Home Again...

From our two week holiday in lovely Puerto de la Cruz in the north of Tenerife. It's such a beautiful part of the island and we feel so at home at the Casablanca Apartments.

With the fantastic El Limón vegetarian restaurant nearby in the old town and the bus stop just up the road it's the ideal location for us. The bus journeys are an adventure in themselves and you get to see great views and can peep into the lives and gardens of the locals! It was extremely hot and the hills and heat took their toll so we were quite relieved when the clouds were drawn down from the mountains - still sweltering but you didn't feel the burn quite so much!

Anyway, we're home now so we popped up to the allotment to see how it's looking. I'm pleased to say the sun was shining and though about 10 degrees down on what we've been used to it was lovely to sit for a while. The plots are not so overgrown as we'd expected - the clearing we did before we left was obviously very timely.

Some of the pumpkins are ready - a bit early but they'll keep and we need some for the Hungerford Food Festival next week. And the Cornells Bush Delicata squash are looking good.

The Lizzano and Sungold tomatoes have trusses of lovely ripe toms for us. Some of the tomatillos are huge and have burst through their lantern sheaths.  Thanks to our plot buddies (Neal & Ted) for keeping the greenhouse watered!

The gherkins haven't quite grown as intended - they were meant to be tiny cocktails gherkins...

An unexpected bonus is the radish rats tails. The plants appeared to be devastated by weevils but they had a new lease of life and they're now covered in flowers, bees and tiny radish-flavoured 'chillies'.

While we were away the local newspapers had photos from the Hungerford in Bloom awards. I don't actually call nyself 'Belinda Thompson' but it's all good publicity for the allotments!

Celery Soup

We may not grow celery again as it's a bit hit and miss. Some of the bunches are really well-formed, others papery. However, this soup makes me think it is worth growing some - thanks to the 'Goodness Green' website.

Desk buddies looking on

Everything in the pot (except oil and pepper) was home-grown.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped roughly
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon thyme (optional)
1 head of celery, cleaned & chopped roughly
1 white potato chopped
1 litre of vegetable stock
pepper & salt

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a non stick pot and add the onion and garlic. Cook until softened.
2. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Puree the soup using a blender. Hand held works fine.
4. Return to the pan, check seasoning and serve.

I do love a straightforward recipe and the result was delicious!

Composting and Clearing

The weather was reasonable at the weekend so we managed to spend about 6 hours on the plot. Jamie was clearing a section on plot 3; digging out raspberries and couch grass to have a new position for compost bins on that plot - just to store manure in for a bit.

I was dealing with the compost bins on plot 7. I emptied them both out onto a tarpaulin and then layered the contents, along with straw and some manure, into the new bins. The 'wet' bin was full of worms - lovely fresh looking red ones. They do such a good job turning all that waste into new soil!

'Dry' Compost which has been left alone since April

'Wet' Bin we've been filling since April

Someone dropped off two unwanted compost bins on the site a couple of weeks ago so we swapped one of our smaller ones for a nice big one; we now have two matching ones on Plot 7. I dug them down a bit and they're more level than they were previously. The stones round the edge are a haven for snails but they're also a vain hope to stop mice making a winter home in them.
Both of the bins are pretty much full but they won't take long to decompose and the compost will probably be usable in the Spring.

I cleared all the overgrown lettuce, chinese radish (which went to seed) along with the dried remains of the mangetout. I also cleared the cucumber and pepper plant from the greenhouse and chopped back lots of the tomatillo, which was trying to take over half the greenhouse! That all got chopped up and added to the compost bins so we can actually see the bottom of the gherkin plants again now.
The chilli pepper plant is now outside to see if that can be shocked into going red, some appear to be going black (not in a bad way) - perhaps the label is wrong and that's the colour they'll end up as.

This was part of Saturday's harvest. All those tomatillos came from the branches I chopped off. Some of the fruits are quite large. They taste quite nice as part of a salad, but will be interesting to see if any go purple and then taste them.

The fruit is really sticky inside the papery lantern. It doesn't taste like a raw tomato. If I get a chance I'll see about making some salsa with them - which apparently is what they're used for generally in South America. (They aren't Cape Gooseberries, although their lanterns look similar).

September Means Soup

I figure it's now ok to move on to soup lunches rather than salads and so the first of this year's soups has now been made and I'm having a little taster while I type.
I don't think I've made carrot and fennel soup before but I love the aniseed-licorique flavour of the florence fennel when it mingles with other flavours. I've decided I'm not so keen on roasted or pan-fried fennel, but maybe I just didn't cook it very well this year.

As usual I've made enough for a family of eight rather than just me for 3 lunches, so I may have to freeze some. I left one of the carrots out and only put 2 cloves of garlic in and to cook I added ½ litre of vegetable stock but after blending it needed a bit more water adding. I also needed to add more salt and pepper - I do love a peppery soup!

We had a busy day today but managed to get to the allotment just in time for a heavy shower so we waited in the car and didn't get any weeding done (again). Jamie was harvesting a Kestrel potato while I pulled all the onions whose tops had folded down naturally. A few still have upright stems so I've left them in the ground, but I'm not sure that they'll grow any more - or if we want them to!

Here they are in the greenhouse to dry out. I found enough space on the shelving by hanging some more of the garlic from the roof.

It looks like I may need to make some onion soup sometime soon...

Not Quite September, Definitely Not October!

