Good Housekeeping Magazine

About a month ago I was emailed out of the blue by the Assistant Features Editor of Good Housekeeping! What a surprise that was - I'm not a subscriber, though of course I've read the magazine in waiting rooms over the years!
Anyway, she wondered whether she could interview me about our allotment for a feature about happiness - well our plots certainly do make us happy (most of the time!)  :-)

So, yesterday I went to Studio G at Snap UK in Hackney, London for my photo shoot! I'd had to give them my clothes/shoe size so was expecting to be togged in some sort of Laura Ashley dress and wellingtons or possibly dungarees and a straw hat! In fact they wanted a more elegant style...

I tried on 6 or 7 different outfits and then had my hair done and make up applied by people from HMS Creative so I barely recognised myself! Then I went through to the studio for the photos to be taken by Colin Bell. He took a lot of photos with me wearing two of the chosen outfits - really quite embarrassing with about 7 people looking on! My smile was beginning to break and posing doesn't come naturally but apparently they got some shots they were happy with.

So, now it's just a case of waiting for the November issue of Good Housekeeping to come out - can't wait, but I think I'll leave the modelling to other people in future!!

First full trug of goodies this year

Very pleased to have taken this trugful of food home today - our first broad beans of the year. At last! I can only just remember how tasty they are!!

We pulled two potato plants - 800grams of Belana and just over 1kg of Orla - we're going to bake some of the larger ones tomorrow. All the other salady bits will be perfect for my lunch over the next couple of days. Now this is the bonus of having an allotment that I love :-)
Unfortunately the little turnips were brown inside so they went straight into the compost and one of the radishes didn't make it out of the kitchen as I couldn't resist - phew! - it was a little hot!!

Tiny tomatoes

Our first (very) little tomatoes are showing on the plants and we have beans on our dwarf french - should be ready for next weekend I reckon along with the beetroot which are bulbing up nicely now.

Jamie sowed Peewee 65 petit pois in the root trainer modules last week (7th July) and they're just peeping through the soil now. They're waiting in our net cloche along with the leeks - which still aren't 'pencil width' but are getting quite big... We've just about pulled all the potatoes to make room for them on the potato quarter now, so weather-permitting we'll get them puddled in over the next couple of weeks.

Peas & leeks in waiting

Slugs, Weeds and a Frog

Jamie found this frog beside our brassica cage! Lovely - I love frogs :-) I popped it in a nearby pond, but hopefully it'll keep visiting our plot - there's certainly plenty for it to eat!

Little froggy!

Slugs have even developed an appetite for potato leaves this year - and look at our poor pepper! That was the one I took the photo of at the end of June :-(

The weeds have had a field day! They aren't very tall but they're everywhere.

Unweeded row (on the right!)

At least you can see where we've been and after taking this pic the other row of celeriac was also cleared. I found this information about celeriac before I bought our plants so surely it should be the perfect year for it!!

"Water it like mad. If you’re flooded, and the fire brigade evacuate you, sneak back during the
night to water your celeriac, even if it is under a foot of water. It will never have too
much water. Then water it again."

The onions are looking good, hopefully the mildew resistance is working as we've seen it elsewhere on site. We watered the spring onions with some epson salts as the leaves are yellowing a bit - they need the extra magnesium. Whereas the shallots are yellowing and dying back so they'll be ready to pull soon and then we need to find somewhere to dry them off prior to pickling..

Silverskins

There is a distinct lack of insect life on the plot, hardly  a butterfly in sight. These are the first black fly we've seen this year - these are being farmed by the ants! Still undecided as to whether the ants are going to help reduce or cause more blackfly to breed. We'll wait and see - slightly ashamed to say that they're not on our beans so not our problem at present :-)

Red Ants and Blackfly

We pulled the sickly potato (it's a kestrel), there were just 3 tiny tubers. It's the only kestrel plant that's in trouble, the others have very healthy haulms.

Sickly Kestrel

Healthy Kestrels

The runner beans have finally reached the top of the canes and there are a few flowers. There were a couple of bees working them today when the rain stayed off for a bit so hopefully we'll get some beans.

Colourful chard

We had a couple of visits to the plot in the last couple of days. The rain stopped so Jamie spent the afternoon digging manure and compost into Plot 8 for the rhubarb. We're going to let the worms work the patch a bit before we plant the rhubarb.

