picked some carrots and onions for carrot and coriander soup for tea and pulled another Orla potato. And Dave gave us a parsnip which we'll have along with a veg roast tomorrow. We've taken all the shallots home now and will make up another small jar of pickled onions.

Pickles and things

Here are our jars of chutney and pickles - stored away for a few months now so they should be lovely for Christmas.

The seasons seem ahead of themselves this year so hopefully we'll have some sloe gin to add to our store quite soon - though some say they need to be frosted before they can be used.... We DON'T want frost yet!!

Ladybirds & a spider

We've spotted (sorry for the pun!) these two ladybirds on the plot over the last couple of days and there are masses of 7-spot ones. There's a good ladybird website and they're surveying so I sent them some info.

22-spot 

14-spot

 Oh, and Jamie found this amongst our spuds... it's crawling up his tee-shirt sleeve!!

wolf spider

Walking round a damp allotment

We walked round some of the other plots and saw Jerry's globe artichokes which have flowered - really beautiful.

Our runner beans have a few beans which have set but still really tiny, so the plan's worked so far - we didn't want green beans, runners and broad beans all at the same time. The flowers are looking brilliant and keeping the bees happy.

The raindrops on the bottom pic are quite arty :-)

Scarlet Empire F1

Rainy Sunday

We went up the plot after a rainstorm this afternoon - just to pick some veg. The potatoes are Orla and there are a few obligatory courgettes which I'll take to work - there should be a couple more ready when I want them for my dinner tomorrow evening! Also got another harvest of express french beans from our dwarf plants.

I made some carrot & coriander soup, using our lovely coloured carrots and one of our onions.

My soup recipe is always the same, just with different top 2 ingredients - this is the soups I made last weekend (measurements are very vague):

• Vegetables (e.g.4 carrots/pile of broad beans)
• Some type of herb (e.g.coriander/parsley)
• An onion cooked in butter with the herb
• 1 pint of vegetable stock
• Black pepper

Compost

These are just some of the hundreds of worms in our compost. Not sure why the one in the middle has shiny blue edges! The compost is made up of allotment waste, grass cuttings and cardboard. We've also added some really stinky comfrey juice that we were given a year ago - we added that occasionally.
We're going to leave this bin for a few months (or a year) now as we've started filling our second bin again.

Clearing legumes and spotting bugs

It wasn't a very nice morning; a bit chilly and drizzly but eventually the sun came out. We cleared weeds and also cut down the pea plants which had dried/died back and a lot of the original broad beans which had stopped producing pods and have rust - we don't want that passing to the crimson broad beans (not before the beans have been picked anyway).

We also cut the haulms (tops) off the potato plants which have died down. The Congo plants though are looking amazing - they are standing up again after the rain. We just hope the potatoes under the ground look as good as the plants and flowers!

Found a great little shield bug on the enviromesh over the sprouts - unfortunately we now know it's a Brassica Bug! Doesn't seem quite so pretty now. It'll overwinter in the ground apparently - hopefully it doesn't have too many buddies on our plot - though a lot of nibbling has happened to our purple cabbages in particular...

Eurydema oleracea

Our first Rocky cucumber will be ready to eat next week and another's on the way. Courgettes are going strong and the Balmoral patty pan is producing quite a few more sqashes.

Mostly pickling

Jamie pickled another jar of beetroot this week, again in red wine vinegar but with less demarera sugar than the previous jar.
Also pickled 2 jars of shallots, after soaking in brine for a couple of days. The shallots aren't that good - not many big bulbs. When they are cut into they break into more bulbs. Not sure whether this is because of the weather or the downy mildew, which may have stopped them forming. We did notice that the green tops grew very tall very quickly so maybe it was the soil being too rich from our compost...
Still, I'm sure the pickles will taste lovely at Christmas. The shallots we've used in other cooking have been very tasty.