Looking Back

I hope you’ve had an enjoyable Christmas and that 2024 brings you plenty of good times as well as an extra day in February. I’m hoping that 2024 runs a bit slower than recent years, but we’ll see. Thankyou for dropping by occasionally and I hope you enjoy the music, here’s a brief look back over last year, with some fave photos and my book list at the end. Happy to receive any book or music suggestions of course!

January 

The first planting of the year was some Egyptian walking onions. Unfortunately, along with all my spring onions, the slugs enjoyed them. I’ll try again though!

It was a wet start to 2023 (we couldn’t know how wet the year was going to continue!). We had at least one super frost, although no snow. The cold nights gave us some beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

The allotment was providing us with carrots, Cavolo Nero and parsnips.

February 

Clearing and digging began in earnest as the ground dried up. We actually felt we were ahead of the game for a change.

And the Cavolo Nero kept providing - I think I’ll plant it again this year - and purple sprouting broccoli finally started producing the delicious flowerheads. A month later than 2022, but worth the wait.

March

Early March was when we got some snow. We had to get up in the wee hours to enjoy it; it (and we) didn’t hang around long.

Last year’s dried beans made for some tasty meals including these bean burgers, served with steamed purple sprouting broccoli - delish.

April

Finally time to start sowing most of the seeds that we’d ordered. Lots of different flowers for the flower plot were protected in the polytunnel. The chitted potatoes were also planted in the ground and a few in bags.

There was a mix of some warm weather among the wet and chillier days. April is a great allotment month, with lots of busy/chatty plotholders and plenty to catch up on, but thank goodness we have the polytunnel.

Along with the PSB, rhubarb and fresh chive flowers joined the meal plans.

May

Aah May! Still more to sow (including pre-germinated parsnips which were direct-sown) and so much growth with proper colour on the plots. The hedge full of flower and birds infuses a keen-ness to get tiny plants into the ground, but we hold off unless we have back-ups on hand.

It was a mostly sunny month so perfect for growing and working. OK, there was some rain but not altogether unwelcome.

We even started an early courgette in the polytunnel. It kept producing for months; we moved it outside in the Summer.

Delicious leeks were on the menu along with a few early strawberries.

June

It really was a flaming June - it was so sunny and beautiful, we thought it was a sign of a sweltering Summer, like last year, but that didn’t quite work out.

We saw bullfinches, a rosemary beetle and a previously unseen red and black froghopper, but even better were the plotholder gatherings!

And we enjoyed a sunny site Open Day.

Salads were getting more interesting with delicious broad beans, mangetout and radish.

July

Nia provided us with the sweetcorn plants as most of ours had failed to germinate and the watering regime was hard work …initially…

And then the rain came and everyone cheered, but the polytunnel still needed watering…

And the rain carried on for a bit too long, but we all agreed that the plants were certainly enjoying it.

And you can’t have lovely trugfuls and platefuls of veggies without some help with the watering!

August

There was more rain, more sun and more allotment events.

Sadly we said happy 95th birthday to my mum and later in the month said goodbye to her for the last time.

Remembering happy times on holiday and her love of gardening through our own flower patch now.

A bumper bed of leeks were planted as our seedlings had grown well this year.

Harvests continued to include asparagus pea, courgettes, salad, potatoes and beets.

September 

Extreme temperatures arrived along with our late beans. We had to buy runner bean plants as ours refused to germinate, but the borlotti and French beans grew well on the tunnel frame.

Super-harvest month! Most of the borlotti beans and yin-Yang beans were left to dry on the plants and then finished their drying in the polytunnel. The weather was perfect for it.

The Scabiosa Stellata produced their pretty seedheads and other flowers were putting on a fine show of late Summer colour.

Apart from beans, potatoes, salad we had sweetcorn, aubergine and peppers on the menu.

October

A few sunny days encouraged the last of the flowers to bloom ahead of the first frosts and we even had a barbecue! And we managed to sow our broad beans as intended.

As well as frost there was a lot more rain as the first Winter storms arrived. We got off lightly compared to other areas, but still completely drenching. 

Luckily our pumpkins were stored in the polytunnel by then and all the sweetcorn and beans had been harvested.