Even the chard has started to cheer up now and the raspberries are reddening up! There are quite a few wasps and bees around the raspberries but there are very few insects around because of the bad weather. There are some more flowers on the runner beans but concern all over site that the rain will knock the flowers off before any bees are able to get out to pollinate :-(

Rainbow chard

We took a little trug of goodies home. Jamie didn't dig for all the potatoes from the belana plant he pulled - just enough for our dinner that evening. There's a bit of salad, another handful of mange tout and our first salad onions too.

Fringe comes to Marsh Lane

As part of the Hungerford and District Community Arts Festival (HADCAF) we had a visit from the Nutshell Theatre (Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Winner 2011) performing The Allotment.

The only shed allowed on our allotment site - it's only a prop!

The rain held off, at least for the 3pm performance, which I attended and hopefully it stayed dry-ish for the two later performances. I enjoyed it, though it's not the sort of thing I usually would go along to. It was a fun way to spend a different hour at the allotment!

A sunny day in June 2012!

We had a fab day on the plot today. Took our lunch with us and stayed for 6 hours. We were in the sun for much of the time too, though it was very windy, it was warm!

We moved our store of bags of manure, etc. and there were so many slugs - I counted 25 of the biggest, most horrible ones in that small area - ugh - they went over the hedge, anyone walking along the towpath could have got a shock :-)

Multi-coloured, but not pretty!

We dug an area on the new plot (ok, Jamie reads this - he did most of the digging) for rhubarb, which we were kindly given by another allotment holder, Terry. We sorted out two bags full of our compost which we'll put under the rhubarb, along with some horse manure.

There have been a few sunny and warm days over the last week and many of the plants have really cheered up as a result. Flowers are beginning to show on the beans, at least one of the squashes looks like it's pretty happy and there are a couple of peppers actually growing!

We've got a green pepper!

Butterbush squash

A lovely sunny day today so Jamie was digging for most of the afternoon and I joined him on the plot after work.
Planted the two Butterbush F1 squash plants into the new plot - both on top of farmyard manure within a metre area so they've got a bit of room to spread - though they are meant to be a bush variety.
We pulled our second Belana potato. About 680g from this plant and again delicious!  :-)

Belana



Come on England!

Had a few hours on the plot in the sunshine (!) today. As intended, I removed all the brown leaves from the celeriac and weeded throughout.

Spot of weeding before the England match

It had rained so much overnight that it wasn't possible to dig.

Jamie's planning what to do with the compost which will go under the rhubarb. Our compost has rather a lot of roots in which really don't want to break down very quickly so we're going to have to remove them before we can use the compost which is also rather wet and heavy at present - it needs a bit of work... But look how far it's degraded since the last photo!

Some you win, some you lose

We had a few hours on the plot yesterday morning. Jamie digging the new plot - which is a real struggle, so many stones; and I was mostly weeding - the weeds sure do love this weather!

I planted the remaining french marigold plants. Most of them are in the legume quarter as they are meant to ward off aphids and I put the last 5 plants in the cabbage plot for the same reason. We have a bit of extra space in there because one of the cabbage plants died. We're not sure why. It went a bit reddish (we thought we'd sowed a red cabbage by mistake) and then it just gave up growing and shrivelled away :-(

Happy cabbages

Two of the sweetcorn plants didn't survive but the rest look pretty happy - we've left their protective cloches on because it's still windy (and obviously rainy!). 

We've noticed that the celeriac leaves have started going brown. I've checked it on a few websites and it is either celery fly, celery leaf miner or fungus blight or leaf spot. I figure the leaf spot or blight are the most likely so we're off to the plot shortly to pull all the affected leaves off - hopefully there will be a few left growing!

Browning leaves on celeriac

Some of the shallots have formed flower heads, so I pulled them off - don't want the energy going into the flowers rather than the bulbs.
We managed to get home before the torrential rain started. Me with a small handful of mange tout as usual! I like them just cooked briefly in boiling water - it's a scrummy snack but not a diet I'm going to live on for long!

Not a swallowtail butterfly larva

Got very excited when I found a couple of these lovely looking caterpillars at the site today. However, it doesn't turn into an amazing swallowtail butterfly - it turns into a rather dull (sorry, but it is!) brown mullein moth :-(


Mullein Moth caterpillar

Jamie did some more digging of Plot 8 as the sun actually shone today and there was no rain! Broad beans are growing well, although they have developed chocolate spot on the leaves (the beans should be fine). I keep picking small handfuls of mange tout and I took a bit of salad home today too, but things are growing slowly...

By the way, the belana potatoes we picked at the weekend were really delicious, so I wish I hadn't been so negative in that post!