Setting Sun

We were actually on the plot for over 3 hours this afternoon. OK, so not quite all of it working, but most of it... We had a welcome break with fellow plothoholder, Ivan, drinking his quince wine (Japanese quince, Japonica) and warming ourselves over the barbecue embers as the sun was sinking below the treeline.

It was a cold day but quite pleasant in the Winter sun and we had a plan - to move the compost bins from Plot 7 to Plot 3 and we achieved it. It was very tiring; lifting, wheelbarrowing and mixing - we each covered about 6km including the walk to and from the site.

We uncovered this lot while we were moving the bins... That ruined their hibernation but I'm sure some thrushes will be happy to find them where we flung them over the hedge! I'm pleased to say we didn't find any mice or rats.

Composting is so satisfying. All three bins had enough fully composted to fill a whole other bin which we'll use in our bean trench a bit later in the year.

The remaining unrotted compost we mixed up with some manure and more plot waste. We have plenty more to add, including some giant beets and more sweetcorn stalks. It's so great to create lovely organic compost from waste.

So now Plot7 has an empty spot... hmmm, what to fill it with this year...?

Well, we have had some seeds delivered, but these are mostly for our squash grotto, which needs a lot more work.

Title song provided by the excellent Chemical Brothers

Lady Eleanor

Well, Storm Eleanor actually - and it sure was windy! The roads in the week were strewn with branches and debris; fences had blown down and trees were at unexpected angles.We walked to the allotment today and were pleased to see our greenhouse still standing and no structural damage.

We picked a bit of veg, our first leeks of the season.

Leeks are included in our cheesy baked potato meal with our 2016 runner bean chutney tonight, tomorrow evening's leeky bake and I'm in the process of making leek and carrot soup - if you hadn't guessed from the little video! I'm intending to leave it watery, e.g. un-blitzed.

The leeks with less white on them were grown in the raised bed and the lovely white ones were planted directly into the ground. There's a mix of sizes across the 3 locations where we planted them out.

So, tomorrow we definitely intend to do some work on the plots, the first time since November, although Ivan has promised to bring some wine to the site, so we'd better walk!
Lindisfarne provide the title.

This is the New Year

Welcome to 2018! This will mark our 9th year of growing our own and my 10 year transplant anniversary. Time really does fly when you're having fun, or is it when you're getting older? Well, there's no avoiding getting older, so we may as well have fun while we're at it!

We celebrated the arrival of the new year by having a lovely meal of Stahly's veggie haggis (the best) with home-grown vegetables, which we picked from a very wet plot yesterday. At midnight we opened the windows (even though it was a bit chilly) and heard the town hall clock chiming and then watched the fireworks. I do love fireworks.

As usual I picked too much for our evening meal, so I intend to make parsnip soup later - the same recipe as I used on 1st January 2017 as it happens! The parsnips are huge - each over 30cm long.We were pleased that the sprouts were so good. They look in a sorry state on the plant but were really tasty. The swede are great (I still haven't found the variety, but they were planted late, in July), although the one we ate had a small 'hollow heart', possibly due to the weather..? It was delicious mashed up with the carrot.

This year I'm recording our plot efforts with the MyHarvest diary. It's a University of Sheffield research project investigating the sustainability of allotment gardening, so I thought it would be interesting to join in. Also, it should help me remember to note the weather each visit, which I always intend to do, but often forget.

So, here we go again...
I can't help thinking of blogposts when I hear new songs that I like now. This was a new one to me and is by A Great Big World... enjoy and here's to a happy, healthy, productive 2018

Who will come with me...

To 2018...

Here's the obligatory review of the year 2017.

Starting with the playlist of the 82 song titles I selected for this year's blogposts. Unfortunately a couple of songs have since been blocked so won't play, plus there are very annoying adverts, but I hope you've enjoyed my soundtrack of the year.

It was fun finding appropriate song titles for posts and tricky at times. I haven't decided whether I'll do the same thing in 2018, I'll see how it goes...

Anyway, for my interest more than yours, are the top 5 posts of the year.

1. Five Years - the excellent news that we had a new 5-year site lease, though it still hasn't actually been signed by the landlord (grrr). But I wonder if the David Bowie track made it the most visited link..
2. Viva Tenerife - our home-from-holidays post. I'm sure a lot of these visitors were from the Tenerife forum and also fellow street art lovers.
3. Pretty Vacant - there must be a lot of old punks out there who couldn't resist the title... No, I'm sure this was the interest in our new lottery-funded composting toilet.
4. Fire Starter - such a great track but I think the mention of the glass gem corn may have been the draw to this post.
5.  Set the Fire to the Third Bar - I only posted this 2 days ago so I expect it to get more visitors. Maybe the snowy rooftop photo was appealing or perhaps it's because people have more time to sit and read during the holiday season.

My favourite memories of 2017 include the great fun allotment holders barbecue in September, the plant sale in June and the many home-made soups and salads that I enjoyed throughout the year.

I'm looking forward to a better squash grotto this year and hopefully some successful glass gem corn cobs as well as plenty of sunshine, rain only at night and PLEASE less windy weather!

Happy New Year!

And here's the last track of the year from the oddly pleasing Kelly Family...

Set the Fire to the Third Bar

(If you're lucky enough to still have electricity) It doesn't seem to take much to knock the power out these days, but fingers crossed that ours remains on today, as that North wind plus our first bit of post-Christmas snow is making it rather chilly.

We haven't ventured out since Christmas Eve and I don't think we will today. We've enjoyed ourselves with food, drink, films, fun, presents and food... Many of our lovely gifts involved food. Look! A cheese-making kit AND we can make halloumi with it! Can't wait to try that out and there's a real Swiss fondue pan, how lovely is that?