Sweetcorn, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, leeks and pumpkin were on the menu.

November

Yet another rainy month, so a very soggy plot for occasional visits and manure deliveries. 

Surprisingly we’ grown good parsnips this year; all the rain hasn’t caused canker and although some are multi-legged ones they’re tasty and some are very big. Much better than our attempts in recent years.

Squash, beetroot, parsnips and carrots provided meal ingredients.

December 

So here we are another year has flown by with happy and sad times to reflect on. 

Plans are in progress, with fruit trees waiting in the polytunnel and seed catalogues on hand. The weather is wet but warm so weeds are taking over, but we’ll get to them one dry day quite soon…

The nights are shortening and there are signs of Spring bulbs to look forward to. In the meantime we’ll continue enjoying our Christmas and new year celebrations. 

I have two new ‘My Favourite Books’ as a result of this year’s reading list: 

I realise I’m late to reading ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, after all it’s 85 years old, but it is amazing and sadly poignant in today’s world. Definitely worth a re-read in my opinion. 

And the ‘The Murmur of Bees’ is so beautifully translated from the original Spanish. With a touch of magic I found it totally absorbing and delightful.

Happy new year and thankyou for popping by 🙂

Song title provided by Keane.

Home

I'm on my final lunchbreak of 2023 - breaking up for Christmas in a couple of hours! 

It's not like it used to be - no driving home for Christmas (no, not that song) because I'm already home.

I just need to pack away my laptop and sit back down. With 3 days to go I must admit that I'm not feeling very Christmassy. Maybe it's the weather - it's been a very damp December so far and it's rather warm and windy today.

We've had a few December visits to the allotment - it's not very inviting, but we've pulled some great parsnips and we bought 3 tiny fruit trees - here's the Thompson & Morgan photo.

And here's the real thing 😆 I'm sure they'll be fine in a few months! They have buds already but they're waiting in the polytunnel.

The broad beans and garlic have sprouted which are welcome signs for next year. Yesterday marked the Winter Solstice so we're on our way to Spring now 😏

At each plot visit recently we've seen flocks of (probably) redwings - a regular Winter migrant. They don't stay still for long and have proved tricky to photograph.

Anyway, back to work (I think everyone else has already gone!). Have a Happy Christmas!

This jolly song is brought to you by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros!

The Walk

It’s been a wet month, I’ve not been inclined to move very far and work has been keeping me very busy but yesterday we had a long walk in the chilly countryside. It had been a very frosty morning and the temperature remained close to zero, but we were dressed up warm and it felt ok in the sunshine.

We walked a 6-mile circuit to Chilton Foliat, which is a neighbouring village.

It was very beautiful and near the River Kennet much of the time. This was looking West from the Fairy Bridge. The river is swollen and very fast-flowing at the moment after all the rain.

Rather strange to see a lone cygnet but he was enjoying eating the watercress.

We saw some excellent clouds during the walk - I think these are cirrostratus.Edit: Turns out they're cirrocumulus clouds.

And this photo is showing a Sundog (like two small rainbows either side of the Sun) they occur in cold weather and under the right circumstances. This parhelion effect is produced by the Sun’s rays being diffracted through ice crystals and ‘diamond dust’, described by the Met Office here. 

Part of the walk is up this hidden footpath which runs alongside that huge field. One of our previous plotholders has a dedicated bench along there, over-looking the fields surrounding Hungerford.

We’ve seen hares in that field before but yesterday the most interesting wildlife we saw was at the start of our walk - this little muntjac deer.

It was a very cold day, but so pleased that the Sun was shining to show off the Autumn colours in all their glory.

The allotment is looking far less picturesque, this was 2 weeks ago and today has been very dank.

We have had short plot visits each week and the broad beans have germinated. I pulled a parsnip, which had no canker, that’s a rare feat for us! I brought the squashes and parsley home to avoid the frost, but the parsnips should only improve with a bit of frosting.

I had two meals of this mushroom and chestnut casserole - so delicious! Mmm, and look at that roast parsnip - yum yum! And the other meal included a couple of the tiny pumpkins cut into slices and roasted.

