Composting & Harvesting

A warm reasonably sunny afternoon gave us time to deal with our compost.

Purple-podded mangetout with such pretty flowers

We're moving their position back to where they were year 1 - they hopefully won't mind the hedge/tree roots as much as some of the vegetables do.
The black Dalek bin has been warmly composting all the old cuttings, cardboard and kitchen waste (and a bit of manure) for over a year - close to 18 months.

Straight from the compost bin

Lots of lovely clean, pink little worms, wood lice, millipedes and beetles (mostly devil's coach horses) have been doing a good job breaking down all that organic matter. We roughly riddled it all - through an old fire guard topped with chicken wire - and bagged up the resultant compost.

The end result after riddling

Mmm, so good to feel with your fingertips! We're storing it in the empty bin to keep it nice and warm before we make our new (additional) strawberry bed with these potted-on runners.

Runners still attached to the mother plants

The remaining woody bits, cardboard and eggshells (which we're amazed remained un-rotted) were returned to the other compost bin as brown waste.

Before going home I picked a load of Zephyr squashes and some other veggies for a few meals, plus a few for work colleagues. There's parcel in there too - lovely celery tasting parsley-type herb to add to some potato salad lunches this week.

The mangetout and asparagus peas are so delicious fried in butter!

Patty pans a-plenty!

Festival Squashes

As you can see, the patty pan are going a bit crazy and some Festival squash seem like they may actually come to something - especially if the weather warms up, as forecast. I hate to say it, but we could really do with a few drops of rain! We keep having to water our toms. I've ordered some jar lids so I'll soon be making tomato chutney - hooray!

British Legion Horticultural Show and Chain Mail Article

It was show time again yesterday. It's a shame so many of our fellow plotholders don't fancy the idea of 'showing' or were away. The event sounds so much grander than it is, with sadly only 2 or 3 entries for each of the vegetable categories.

Our Hungerford show is a very local-type show with 'nice', 'normal' looking veg rather than monstrous exhibition vegetables! That's not to say I don't like seeing the monster veg, but I know we'll never go to the efforts of growing it!

So, we entered a few photos and produce for the following vegetable categories:

•  4 White spuds - we got a winner! Jamie's potato-polishing did the trick :-)

•  5 Bush tomatoes - we didn't win. Our tiny toms looked a bit sad wobbling around on a white paper plate!
•  5 Dwarf French beans - a winner. Our first French beans of the year too!
•  Longest runner bean - mine was over 30cm, but the winner was substantially longer!
•  5 Carrots - I think we won this because we left the full leafy tops on
•  Any other vegetable - I had a big yellow Patty Pan squash. Looked pretty and won!
•  Selection of any four veg - Got a 'highly commended' (loser) sticker for my beetroot, colourful chard leaf, purple mangetout and Rondo-carrot. It looked colourful, but Neal's display looked much better.
•  Funny shaped fruit/veg - our mutant Desiree potato won that one for us!

Some of my photos won, but I can't remember which - will post later if I find out.
I was going to put an entry in for chutney but didn't get my act together, so I'll save that for the Hungerford Food Festival next month. There were plenty of jars of pickles and jams though and the flowers were lovely.

We unfortunately couldn't attend the prize-giving and auction so I'm not sure who won best in show. I hope it was a plotholder!

This was our haul of Chopin potatoes from about 5 plants - many more had slug damage
(they're not the winning carrots by the way!)

Oh, and my latest Chain Mail article is here, if you want a little read. 

There goes August!

What an odd month! We've had rain, wind and temperatures down to 1.5° but today was warm and sunny. We've had plenty of summer squash, tomatoes and beetroot to eat. The Zephyr squash are particularly tasty, but have grown as bush plants rather than climbing up the trellis. The patty pans have been brilliant this year.

Our Lizzano tomatoes are still supplying an abundance of toms and they're so sweet, perfect for eating straight from the plant :-)

The Festival squash have only just started producing fruits so not sure I'll get any to taste this year. They've been rather late to start trailing, so I chopped the extra runners off today in the hope that will encourage some fruits (one will do!) to mature... 

I've had some delicious meals of roasted vegetables and made a meal with seven home-grown ingredients - I love that!

Look at the centre of that pretty sunflower

The dwarf sunflowers have provided a lovely display and kept the bees happy. And the Russian Giant sunflowers have grown impressively tall and on the last day of August the flowers have finally opened.

The runner beans didn't appreciate the cold spell, so not sure whether they'll still be edible. Lots have brown patches which seems to be bruising from wind damage. There are some good long ones which may be suitable for the British Legion Horticultural Show next weekend - longest runner bean entry here I come :-) And I think we'll have something suitable for the funny shaped veg entry....

Look at the red berries in the hedgerow!

The wildflower mix is putting on a lovely display, with plenty of buds to come, if the weather stays good.

The mangetout are only providing enough pods for plot-snacks and, although covered in lovely scarlet flowers, the asparagus pea pods are very sparse so far. I hope I get enough to fry up a plateful, they really are a delight!

I know I've been quiet...

...but I've been quite busy too.

We've had some visits to the plot over the last couple of weeks but this is the most exciting thing that's happened..

https://vimeo.com/103537977

The most amazing video filmed by a friend, Colin, using his Quad-copter. I'm obsessed! Can't stop sharing it with anyone I meet so how could I not share it with you lovely people too?!

Please enjoy and feel free to share too if you're so inclined.

This is just the type of thing which will help spread the word about how lovely our site is and what Hungerford will be missing should the worst happen when our current lease expires in April 2016 :-(

July came and went

Another month passed us by :-( We've had some dramatic weather; hot, hot temperatures and a couple of amazing thunderstorms but not as much rain as a lot of people have had - though the sky often threatened.

