Firestarter

Our first visit to the plot in nearly 4 weeks and only a fleeting one at that. So much needs to be done... But not today, because this morning we were helping tidy the Fairfields site, which HAHA also manages. The other volunteers had a great fire burning by the time we arrived.

There are plans to improve the water collection system in the new year but today was about clearing and chopping back the ivy that tries to take over the whole site - luckily we found Neal just in time 😃

Coffee and delicious home-made cakes made the morning pass quite happily and later in the afternoon we walked back to Marsh Lane to collect the one and only Giant Pink Banana squash that grew. I'm hoping there will be enough undamaged flesh to make soup - it's about the size of a rugby ball so there should be... You can see that the yellow spaghetti squash was too badly affected by the frost so that's been composted.

And here's evidence again that the glass gem corn certainly had potential if only we'd cared for it better..

So, tomorrow we have a proper allotment day planned and the GRAND OPENING of our lottery-funded composting toilet - there it is in the background. But more on that tomorrow...

The Prodigy provide the great title track..

Viva Tenerife

Home again after a lovely holiday on the north coast of Tenerife.

This was our tenth visit, our first was when I needed to dialyse there - it was two months before I received my kidney transplant. We realised then that we loved the place and now post-transplant holidays are even better, with plenty of food, drinking and walking - oh, so much walking and so many hills!

One of the reasons we return to Puerto de la Cruz is because it improves at each visit for vegetarian tourists.We go self-catering in the Casablanca Apartaments and manmage to find some excellent veggie options in the various supermarkets we shop in.

Including tofu, soya, seitan options

Of course, we had some lovely fresh vegetables too - look at the size of that pepper!

I like the way their supermarkets just sell chunks of pumpkin - I don't think ours do that. They grow a lot of different squash varieties in Tenerife. From the bus you can see them piled in the corners of fields while the fields are prepared for potato planting.

And how about these little lovelies for dessert - orange or lemon icecream, so delicious.

Anyway, I'll stop salivating with the memory and share some photos of the street art in Puerto - (I enjoyed Shaheen's street art posts from various places so I hope you enjoy these).

Probably my favourite

 

I love the huge paintings, but the little ones scattered around the place and on drain covers are good too - look at this little cutie!

Some are better from a distance...

 Others you need to zoom in to appreciate :-)

Outside our favourite veggie restaurant 'El Limon'

If you can't paint, why not crochet?!

I do love the white houses with terracotta roofs but why have white when there are so many other colours - and if you can't decide, well, have them all in a beautiful piece of art!

And here is a traditional song from Tenerife.

I Cant Help Myself

Thompson & Morgan have added my blogs to their "13 vibrant veg growing blogs"! https://blog.thompson-morgan.com/13-vibrant-veg-growing-blogs/

I hope it means a few more visitors and I hope they will feel inspired. I rather like the words written by T&M, not by me. Maybe it will inspire me to go to the allotment when I get back to Hungerford, which is currently about 20 degrees cooler than Tenerife, where I'm sitting right now!

So, I wouldn't normally write a blogpost while on holiday, but this excited me so I had to share 😃 And The Jeevas provide the title track.

Disappointed

Not quite the Glass Gem colours we were hoping to see, but there's potential. I probably should have left this on the plant but I couldn't resist as I'm not sure the plants will survive any more of this stormy weather.

They're only little cobs, as you can see. I still hope there may be some fully colourful cobs in a couple of weeks time. So far October has brought the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia and this week's Storm Brian.

We left some of our Lark cobs on the plants too long and, as well as being nibbled by various visitors, the kernels have started drying out. So we missed out on a corn on the cob lunch yesterday.

The photo below shows a section of our allotments which don't have any tenants. Some of these plots have been rotavated and then covered. I think the white covers look awful, but they do keep the plots weed-free(ish) and one of the committee members can get them for us at no cost.

The ones close to the hedge have horsetail which makes them less appealing to new tenants. The middle of those plots will look different when we're back from our holiday as it will have a compost toilet on it - courtesy of the National Lottery. That will save a lot on our annual Portaloo rental!

And, we have another grant which we're going to use for purchase of promotional materials (like display boards and posters). If you're in Hungerford and shop at Tescos please ask for a token and drop it in the HAHA pot in November and December - thanks!

Electronic provide the title track - haven't heard that for a few years! Enjoy (and this may really be the final post before holiday!)

The Plot and the Ending (la trama y el desenlace)

It's probably our last chance to do anything on the plot before we return to our other favourite place - Tenerife (yay!). So, today I had to clear a space a plant the garlic.

I bought that bulb at the Food Festival last week - French garlic, from Brittany. I usually buy bulbs from the garden centre, but at least 3 people told me that this is what they do, so we'll give it a whirl. There were only 13 cloves so that's not as much as we usually grow, but if they're all that big it should be plenty to use throughout next year.

I cleared the end of the raised salad bed and that's where the garlic are now - I added a little 6x to the compost before mixing in, planting and then gave it a water. Garlic needs a frost to divide the bulb into cloves so I hope this warm weather doesn't stay too long - though it was a lovely afternoon in the sunshine.

The sunshine is helping the weeds grow - those violas are welcome, but the grass and thistles - ugh!!

We didn't get time to clear everywhere but most of the large thistles have been dug up and while Jamie did that I cleared the tomatoes in the greenhouse...

From that... to this...

It's nice to be able to get in the door again, but I still need to clear the remaining redcurrant tomato at the end. They're dropping all over the floor.

A nice little harvest for beet/carrot/sweetcorn salads during the week and a meal with squash and a tomato sauce tonight.

That's the first time for a few years that we've picked sensible-sized beets at this time of year! These are from the seeds we sowed in July.

And the tomato sauce has a lovely smokey flavour because of the Rapeseed oil I bought at the Food Festival last week. The squash was relatively easy to cut and I was going to stuff it whole..

But, because of the way the flesh had grown, I decided to chop it like this, drizzle with oil and roast - I'll just pour the sauce on once it's cooked and I'll add a vegetarian pepperoni for a bit of protein.

And I'm currently obsessed with this song that has provided the title - it's so beautiful, please listen to the rather lovely Jorge Drexler.