Saturday, 21 January 2017

Cold Day in the Sun

With sub-zero temperatures and frosty nights over the last week we weren't expecting to do anything on the plot today, but decided to walk up to feed the birds in the afternoon.
The sun was shining and the sky was such a fabulous blue that we opted to walk along the towpath which was frozen solid, as was the canal!
There was evidence that some boats had moved but most were moored in sunnier spots with their heaters on and doors shut down.
There were lots of thrushes, robins and wrens on the allotment - quite a bit of squabbling too as they try to protect their territories.
The sun's heat had managed to melt the top layer of frost, but where the heat didn't get through there were interesting things to look at:
A frosty brick, looking like a frozen landscape in miniature
Puddles which had frozen - is this a spanish galleon?...
Then melted and re-frozen trapping the air bubbles in bizaare shapes (I'm pretty sure there's a sea creature in there).
We left before the sun went down. I got up before the sun today, specifically to take photos of the steamy River Dun from the A4 bridge. It was beautiful, but so cold!
And today's song title is brought to you by Foo Fighters...

Saturday, 14 January 2017

Tonight, Tonight

I couldn't find a song titled 'cheesy, sprouty nosh' so... can you guess what we're having for dinner tonight, tonight?
Lovely Brussels sprouts straight from the plot, mixed with fried Quorn lardons. We've had some frosty weather, even some snow, so the flavour should have been enhanced by that.
Covered in cheese sauce and topped with grated cheddar and chopped nuts - mmm, yum.
We aren't going to get a chance to work on the plot this weekend, but I'm hoping that by next weekend a raised bed will be ready for garlic planting. We haven't planned this year's seeds yet but these were delivered this week...
Here's the lovely Smashing Pumpkins video from the title...

Sunday, 8 January 2017

Stop Me...

...from eating all the delicious soup!
We've visited the plot both days this weekend. Yesterday I showed a new plotholder around and then we did a bit of clearing of Plot7 and also weeded and dug a bit of 6x fertiliser around the rhubarb. The plants look like piles of burned debris, but there are signs of life in there.
Today we only walked up to pick some ingredients for my soup: parsnip and carrot. Some of the parsnips have rotted right through, but the one I took home was a lovely big one with only a small bit of canker near the top. It was such a big parsnip that I only pulled one carrot.
Two cloves of garlic, some paprika, cumin, salt & pepper were added to olive oil and butter to heat up.
Then the carrots and parsnips for about 15 minutes before the stock was added and it was all boiled/simmered for another 30minutes.
And then I tasted it - yum, it's so tasty but I must save it for my lunches next week!
So, The Smiths song seemed an appropriate title ,but here's the Mark Ronson version (because he doesn't include the 'if you've heard this song before' phrase in the title!). Enjoy!

Saturday, 7 January 2017

Five Years

At last! The news we've been waiting for... Hungerford Town Council and the housing developer (on behalf of the landowner) have confirmed ("in principle" - well, nothing's signed yet) that we can have a further five year lease extension - yay!
Our changing plot over the last few years
We can do a lot with 5 years and actually plan a bit. Of course, we are still hoping that permanence is on the cards in the future, but let's not be greedy at this point! Now, where did we put those seed catalogues?!
And, this post's music is provided by the lovely David Bowie, such a sad loss last year...

Sunday, 1 January 2017

On a Day Like Today...

... you don't feel like leaving the flat. However, it's the new year!  
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Good luck and good wishes for the next 365 days and beyond...
So, although it was rainy and rather cold, with no risk of snow (shame), we ventured to the plot to pick some sprouts.
We're pleased that they've grown, though the stalk is shorter than the advertised 1m; we think they are a bit stunted because we didn't plant them out till the end of July. We don't need many for our chestnut, sprout and (Quorn) chorizo stir-fry tonight and there should be enough for another 3-4 meals at least.
The top dish is roasted, chopped/mashed potato, carrot, parsnip which we re-baked and had with vegetarian haggis for our New Year's Eve meal. I prefer the Stahly haggis rather than the Waitrose, but it's hard (expensive) to track down. The soup is parsnip and carrot with garlic - really tasty - it was just two carrots and the two legs of that parsnip with about 1pint of stock and a bit of paprika. It's probably the first soup I've made where I haven't added an onion, just garlic. I think I'll try that again.
This year I'm going to attempt to use a song title as the title of each post. It's tricky thinking of new titles for each post anyway, so this is only going to make it harder, but I'll see how I get on... I hope this isn't the last song title I think of!!
I was thinking of the Keane song and someone's helpfully added the lyrics in Spanish to this video - enjoy!

Friday, 30 December 2016

Glistening Droplets

Well, I was meant to have finished blogging for the year, but can't resist after a short visit to the plot to pick parsnips and carrots.
The frost and fog had cleared and the dipping sun was just at the right angle.
All the netting was glistening like diamonds.
Just beautiful!
And we got our veg, after a bit of a fight!

