Preparing the sprout plot

Jamie started to prepare this year's legume quarter for the brassicas (particularly sprouts) next year. He cleared the area of the marigolds; pulled the remains of bean plants; dug it really well and then added some chicken pellet manure. We'll pile bags of manure on it to make the ground nice and hard for when the sprouts go in.

Talking of sprouts, he also staked our leaning plants. The sprouts look pretty good, but Jamie said there were a lot of slugs and snails in the cage.
I got to the plot just in time for lunch  :-) and took him a lovely meat-free pasty from the fabulous Cornish Pasty shop in Newbury.

This is the rhubarb under it's Winter protection (should stop it getting too wet) - this will also help us remember where it is, as all the leaves have died off and there's no trace of it above ground!

Oh dear, no parsnips for Christmas!

We had a visit to the plot this morning. We needed to add some kitchen waste to the compost bins and I ripped up an Amazon delivery box to add too. There was no-one else on site, it wasn't too chilly and no rain, but the ground is still pretty claggy.

Jamie decided it was time to check whether we're going to have parsnips for Christmas dinner.
So, we pulled one up today - looked a good size....

...but it was rotten. Squashy at both ends and where we snapped the end off you can see that the central core is white surrounded with rotted nip :-(
It's not too surprising given the state of the parsnip bed - the hand is pointing at an apparently growing top:

A sad soggy parsnip bed

The leafy tops started to die back in September when I pulled a nice parsnip. Since then, the tops have disappeared completely; a couple have started to show some re-growth, which isn't a good sign. It would seem that we should have pulled them before the tops died back completely - the wet probably seeped down through the top where the leaves were no longer there to protect the root.
So, it's a second year with no home-grown parsnips for our Christmas lunch - doh!

Today, planning not working!

As expected, not much happening on the plot. We really need to do some tidying - hopefully we'll get a chance to do that next week.
I did put the remains of the courgette and Bush Delicata squash plants into the compost bin(!). I've got squash for my dinner tonight - stuffing made with chestnuts, parsley, sage and cheese. Yum


Jamie's checking the leeks

There's still no sign of garlic shoots or broad beans popping up. The temperature reached -3° last night and today was again warm and sunny.
Our sprouts need some support! Two of the plants have serious leaning issues so we'll have to get into the cage and straighten them up if poss. Also need to take those yellow leaves off to stop disease and mould getting to them.

This end of Plot7 doesn't look too bad, quite nicely cleared but the other quarters need work and a good dig over before it gets really cold. Not to mention Plot 8...!

 

A walk past the plot (and the last 3 years)

We went for a walk over Freemans Marsh in the sun this afternoon. There were a few moorhen on the river and a beautiful swan but we didn't see anything else of interest. The ground was very soggy (well, it is the marsh :-)) but not as bad as we've seen it before - I managed to keep my socks dry and wasn't wearing wellies!

We were going to walk past the allotments but saw Malcolm so went in and chatted to him for a good while. The ground is rather wet for digging and the weeds continue to grow in our absence!
There were quite a few fellow plotholders around and I couldn't face talking to them all so we decided against walking down to our plot (shame, I wish we had now) - I guess that's the drawback of having such a friendly site  :-)

As I was lazy, here are pics from around this date over the history of our plot (unfortunately not from the same vantage point!!)


This week in 2011



This week in 2010

This week in 2009

 

Holiday? What holiday?!

Well, as you can see...I'm not blogging about growing tomatoes in sunny Tenerife!
We didn't make it out of the country! We're so disappointed.

The Arteriovenous (AV) fistula in my arm, which was used for needling during haemodialysis, stopped working the day before I wrote the last post. Because I have my transplant I don't actually need the fistula any more but it's kept if there's a need for it in the future.
I checked with my renal unit at the Churchill Hospital and they told me it could be painful and to take painkillers. Well, there's painful and there's PAINFUL!

Clotting fistula

After another trip to the hospital and some antibiotics the decision was made - I couldn't possibly travel and wouldn't want to have been abroad with an arm that hurt when a sleeve touched it.
So we've got a couple of weeks in Hungerford instead!

Today was the first day we've ventured to the plot. The sky was blue and sunny but no life in any of our recent plantings yet (garlic or broad beans) and nothing interesting to photograph. The minimum temp has been 2° and maximum of 13° (not 28° like Tenerife - no! Stop that!!)

