Orange Crush

My first post of the new year is mainly about soup - a common theme for me at this time of the year. The soup I made today is Squash and Chestnut.

I used two of the remaining four Jack Be Little squashes. I read a previous post of mine and saw that I got away with leaving the skins on, so I just removed the seeds, sliced them, added a bit of chipotle rape seed oil and roasted them for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile the onions and chestnuts were cooking on the hob with a little oil and seasoning along with half an Oxo cube.

Everything was then simmered for about 20minutes before I blitzed it. It's rather sweet (not sure how I could make it less sweet given the main ingredients) but the taster I had makes me think it'll be a welcome lunch for a few days at work next week.

We visited the plot today; there were people working. Not us though, we just wanted to pick some carrots.

The plot is looking as expected; soggy, unloved and mostly brown. The weather has been so wet and mild that there's a lot of growth so we really need to get working on it, but although we're thinking about the plot, the activity is less appealing just yet.

But there were a few good signs. Our broad beans are looking better than this time last year (tempting fate here!).

But our bulb pot is looking sad - clearly a mouse took a fancy to those fresh new shoots. That was going to be a stunning display of crocus that Jamie planted up :-(

I received this interesting book for Christmas, from my sister. I love the cover and that the pages are coloured. I'm attempting to colour-theme each blogpost - well, there is a lot of orange on this one... we'll see.

An interesting fact about orange is that the word 'orange' as a colour was first used in the sixteenth century; before that, the fruit's colour was described as 'yellow-red'. Well, I thought that was quite interesting.
And the song is provided by REM.

Auld Lang Syne

Hoping for a good year and it seems an opportune time for a brief look back over the last decade on the allotment. I've selected a couple of photos from each year...

2010

After almost losing the site in 2009 we were given a 4 year reprieve so we could really concentrate on growing our own.

Look at how dry the earth looks - not suprising, as we were having to collect water from the nearby river. The borehole was dug in November - when it didn't stop raining :-)

Here we are painting parts of the container - one of the first jobs for newly-founded HAHA.

2011

I had a diary previously, but so much easier having an electronic version so I started this blog in June 2011.

The purple Conga potatoes (mini tubers) did particularly well - just look at that mash, with no added colouring!

We bought our first bench for our plot and clearly found that spending evenings on the plot (with a bit of wine) were a great part of allotment life - some habits stick fast :-)

2012

This was my busiest blogging year, with 142 posts! We took over Plot 8A and this was the year that the Edinburgh Fringe acting group performed their play on the site.

We had some freezing Winter weather and saw -9° in February, but showing how keen we were we were working on the plot in those months that we tend to avoid these days.

My cousins visited from Hastings in October, for the wettest Hungerford Food Festival on record.
We all got a drenching when we showed them around our plot - the pot marigolds were a lovely display that year, but I'm sure we didn't plant all those :-)

2013

We took over the other half of Plot 8 in a year that started with thick snow and suffered a heatwave in July.

We spent months encouraging this little robin to get braver and eventually he ate from our hands. We haven't been so successful with subsequent robins but they're lovely to see on the plot.

Gluttons for punishment, we also took on an empty plot for HAHA 'unusual veg' to show at the Hungerford Food Festival - we did rather well, don't you think? All those lovely bright colours. We haven't grown mooli since as they weren't that tasty, but they do look good.

2014

Neither of us were very well in 2014 and only 32 blogposts as a result. I was off work for a bit but the plot didn't get all that extra attention - which I'd love now, though I'd rather stay healthy!

This was a Spring workday - well attended for those early days. Look at that lovely blue sky and happy workers :-)

These were the tallest sunflowers that we've ever grown -  I don't know what we did to make them so happy, but I'd like to grow them that tall again!

2015

We finally erected our polytunnel - our lease says we're a 'no structure' site, but it's easily de-constructable if we ever need to ... :-(

Our bench was the perfect spot for viewing the partial solar eclipse - what a great event that was, definitely worth getting up early for!

Jamie's HAHA-carved pumpkin was a great success at the Food Festival. The stripey Cornell's Bush Delikata squash on that table were some of the tastiest we've grown.

2016

We had a further year's reprieve for the site - still under threat as a pawn in a building contractor's plans for the town...

We took on another plot - to encourage more plotholders to a rather abandoned section of the site. Plot3 is a nice square plot with just tree roots and mares tail to contend with...

Growing the cucumbers in moulds gave us these great star-shaped and also heart-shaped additions to salads and we still grow the little Rocky cucumbers as they're so abundant and tasty.

2017

I started using song titles as blogpost titles. I like having a song for each post but finding an appropriate one is by far the hardest thing about writing this blog! I'd like to stop, but I'm a bit obsessive....maybe I'll stop in 2020...

I love this amazing cloud formation - so interesting, I think they're a type of cirrus

I began planting a few more flowers on the plot - they are such a lovely addition and there's still plenty of room for veggies. The trouble is, I have so many that self-seed now that I've lost control a bit...though it looks beautiful!

2018

Visiting frogs laid frogspawn on the empty plots' white tarpaulin so we made a little pond to save some of them. It was lovely watching them develop. What a sweltering year that was!

Two adult frogs moved into our little pond after the tiny froglets had moved on - there's certainly plenty of slugs for them to enjoy.

HAHA joined in with the lantern parade in the Hungerford Christmas Extravaganza with vegetable-shaped lanterns - they ended their day on the plot.

2019

Last year was the 10 year anniversary of the Marsh Lane site, so we had plenty of social events including our best ever plant sale on the Town Hall steps.