That was 2016

This is going to be a positive post about 2016; highlighting ten good things about another lovely year within our allotment bubble.
In no particular order:
  1. Star and heart-shaped cucumbers. The moulds probably work best with small, quick growing cucumbers, like our Rocky. They're apparently suitable for tomatoes too, but we didn't try that. They didn't work on courgettes.
  2. Sunny picnics and some warm late nights on the plot. Summer started really wet with slugs and snails taking out a lot of early growth but July and August were delightful with plenty of sunshine.
  3. A blue poppy. A gift last Christmas and I was so pleased when it actually flowered as the slugs had rather a taste for it initially! I hope there will be a further showing this year...
  4. We grew a loofah. Well, that's cool, isn't it?!
  5. Ratatouille - what a colourful meal - and it tasted good, especially covered in cheese and sprinkled with chopped nuts
  6. Black tomatoes - Indigo Rose look so great but not a great flavour, this year we're trying some stripey ones. But we'll also be growing that tasty little red cherry variety Aviditas.
  7. We found a coin - a 1744 farthing! For all our searching we've only found 3 in 7 years and this was the oldest.
  8. Growing potatoes in bags - so pleasing to harvest. We used nematodes which we think worked well to keep the slug numbers down. Our favourite bagged variety was probably Orla.
    Seeing a pair of bullfinches in the hedge - the first time we've seen them at our end of the site. We saw them later in the year too, which I hope is a good sign they'll be back next year.
  9. The second HAHA/RBL Horticultural Show - such a great turnout, with over 300 entries. We're already looking forward to next year.
  10. So, it wasn't all bad in 2016.
    After all, at the beginning of the year we thought we may not have an allotment and then 5 days later we were given a reprieve....(which we're currently waiting on again....anyway, stay positive!)

    I wonder what 2017 has in store...

Tuesday, 27 December 2016

In Between Days

Christmas has been (and still is) good! Lots of fun and food. And our Christmas hyacinth actually bloomed on the day!
We received some lovely pressies including a Funky Veg Kit - my friend knows me so well! So I'm intending to have a colourful 2017.

We had our cooked Christmas meal on Christmas Eve. The starter was star-shaped seeded bread with granoVita vegetable pate (so tasty) The main was Quorn (chicken-style) with all the trimmings: sprouts, sausages, stuffing, parsnips, bread sauce...mmm, bread sauce! We finished eating and drinking in the early hours of Christmas morning.
Another pressy - some delicious recipes to try in there

We had a late Christmas Day breakfast of whisky marmalade on fancy durum wheat bread and, of course, Buck's Fizz (not the band). Christmas dinner was in the evening when we enjoyed lots of tapas dishes including Quorn chorizo, pickled onions, cornichons, tiny tomatoes (tomberries - we must try to grow them), peppers, olives, cheeses and fried corn snacks.
Oops! I only thought to take a photo when we'd already finished!
Boxing Day was a stay-in-bed day; mostly because I've got a cold but it was nice just lazing about watching films. Food was mostly cheese and biscuits and today we're having parsnips with chorizo and our home-made runner bean chutney will be making an appearance later.
New herbs for my soup plans
At some point we need to get to the allotment to pick sprouts, parsnips and carrots for our New Year's Eve meal (which will include home-grown) and I'd like to make some soup, but not today!
My new hand warmer!

Sunday, 18 December 2016

One Week To Go...

It's been a very festive December so far, which is an excuse for not visiting the allotment and not blogging for 3 weeks.
We put the Christmas tree up at the beginning of the month - we're using our fake one this year, but it's pretty realistic, and we added some pine scent. All our favourite baubles and decorations are on there: Some recent additions... Some home-made....Others which we've had since our first Christmas together 28 years ago... And some that I've had since I was little...
We put our window lights up ahead of Hungerford's Victorian Extravanganza and enjoyed mulled wine, hot donuts and roasted chestnuts amongst the beautifully decorated town lights.
We had our annual ride on the big wheel before watching the excellent fireworks display.
We had a shopping trip to Oxford. It's so beautiful, even in the pouring rain, and has such interesting shops.
I love Oxford. I was born there and my original hospital and Renal Unit are there so I've had a long relationship with the city. I have so many memories of visiting the city with my mum and the whole family used to have Christmas shopping trips there.
We went to the Newbury lantern parade, which was a delight.
There must have been a thousand home-made lanterns following the excellent drummers. I wish Hungerford would copy the idea for our parade!
I've attended a couple of Christmas events at work and had a lovely lunchtime visit to Millets Farm Christmas shop in Oxfordshire - definitely worth a visit.
Also our annual HAHA committee Christmas meal at The Bear in Hungerford - unfortunately Jamie couldn't come because he's been the unlucky one with the cold this year :-(
That's what I call a veggie Christmas meal - Red Cabbage & Apple roulade instead of meat
Now I need to wrap more pressies, post the rest of our Christmas cards and enjoy 3 more days at work before Christmas really starts! And is there a possibility of snow? Oh, I really hope so!!