We had a few visits to the plot and managed to pick a few veggies and get a few of our sickly seedlings into the ground and we've been pleased that the runner beans, carrots and beets are growing well. Though there aren't many bees around to pollinate the beans.

Funny that this year, when we've hardly grown anything, was the time that BBC Radio Berkshire decided to call (5mins before live broadcast) for a quick (1 minute!) radio interview. I was expecting them to ask about the plight of our lovely site but he actually wanted to talk about what we've been growing. Well, we all know you can't trust the media so I basically made some stuff up! Thank goodness for my fennel, which I've been boring everyone with this year!

Here's a sound file of my bit, if you're interested. Don't get too excited!

I did make the soup and it was delicious. Notice that I didn't claim to have grown the celeriac :-)

Finally I've had a few patty pans and the Zephyr squash have just started to look like they're meant to! The first squash on each plant just looked like a normal pale green courgette - maybe the plants were a bit shocked into producing a fruit a bit too quickly. They don't look like they're going to climb up the trellis, but hopefully there will be a few for me to try. Our Lizzano tomatoes are doing well and are super sweet - we've even managed to take some home, but most have been eaten on the plot.

I've seen the beautiful kingfisher flit across the site a couple of times! The neon blue flash is so eye-catching, but I'm not sure I'll ever be quick enough to snap it!

Cape Gooseberry

We had one late night at the plot to do a spot of bat-detecting - just look at all those insects and the ghostly form of Jamie! There were a lot of bats (most likely pipistrelles) at the top of site, but not so many by our plot, near the canal, which was rather surprising.

Warning - Whinger Alert

Bleah, what a year!

One would think that a month off work would mean that our plots are looking beautiful and we're busy harvesting. Unfortunately that isn't the case as I've been sickly and there are a lot of bare patches where we just haven't had time to sow, plant or grow anything. I hate to admit that as I write this I know there are marigolds, cabbages and leeks drying out in their trays - how awful :-(

Well, we're resigned to not eating much this year! Here are a few pics on the few occasions we have visited.

I'm still hoping to get some mangetout. I was most disappointed, though not surprised, when I saw that the pigeons had visited...

I half-heartedly attached some strips of plastic and there's been a bit of new (un-nibbled) growth, so we'll see...

Apart from the rhubarb and strawbs this is what we've harvested! Lucky I don't have any appetite at the moment. We pulled the Desiree potatoes because the foliage had gone down with something.

I am going to risk saying that my Florence fennel looks good (well, it did a few days ago).

Here's to feeling healthy again quite soon!

Catching Up

A couple of weeks away from work and a few sunny days have made all the difference! I feel much better and the plot is looking at least part-loved again. We've been driving to the allotment and parking next to our plot so I can escape to the car (the shed) as necessary!

This is what we've been living on throughout June - no wonder you've been unwell, you're thinking!! OK, not quite, but it is all we're harvesting at the moment.

The Raspberry Red rhubarb has been amazing; shooting up delicious new stems regularly. The plants are collapsing under the weight of the older leaves and stems now, just look at the size of those two plants!

We've enjoyed quite a lot of air traffic recently because of D Day commemorations and this Dakota flying low over the site was very impressive - take my word for it - the photo does NOT do it justice.

Jamie's just finished sowing some Speedy dwarf French beans for germinating at home, before planting out on the plot. This may mean that our runners and French beans don't all arrive at once...

The Scarlet Empire runners are looking happy since being transplanted on the plot and protected from wind damage by fleece.

Look at that healthy bud, just waiting to become flowers then lovely beanies!

The raised bed crops are looking ok, though the Pak choi leaves may not be edible due to flea beetle damage. We should get some salad and I live in hope that the beets will pull through (though generally seedlings don't appreciate being completely dried out in the early stages of their lives!)

The Florence fennel continues to need regular protection from slugs. They are beginning to bulb up, so I'm looking forward to that!

 

I've put a trellis up for purple-podded mangetout and some PeeWee 65 petit pois. I've also sown a row of Asparagus pea, chard and Callalloo. Jamie transplanted the grafted Lizzano tomato plants into high standing pots. We're hoping this will stop us trampling on so many of the toms when they start

I've put a Festival squash to scramble along the ground near the pea trellis and a Sunburst patty pan squash, which is a bush variety, on the legume quarter. Two Zephyr squash have been planted to grow over the squash trellis from last year.

Jamie's sown the carrots and parsnips and we've got Tundra cabbage and multi-coloured beet root seedlings just popping up in the seeding cage by our healthy-looking potato plants.

So, we've been pretty busy - well, Jamie's been busy; I've provided vital morale boosting and support :-)

What we have done...

Luckily Plot 8 is looking a bit better than Plot 7. The rhubarb and strawberries have been serving us very well. We had to net the strawberries as we have a friendly female blackbird who has a very sweet tooth :-)

Slugs are again the bane of the site. They've eaten some potato plants down to stalks - our Chopin rows received a lot of attention, but the Desiree got away with it (at least the foliage has).

I bought a tray of 8 Florence fennel, which have gone into the raised bed, protected by bottle cloches and slug pellets. Everyday we find new dead slugs surrounding each plant - gross, but at least I still have 8 plants...

I've put rows of Pak choi, lettuce and beets into the raised bed too. The slug pellets are saving them too, but there aren't many red fire lettuce left!

Alison (fellow plotholder) gave me a bunch of jewel-coloured flowers - so beautiful!

The squashes and gherkins germinated well but aren't quite ready to go into the ground yet. The cucamelons didn't grow well, so none of them to try this year - unless anyone else on the allotment site had any luck with theirs.

The two rows of broad beans are pathetic, as a result of slug (and possibly pheasant) abuse. We've got a few flowers on most remaining stems so we're leaving them to do what they will... And hopefully we'll get a few beans to eat!