Hungerford allotment blog - grow your own, harvesting and vegetarian cooking. Enjoying allotment wildlife, weather and other things that catch my attention.
Enjoying time on the Marsh Lane Allotment site in Hungerford, Berkshire.
A record of successes, failures and a handy reminder for me.
From 2017 each post title brings a song to add a little extra music to the world - enjoy!
Yesterday was the first time I've visited the allotment in 3 weeks! It was a good visit because we had a really good Autumn Workday to clear up the site and, although it was really cold, it was a bright sunny start to the day and we had a big bonfire to get rid of all the broken/rotten wood and hedge clippings.
With lots of helpful volunteers ...
Clearing...
Tidying...
Burning...
They're staring at the sky because there were lots of red kites and buzzards swooping over the site.
Very impressive to see
Eating...
A little more eating...courtesy of Richard's master BBQ-ing skills.
And a bit of drinking - Ivan brought some of his Apple and Blackberry & Apple wine along.
We achieved plenty and were so pleased that it was dry, as we needed the warmth of the fire when the sun went in.And I think the phrase 'Work Party' is very appropriate :-)
The previous weekend we had the HAHA versus Hungerford Twinning Association skittles match. The HTA organised the event last year, so we hosted this year. All the attendees brought food for the buffet - what a lovely spread!
There was a good turnout and it was a lot of fun. The raffle meant that we also managed a bit of fundraising for HAHA. We won the cup, so HTA will have to try again next year.
Jamie has been visiting the plot occasionally to pick some veg - we've had the last of the peppers and tomatoes. We pulled Pentland Javelin from one of the potato bags - a good amount of tubers, but they weren't that tasty. The Nicola that we had recently were much tastier.
Oops, there's that cup again :-)
Squashes have provided me with some nice meals including this one stuffed with marinated tofu and black rice.
I'm currently making Festival squash soup for next week's lunches. We saw a good Japanese TV programme about squashes the other day; I'm roughly copying one of their recipes - I've removed the seeds but left the skin on: the squash, garlic, fried onion, salt and pepper are all in the pan with some water bubbling away. The skin has completely softened and I've just tasted it..mmm
No need for any additional flavouring - just a quick blitz and a little more water, - so sweet and smooth, perfect! The skin adds to the aroma (apparently) so it's best to leave it on.
The title is provided by Coldplay - the clocks have gone back today and it's beginning to feel a lot like Winter...
The reason we left Liverpool before the Giants' finale was because Sunday (7th October) was the day of the Hungerford Food Festival. It's such a big event for the town and for HAHA that I felt I couldn't miss it. With a few of our little troop of helpers ...
and lots of donated vegetables ...
and scones, jam, chutney ...
and elderflower cordial for tasters.
We had a great, exhausting day and gained at least one new plotholder.
I'm glad we were involved (though another couple of days in Liverpool would have been amazing)
Our double-red sweetcorn had fully ripened and looked amazing
And I was pleased to see our purple radish was purple on the inside too
Plus, I love to see Hungerford bustling - so pleased that the weather was good after a rainy day on Saturday.
And I had a tasty crepe, some delicious olives and look at my bread roll - made with charcoal flour. Most unusual - it looks rather like a pebble in that photo but it was soft and very tasty.
I just wish the Food Festival included a few more veggie options... maybe next year!
We've had such an amazing trip to Liverpool - to see the Royal Deluxe Giants.
I've been longing to see them ever since their Liverpool visit in 2014 was on the News, so I was thrilled when I discovered that they were
returning this year and we booked our hotel months ago.
On the first day we saw evidence of giants.. a huge sandal caught in a fishing net and a strange raft appeared in Canning Dock.
And ... oops, someone has sliced a bus in half, with a very large butter knife! And stabbed a car with a huge fork.
And then we saw the Little Boy Giant asleep in St George's Hall.
We queued for over an hour outside whilst being entertained by the Royal deluxe band and then finally got in to the beautiful building, with the 'little' 20-foot boy lying in his hammock.
The next day we took the ferry across the Mersey.
The Snowdrop has been 'Razzle Dazzled' by the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's album artist, Sir Peter Blake.
Liverpool from the ferry - on our way to The Wirral - where we knew the giant had washed ashore...
We walked along the promenade from the Seacombe Ferry terminal to New Brighton where we waited, with thousands of other people, for the BIG (33-foot) giant to wake up... More music, this time some beautiful melodic violin playing from this musician on her dumper truck full of violins.
The excitement grew as we could see the cranes lifting the giant in the distance...
... and then walking towards us.
The instructions are to the Lilliputians (the french puppeteers) - look at them swinging through the air to make the giant's legs move!!
He walked, with the aid of 44 Lilliputians, along to another area in The Wirral. Thousands of people followed him, and the ever-present band, along the roads. Others, including us, found an alternative route to try and get in front of him - luckily the locals knew the way and we followed them with much excitement.
We got to a good spot just as the firemen were giving him a drink - look at the size of the man resting on the Giant's chest to pop a funnel in his mouth :-)
Chasing the giant was enormous fun, with such huge crowds, but the walk back to the ferry terminal was hard work - we walked 20km that day! But it was so worth it - this is meant to be the Giants last outing :-(
So, the next day the big giant had made his way back over to Liverpool, just resting on his raft while we went off to have a wander around the docks before seeing more of the Little Boy and his dog, Xolo, during their walk around the city.