Everyone helped out

 Our Open Day was also our best attended with lots of games to enjoy in the hot, sunny weather.

Ivan and I enjoying some healthy competition on the Squirty Boats.

We got some great local press coverage and lots of visitors discovered the little corner of Hungerford that we've been raving about for the last 10 years.

Our plots looked pretty and produced plenty. We hope we'll have more time next year to enjoy a few more days/evenings just sitting and watching things develop in 2020.

Happy New Year!

Upon a Winters Night

It's Christmas Eve - Merry Christmas!

We've had a very busy month. It's been extremely wet, but luckily on a few important dates it didn't rain so it's been a lot of fun getting ready for Christmas. We had our usual trip to Oxford and I had some delicious tofu Singapore noodles in the Gloucester Green street market.

Then bought a few pressies at the Christmas Market before having a cuppa in the Covered Market - visiting some of my favourite places in the City.

The beautiful Elisabeth Convent (Belarus) convent - I should have bought more there

Back in Hungerford we saw Will Young (local singer) switch on our lovely Christmas lights and enjoyed the Christmas Extravaganza, including being in the lantern parade - this year we made the HAHA lanterns in the shape of snails.

 

Somebody paid me £4 for mine at the end of the parade! I gave it to The Big Issue seller.

Kerry's is now residing on her plot - although it's a skeleton again because the rain removed all the paper.
We managed to avoid rain at the Newbury lantern parade - huge compared to the Hungerford one, but we're hoping ours will grow and more people join in in future years.

It's been a very wet Autumn/Winter so far.

 

That's not the allotment. It's the River Kennet in Hungerford which is very full and fast-flowing at the moment. We did actually visit the plot yesterday and it was very soggy, although it was a crisp clear blue sky day. We only visited to pull some carrots for our, now traditional, carrot lox which we'll have on Christmas Day. We have our big Christmas meal late this evening.

Here's the latest addition to our Christmas tree. Unfortunately we had to buy sprouts but we may get some from the plot for another meal this Christmas.

We had lovely visits to family and lots of shopping trips. And this is a photo from our window as the sun set at the end of the shortest day of 2019. Hooray, we're on the way back up now - but I wouldn't mind a bit of snow before Christmas holiday is over (or maybe just at the end of the holiday so I can't drive to work)!

Here's a lovely version of this song performed by Cara Dillon. Enjoy and Happy Christmas!

Light My Fire

We had a HAHA Workday yesterday - our first proper visit to the site for over a month! It was great to be working out in the fresh air again. (I hope this video is working, it's using the slow-motion feature on my new phone).

Luckily the rain stayed off for most of the time and all the volunteers did a great job of clearing the site; chopping back overgrown hedges and getting rid of all the rotten wood around the place thanks to a great big bonfire.

It's been such a wet few weeks I'm sure we were all glad to be out. And naturally, cakes were provided by Ted so we had regular tea-breaks and time for a catch-up.

Jamie and I (with help) spent the time clearing our Plot 46A - we didn't do anything with it this year, so we're clearing it for someone on the waiting list. It would have been nice to have a plot in the middle of the site, but we're stick with our original ones for now.

We were pleased to be able to clear all the structures and all the rotten wood was burned. The barrels full of soil were left by the previous tenant, we didn't manage to empty all of them but we'll help the new ploholder if necessary. They have lovely soil in them, but unfortunately there's a lot of weed seed in there too.

The bonfire provided us with some extra warmth as the sun was going down when we left - well, it's November, it was only about 4:00pm.

Over the last few weeks I've been enjoying the last of our harvest of pumpkin and am still loving the dried beans. I must be sure to pick more for drying next year. This meal I had was so delicious, based roughly on this veggiedesserts recipe.

I intended for it to cover 2 meals but ended up going back for seconds and scoffing the lot in one sitting, and with a bit of cheese on top. What a piggy :-)

We've not quite finished all the Dido potatoes - they are a lovely yellow maincrop variety and have been delicious as mash, patties and as wedges. Today's song is, obviously, provided by The Doors - enjoy.

Something Good

It's the time of year when there's plenty of clearing to be done on the allotment, but the weather or the inclination isn't with us at the moment. But I am enjoying making use of the remaining harvests from the plot.

I'm eating my Thai-spiced pumpkin soup as I write this. It's really tasty. I'm not sure how much the pumpkin adds to it, but the Thai spices and coconut milk have given it a lovely flavour and texture.

I also have a big bowl of paprika-roasted pumpkin seeds, they were a nice addition to each spoonful of soup, which reduced the woodiness.

The Jack-of-all-Trades pumpkin that I used weighed 5kg - I only used about 500g of skinned pumpkin in the soup.

I'm saving some to add to a bean stew later in the week (look at my colourful beans prior to soaking - that's the Gigantes plus the edamame and borlotti from last year).

The rest of the pumpkin I sliced up and have left in our kitchen for my colleagues to take home, I notice that 3 of the chunks have already been taken - I don't want to be taking any back home myself!

That's my fridge, not a work one!

We have one more Jack-of-all-trades pumpkin left at the plot, in the polytunnel if it survives. We've had a lot of rain and the temperature reached -4°during the week so I'm glad I recovered these Jack-Be-Little pumpkins the other day. Ones which were left outside have started to collapse. And that's my last Spaghetti squash.

The broad beans have sprouted either side of the plank (you may just be able to see them). It was nice and warm in the sunshine yesterday, so that should encourage a bit more growth before the weather turns nasty and we'll put some netting over them.

So, a song title... a GREAT version of this song by Kate Bush, provided by Utah Saints - perfect.