I expect my next post will be in December and the Christmas lights are being switched on tonight in Hungerford. It has certainly felt Wintry this week, but definitely still looked like Autumn for our lovely walk.

Enjoy this great song by The Cure.

The Only One I Know

Looks like an aerial photo of a desert landscape doesn’t it? Oh, just me?
It’s been quite the opposite, so much rainfall over the last week. Our 50mm raingauge had over-flowed, but I appreciate that we’ve been lucky compared to some parts of the country which are still flooded as the ground is so saturated.

We had some lovely blue sky yesterday (Sunday). Some tiny showers threatened more rain, but the wind blew the clouds away and we had a pleasant couple of hours clearing the sweetcorn patch. If the weather stays mild the weeds will love that patch of bare soil! You can see how much the grass is growing and the Calendula are still providing spots of colour.

Most of the other flowers are just seedheads now, although the verbena bonariensis still have a purple tinge and the Nicotiana has a few flowers protected under the glass table.

This seems rather unexpected in November - we’re still eating our tomatoes! They eventually turned red after being at home for a few weeks and are so tasty providing bruschetta lunches. There's home-grown basil on there but the Spring Onions are shop-bought - we simply can't grow them without slugs demolishing them. I sowed 2 long rows this year, but not one was fit to eat 😞 Any ideas?

Anyway, as you can tell, there’s not really much going on. Which is why I was staring at a plank for much of the time. 

But what a plank! The moss is certainly enjoying the decaying wood. There are at least 4 different species that I can see on there.

So, here are a few moss facts: moss is a type of bryophyte (along with liverworts and hornworts) and there are over 1000 species in Britain and Ireland! The British Bryological Society (formerly known as The Moss Exchange Club) is celebrating its 100th Anniversary this year. 

Mosses can be found almost anywhere in the World, from deserts to the arctic but Britain's warm-ish, wet (getting wetter) climate is perfect for lots of species. This is the only one that I think I can recognise and name at the moment - Grymmia Pulvinata. The little things that look like flower buds, setae, turning back into the pincushion are the defining feature. Cute.

So that provided the song title - sung by The Charlatans. Sing along - marvellous.

Scary Monsters

It’s that time of year again Halloweeeeen, ooh spooky 👻 

Our mini pumpkin was included in the meal, decorated our dinner table and Jamie even managed to carve one, but it was a bit fiddly.

The scary monster is a yellow dung fly - we’ve had another manure delivery to site. Hooray! We had a 10 tonne delivery and nearly half had been carted off to plots by the end of the weekend - we had a few barrow loads.

Behind the manure are our broad beans Aquadulce Claudia which we sowed at the weekend. As usual, they’re protected by plastic bottle cloches and netting. The netting doesn’t protect from everything though 🙄

Our little visitor is back to his friendly self and he joined us in the polytunnel during a sharp shower.

The showers were torrential at the weekend but it was reasonably warm and very pleasant when the Sun came out. We noticed that that the wasps were making the most of Ivan’s grapes, which have sadly gone to waste this year.

They were definitely drunk on them. All binging together - we’ve all been there 😀

It seems that we’re well into Autumn now - November today, unbelievable! The leaves finally changed colour. This is a Creeping cinquefoil leaf, so pretty throughout the year, but it does take over.

Even my little hazel tree looked autumnal.

The pot has some excellent moss forming the ‘forest floor’ for the little tree.

But Storm Ciaran is clearing the remaining leaves off the trees today. I have a day off work, so we’ll go up the plot and batten down the hatches later. First I’m having a toasted cheese and beetroot sandwich for lunch. I’ve always liked cheese and beetroot together, but toasted is even better - totally delicious! Talking of delicious, I made this pumpkin and bean curry the other night - mmm, coconut tastiness but unfortunately I didn’t cook the beans for long enough; even though they’d been soaked overnight they would have needed cooking for 30mins I think, not the 15mins I gave them - they were rather hard still.

I had a bit of good news recently - I wrote a poem (I know! Me!?) and WON a £50 voucher from Nomads Clothing. I love their clothes so I was very pleased 😊 Here’s the poem and the coat it’s written about.

The song is provided by David Bowie.