Anyway, back home pretty quickly to nurse my not-so-swollen-now arm.
Tut, such bad timing  :-(

Blue Skies and Cold Temperatures

We made our final trip to the plot before our holidays. It was a beautiful sunny morning and such lovely blue sky. We just did a bit of composting (I added the dried out sweetcorn sticks and vegetable waste from home to the bin.
The ash tree has lost all of its leaves now - hope this one doesn't get infected by the ash tree dieback which is spread by a fungus. The fungal disease has spread to the UK from Northern Europe and is currently a big concern for all our ash trees :-(

The temperature has reached a minimum of -1° in the last week - with frost on the car a couple of days. Our rhubarb is gradually dying back but appears to have established well since it was planted at the end of July.

So that's that for two weeks - I doubt it'll look much difference when we return. There's not much to change the look of the plot at this time of year.

Happy Halloween

We had our squashes stuffed with Quorn mince bolognaise on Halloween night. Still have 3 squashes left over which will still be edible when we get back from our hols hopefully.

Jamie's head hurt

Over-wintering broad beans

Last night we baked one of the Cornells Bush Delicata squash - well worth growing. Jamie thought it similar to sweet potato and I've today found a reference to it as 'sweet potato squash'. It really was delicious, with butter and pepper on it - ooh, I'm drooling at the memory...

We pickled two jars of beetroot last night - again in red wine vinegar, with thinner slices. The lightest of the beets was yellow once it was cooked! It tasted incredibly sweet. I think they were all boltardy beets but there may have been a couple of moneta in there too, though they were all meant to be red ones!



A rather bleak-looking plot!

We went to the plot this afternoon - it was rainy and rather chilly. It was just a quick visit to sow the Aqua Dulce broad beans for over-wintering. We've covered them with the onion netting - hopefully that will protect them from mice and the worst of the weather (we're holding Kerry to this!). We've only sown 17 seeds - leftovers from last year.

It got to 0° last night... The chives have gone down and the marjoram went black a couple of weeks ago(!) but the hardier herbs (rosemary, thyme and fennel) are ok and even the parsley is hanging on to life for the time-being.

Plot 8 still looks quite colourful in this photo, but the calendula are just about dying back.

And this side of Plot 7 only has sprouts to show off!

 

A sunny, cold Autumn day

We had a couple of hours in sunshine. It was chilly though and the wind was blowing all the leaves about. In fact, it looks like Autumn has really hit over the last week - trees and hedgerow have changed colour and the berries really shone out in the sun because so many leaves have fallen (all over our plot).

Look at that beautiful blue sky!

The thermometer showed that the minimum over the last couple of days was 1.5° and there was ice on our tub. Washing the dirt off the beets which we're going to pickle this afternoon was hand-numbing!

We collected some wood which someone had donated to the allotment site - we're going to use it for a new cage next year. We need to work out a design for what we actually want; the plastic tubing is great but makes access a bit tricky so want to work on something to make that easier... We also collected some manure which had been in a tub by the gates for a few months - well rotted horse manure - should be good for mixing into the brassica quarter.

The chard was glowing in the sunshine, but has gone to seed so unlikely to get eaten now and this is what's left of the butternut - the wildlife is welcome to it!

Picking Bush Delicata squashes before the frost

Jamie visited the plot a couple of times during the week. It's been a grotty week weather-wise - basically living in a cloud, so everywhere is soaking.
Jamie said that the mouse or slugs have left empty hulls of the little butternuts, which came to nothing because they got going too late. They were Butterbush variety but did spread over the ground; possibly because they weren't confined to pots. I think the year's weather can be blamed for their poor show rather than the variety as each plant did produce several fruits. The squashes grew to about 10cm but were still green when the frost took them out :-(

More positively, Jamie picked all the good squashes from the Cornell's Bush Delicata - pretty good from one plant! He brought them home as we were expecting the weather to go very cold on Friday and it did - about 5° at work, though no frost on the car.

We're going up the plot later, after my flu jab, but still won't be able to burn the hedging day cuttings - they're probably wetter today than they were last week! As I look out the window now there's beautiful blue sky and sunshine but it sure looks cold - brrr. Where's our flask gone? I've a feeling we're going to need coffee!