Hot November

We haven't visited the plot for a couple of weekends but wanted to get up there to do some digging today. It's been rainy and dull over the last week (lowest temp was 1.5°) but today the sun was shining and it was about 16° - amazing for November!

The broad beans have sprouted well, with only a small number not looking right. I took the cloches off all the good ones and have put a frame over them in an attempt to keep pigeons off...

Pulled the remaining turnips and dug over the area and the green manured area.
We cleared Quarter 3 and dug the horse manure in, avoiding the area where the peas are going to stay.
Jamie dug up the last of the purple Congo potatoes and we also took home a giant beetroot and a carrot to have a lovely veggie bake tomorrow.

We left 3 hours later with a much tidier looking plot.

Next Year's spuds and onions ordered

We've placed our order for next year from Thompson and Morgan.

We've opted for these potato varieties:

Potato 'Kestrel' - 10 seed potatoes (Second Earlies)

Potato 'Orla' - 10 seed potatoes (First Earlies) We found these to be good for mash and baking too this year

Potato 'Belana' - 5 seed potatoes (First Earlies) These should produce lots of small new potatoes

And we've ordered the following onions and shallots:

Onion 'Santero' F1 Hybrid - This is an early cropper which is apparently resistant to downy mildew

Shallot 'Golden Gourmet' - Our favourites for making pickled onions They won't arrive until Jan-mid-May. We've ordered less than we've had this year, as they just keep going on for too long really. We got a bit fed up with the new potatoes this year and it's a shame to let them grow big. We've still got a Congo and a Kestrel plant in the ground at the plot at the moment. We're really hoping the onions will be happier next year so that we get a full season without them succombing to mildew...

Halloween

We had a lovely Halloween dinner: Layered beetroot, potato, carrot and tofu chunks in a cheesy sauce - so delicious and colourful (we used purple spuds).

The next day the pumpkin went to the compost bin - not a home-grown pumpkin this year; they take up so much room, but next year we may grow some small jack-o-lantern squashes...

More Tidying

Another sunny morning meant more weeding and tidying up on the plot. No signs of life in the broad beans yet.
I ventured into the sprout cage, weeded and pulled off all the yellowing leaves at the lower level of the sprouts. Masses of white fly under there, while some of the sprouts look really healthy - others look really awful!

We actually weeded Plot 8A as well - it was a state! Filled a compost bag with weeds. It looks so much happier now.

And we went home with another trug full of purple Congo potatoes.

Sloe Gin

As expected there weren't enough sloes in the hedge by our plot so we picked ours from Hungerford Common where there were loads. Some of the berries were pretty small but we filled a jar and made a litre of sloe gin in 2 kilner jars half filled with sloes and with about the same weight in sugar. We'll just give the jars a shake every day and in a few months we'll have a lovely drink.

Enjoying the sunshine

And it was lovely being able to sit in the sun with a coffee again! Look at that blue sky - gorgeous!

This bee was enjoying warming itself in the sun too

Digging and Clearing

Had a lovely 4 hours on the plot this morning in the sunshine.
The temperature had reached -1 and the beans, courgette and tomato plants all collapsed due to the frost. We cleared them all away to the compost - such a lot of runner beans went uneaten. We must sow them earlier next year!

Frosted Runner Beans

Frosted Courgette

Jamie dug and put organic chicken manure pellets on the quarter for onions next year and I dug all the areas which had the plants cleared. It's satisfying to clear the areas and nice to be able to dig again - funny how you miss it even though it's tiring!

Pickled Cucumber

We pickled (sweet pickled) the cucumbers. The chopped cucumber was left in salt overnight to remove some of the water. Pickled in about a pint of white vinegar, 60g sugar and a teaspoon each of mustard and celery seeds. We made some last year which were really tasty but overly sweet so we reduced the sugar by half this time...

First frost

Well, at the weekend the thermometer on the plot was showing that the temperature had got down to 3degrees C. The only plant affected was the basil plants which had gone completely brown then black over 2 days - well, one of them was Greek basil so not too suprised it doesn't like the cold! We picked the last 5 cucumbers as the weather was expected to get colder this week.
And... the weather people were right! I had to scrape ice from the car this morning and had to find my woolly gloves. May not get up the plot for a couple of days but I've got a feeling the beans will have gone down - luckily Jamie pulled a few pods to get the beans out when he popped up the plot yesterday.

At least it means we can pick some sloes and make sloe gin this weekend - I've been waiting to do this for about 3 months it seems!!

Another sunny day

We went up to do some digging and other bits this afternoon, but again it was so sunny we stopped and chatted for about an hour then didn't have time to do all that we planned!

However, we did chop down and dig in the mustard green manure and planted a couple of rows of broad beans which we're hoping will over-winter. We've put cloches over the beans as the mice are still causing trouble on other people's plots.
The beans are planted on the strip where we thoroughly dug in the horse manure that we're slightly concerned about - our test at home produced 4 broad beans; a couple which look rather fern-like and a couple which look just about perfect - so not such a great result to put our minds at rest! However, we figure the on-plot test will tell us for sure, so fingers crossed that the manure is fine....

Put a lot of corrugated cardboard (ripped into small bits) into the compost bin and gave it a good mix about - it's still a bit stinky, but there is a lot of green in there so not too suprising. It's not too wet so should be ok. The black compost bin has shrunk to about half full and is lovely compost for use next year. We've also bought some bags of Westland Farmyard manure to put under our spuds again next year.