They went to sleep in the Queens dock, after having a little play - unfortunately my camera didn't want to play ball in the low lighting. Suffice to say, it was a lot of fun with extremely loud music and then we went for a delicious veggie meal at Down the Hatch on Duke Street.
It was such an excellent visit to Liverpool that we were sad to be leaving on Saturday lunchtime. Luckily for us, the Little Boy and Xolo were walking virtually past our hotel, along The Strand, on Saturday morning.
So we joined the thousands of people lining the streets and had a front row position.
See what I mean about the great music? And those Lilliputians! So cool. I hope they return and I also hope that we return to Liverpool - it really is a great city.
There have been a few light frosts in the last week - I had to scrape ice from the windscreen on Monday so we knew that the plot would have been hit by it. I'm pleased that the two Crown Prince squashes both look ok, but I couldn't risk leaving them on the plant any longer.
The site doesn't look too bad - mostly flowers looking sad around the place, but not these lovely dwarf chrysanthemums, which are such a pretty colour. I'm glad I bought the tiny plant at our Plant Sale earlier in the year.
Luckily the greenhouse just managed to stay above freezing (0.5°!) and the peppers are still looking healthy - especially as they're so close to being ready now. The big question is, do we eat the orange ones or leave them for the Food Festival? Decisions, decisions... we'll be so disappointed if they go over or get frosted before next Sunday morning.
Jamie sowed some over-Wintering broad beans Aquadulce and we weeded lots of areas of the plots so things are looking reasonably tidy (in places). I re-attached the purple-sprouting broccoli onto their stakes - only one of the four plants grew up straight. There were masses of whitefly - I hope we have some proper cold weather to kill them off over the Winter.
It looks like we'll get a couple of swede this year - not quite so successful as last year.
I've just made some squash soup. I used one of the not-so-good Festival and a Honeyboat, that was a bit small. I roasted the squash first - the Festival tasted much nicer than the Honeyboat. I added some pretty spices (Paprika, Turmeric and Parsley with garlic) and plenty of salt and pepper to the stock.
The soup is very thick and, to be honest, not very tasty. I'm hoping it will improve overnight..
So the song title is for the soup...! Thanks to D:Ream... try getting this one out of your head :-)
This is my most beautiful squash so far - a Festival.
And this is the biggest and it's so pleasing! A Boston Winter Squash - the only fruit that developed on that plant - perhaps not surprisingly,
I removed a few of the Honey Boat squash too, in case there is a frost this week, as threatened, they're now in the greenhouse along with the others. Including a barrowful of quite small pumpkins - we're blaming the weather. This variety Jack of all Trades normally grow bigger than this for us.
The greenhouse is looking a bit different because we've suspended net from the ceiling to store our onions and shallots. We decided not to risk putting the squash up there - I already bumped into the onions several times today!
The peppers are changing colour - we can definitely see some yellow, red and orange. Really hope the greenhouse is protection enough from the cold... it would be good if they're still fresh for Hungerford Food Festival in 2 weeks time...
I hacked back quite a bit of tomato plant growth. There are a few small signs of blight, but plenty more tomatoes to pick.
I was pleased it was so rainy yesterday so we stayed indoors most of the day and prepared shallots for soaking in salt water prior to pickling. The Longor shallots grew so big this year, we're just doing one big jar full of pickles.
And I shelled the borlotti and soya beans for storage - I do plan to use them, but I need to find a good recipe. I asked on a forum on Facebook and the second answer to 'what should I do with my dried soyabeans?' was 'BURN THEM' - hahaha, that doesn't bode well!!
So now I really should start on that soup...but first, a song title..aah, The Smiths - perfect 🤧.
With lots of helpful volunteers ...
Clearing...
Tidying...
Burning...
And a bit of drinking - Ivan brought some of his Apple and Blackberry & Apple wine along.
We achieved plenty and were so pleased that it was dry, as we needed the warmth of the fire when the sun went in.And I think the phrase 'Work Party' is very appropriate :-)
The previous weekend we had the HAHA versus Hungerford Twinning Association skittles match. The HTA organised the event last year, so we hosted this year. All the attendees brought food for the buffet - what a lovely spread!
There was a good turnout and it was a lot of fun. The raffle meant that we also managed a bit of fundraising for HAHA. We won the cup, so HTA will have to try again next year.
Jamie has been visiting the plot occasionally to pick some veg - we've had the last of the peppers and tomatoes. We pulled Pentland Javelin from one of the potato bags - a good amount of tubers, but they weren't that tasty. The Nicola that we had recently were much tastier.
I'm currently making Festival squash soup for next week's lunches. We saw a good Japanese TV programme about squashes the other day; I'm roughly copying one of their recipes - I've removed the seeds but left the skin on: the squash, garlic, fried onion, salt and pepper are all in the pan with some water bubbling away. The skin has completely softened and I've just tasted it..mmm
No need for any additional flavouring - just a quick blitz and a little more water, - so sweet and smooth, perfect! The skin adds to the aroma (apparently) so it's best to leave it on.
The title is provided by Coldplay - the clocks have gone back today and it's beginning to feel a lot like Winter...