And, as Jamie said when he gave me his present, "it's what every girl really wants" a mole repeller! Well, maybe we won't need to buy sprouts next Christmas (I know! It felt bad doing it).

 These beautiful plates are amazing - they even make washing-up pleasing.

And they were a great addition to our Boxing Day lunch, which included the carrot lox we made the other day - delish.

We love a feast of tapas, so this book will come in very handy and my Spanish lessons start again in the new year so it's handy to keep the Spanish vegetable names in the forefront of my mind! It's got some nice quick recipes for using veg that we grow.

Of course, Tenerife is never far from our minds and we've been enjoying cactus jam breakfasts and Honey Rum tipples - now that does warm you up!

My snowman cookie cutters have come in handy a few times.

And here's another handy book. It has humour and some great little tips in it, like "Seedlings will grow stronger if you brush your hands over them a few times a day".

Well, it feels like time to eat something, I think the allotment can wait another day or two...

Snow Patrol provide the great title track.

O Come O Come Emmanuel

Ooh, nearly time! Merry Christmas!

We had a little visit to the plot yesterday, just to pick carrots (again). This time for making carrot 'lox' for Boxing Day lunch. Lox is smoked salmon, but the veggie alternative is delicious. The washed carrots are baked in salt for about an hour and a half - this is the closest we're going to get to snow this Christmas!

Now the thinly sliced carrots will marinate for a couple of days in liquid smoke, oil and wine vinegar.

Our allotment plots are looking weedy, wet and unloved. Perhaps we'll get a chance to tidy it up during the Christmas break... The weather has turned unseasonably mild but it's very damp so not great for working the plots or for photographs, but I thought this curry plant looked quite pretty with the water droplets on it.

We had a great evening out last night for the HAHA committee Christmas meal. Such a lovely, fun group of people who we wouldn't have met if not for the allotment.

I hope you like this Sixpence None the Richer version of  'O Come O Come Emmanuel'. I love it. MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS, see you the other side :-)

I Feel it in My Bones

It's December. We've had a Christmas craft sale at work and I bought some pressies and we've put lovely blue lights up in our living room window so I'm feeling Christmassy already.

I had a very quick visit to the plot this afternoon to pick some carrots - I was playing safe in case I found that the last Jaune de Vert squash had gone off once I cut into it. The little robin came to see me. He must have been missing our meal worms, especially when the temperature fell to -2° in the week. Brrr, it was quite unbearable for a couple of days but today it was back up to 12°.

All the garlic is up and should appreciate the frosts we've had. And the swede look like they're getting bigger! There are a couple of huge ones growing in this raised bed. It's the first time we've managed to grow it without it bolting. I wonder if they'll last till Burns night...

The squash's skin had hardened and changed colour but I'm pleased to say the flesh was good.

I roasted the squash with a few slices of carrot and a garlic clove. I left the skin on while roasting but removed it before the next stage.

Then cooked on the hob with some cumin and paprika added to the stock. I didn't risk too much garlic as my lingering cold means I could be very unpopular in the office! It's not tasting that great at the moment - quite bland, but I'll add some more seasoning when I come to eat it - hopefully it's will be tasty.

So, although there are still signs of Summer in sheltered spots I'm glad it's a good day for the Hungerford Christmas lights switch on - this year by author, Robert Harris. I love our Christmas lights!

Christmas  - it's on its way - hooray! And thank you to The Killers for the title track ..

Just

"It's just a cold" - I hate that phrase, I hate colds. I have a cold. It's hanging around and now Jamie's got it. But we thought we needed to venture out today, even though there had been a frost and it didn't look inviting..

Of course, we walked up to the allotment, it was cold, but not quite as awful as I'd expected because the sun was out and the wind wasn't very strong. It was 7° and Ivan was the only other person on the site. Our plots still look unloved, but there is food there, if you know where to look :-)
The leeks are looking good and when we have the inclination I'm sure we'll be having a tasty carrot and leek bake. There are also some good looking swede on Plot 46 which should be tasty.

Future promise in the form of the purple sprouting brocolli.

And some green Brussels sprouts, but the red ones have failed - the mole caused the plant to fall over and Brussels really hate that!

The parsnips are hopefully okay under the ground. The foliage on our plants very often dies back earlier than we see on other plots, but we've had some good ones (fingers crossed for no canker).
And the transplanted strawberries look very happy, we hope they produce fruits as tasty as the parent plants were.

So that was a very quick visit to the plot. We hope to be at the workday/BBQ tomorrow - well, it's just a cold... Great video by Radiohead

Pretty Vacant

Taaa-daaaa!

The compost toilet from EcoToilets, paid for by a Big Lottery Fund grant, was officially opened by the mayor of Hungerford - surely one of his most esteemed events of the year!

It was good to see so many plotholders turned up on the cold, but sunny afternoon. Our Chairnan did lots of work to get the funding and to find a suitable toilet for our site and he also provided us with snacks and champers to celebrate today! THANKS GEOFF!

So, that stopped any idea of us doing any work on the plot but we do love an allotment gathering - whatever the reason!

In the morning I turned a third of the Giant Pink Banana squash into soup. I was pleased to see that only a tiny part had been affected by the frost damage.
I started by adding the chunks of squash to oak smoked rape seed oil along with a couple of garlic cloves. Then I added water, half a stock cube, a few sage leaves and left it to simmer.

The squash broke down almost completely, but I gave it a final blitz and had some for lunch. So delicious!

And I have spare chunks which I'll take to work, but I may keep one to have roasted squash later in the week.

The Sex Pistols provide the title track.