We didn't stay on the plot long, too cold, maybe that's why some of the pumpkins appear to be a month ahead of where we want them to be...

The rain barely stopped so we didn't get any clearing or weeding done. Maybe tomorrow as I've gone an extra day off for the bank holiday. We picked one of our two peppers and another stalk of celery, but this one hasn't grown properly; the stems are hollow, but still full of flavour so okay for cooking with but not for a salad. We were hoping to have a courgette but the one which was big enough was covered in a jelly-like substance - probably slug eggs. Yuk! That went in the compost bin :-(

The marigolds are still growing and looking beautiful even in the rain. The wildflowers have been flattened so aren't looking so good.

The Start of a Bank Holiday Weekend

Another grey day (weather-wise) but on this long holiday weekend there's plenty of catching up to do on the plots. Chinese radish, swede, lettuce, asparagus pea and some beetroot need to be cleared and composted as they've either gone to seed or simply given up. None of the swede has bulbed up for some reason. I pulled all the silverskin onions from the raised bed and put them on mesh to dry - thank goodness for the greenhouse! We'd struggle to get them dry outside at the moment and don't want to fill the flat up with them!

We need to get pickling! We have quite a few onions....

And of course, we have another load of BIG onions too, so we need to get things sorted!

However, on Saturday I left Jamie working on the allotment while I spent a few hours at my sister's farm for her birthday. Joanne and I had a lovely time, chatting, wandering round the garden, eating cake then feeding the chickens and geese. 

The chickens came into the back door when they thought it was tea-time

They have a Caravan Club site on the farm and a couple of caravanners turned up while I was visiting. What a lovely peaceful spot to spend a few days!

Barney & Big Boy - the alpaca

Jonathan and George were busy harvesting so we took a cuppa and cake down to them at the dryer. Jonathan explained the system, from the wheat being dropped in one end, along the conveyor belt system, through the heated section and fired out at the other end as clean, dry wheat.

That's a photo from Joanne's blogpost during last year's harvest:
http://lornehillquilts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/harvest-chicksand-quilt.html

Lovely to delve your hands into the huge pile of grain.

Taken from Joanne's blog from Saturday:
http://lornehillquilts.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/a-bit-of-colour.html

When I got back to the allotment Jamie was just about ready to leave. He'd trimmed all the grass edges and mowed the remainder of our paths as well as doing some weeding so the plots were looking tidier again, but still loads more to do...

The Tenerife potatoes are getting big in the ground (they're only meant to be tiny) and are beginning to re-grow so we need to pull them really, but there's only so many spuds two people can eat in one week!
Those are our Lizzano tomatoes in the photo above. They are grafted plants and it's clear how much more prolific they are than the grown-from-seed Sungold variety that we have in the greenhouse. The Lizzano are really sweet and tasty until you taste a Sungold - WOW! They are amazing. We're looking at getting some grafted Sungold plants for next year (if we get to keep the allotment - we should find out next month).

Sungold

The Cornells Bush Delicata squash are looking good - trailing off just like you'd expect of a bush variety - not!

I made dinner - it gets a mention as I don't do it very often and it was delicious. A layered oven bake of par-boiled Tenerife potatoes, courgette sliced longways, tomatoes, silverskin onions (which I needn't have bothered caramelising), garlic and cheese topped with filo pastry. Mmmmm, so tasty and pretty, wish I'd got a photo!

The Russian Giant Sunflowers are about 3 metres tall!

The Show's Over

Aah, what a couple of busy, fun weekends! Yesterday was the Horticultural & Handicraft Show. Previously run by the Hungerford Royal British Legion, this year HAHA joined forces so there's been a bit of organising going on in the background as well as trying to encourage our vegetables to grow well enough to join in the fun of exhibiting!

Enough tomatoes went red for us to enter 2 categories and got a 2nd and 3rd placing

In the morning Jamie and I rushed about picking whatever we thought was reasonable and then went back home to clean things up - carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and fennel. I'd had some of my photos printed by PhotoBox but they didn't actually look that good; not as well coloured as they look on the PC screen; I entered a photo into each category (only got a 2nd place for one photo though), but there were a lot of entries.

I tied up the tops of the onions but hadn't dried out well enough so didn't win a placing.

We took all our vegetables up to the Royal British Legion Club (RBL) and spent about an hour chatting to other exhibitors - quite a few plotholders and some other people from Hungerford. It was all very friendly and I would have been happy to spend a bit more time there but had to go and pick up the Vegetables & Floral judge from Newbury.

Having picked up Jean we returned to the RBL and Jean did some meticulous judging for a couple of hours. I watched her in action from a distance for a bit but didn't want to hear the results so sat outside on the hottest day of August - it really was sweltering. Jean lent me her RHS Exhibiting & Judging handbook. That was an interesting read - a bit too serious for our event I think but definitely some handy hints!

A roomful of Lovely exhibits!

So, after I had taken Jean home (Thankyou so much for helping us Jean!!) Jamie and I made our way up to the RBL to see who had won what and for the really fun bit of the day.
We did win a 1st for our largest onion and quite a few 2nd, 3rd and 'Highly commended' placings so overall we won the Runners Up prize in the vegetable section :-)

'Any 3 Veg': Fennel, Crystal Lemon Cucumber & Garlic

'Any 5 veg: We got the 2nd place - that was the only 5 we could gather together!
Courgette(!), silverskin onion, chilli, tomato & Tenerife spud

The prizes were awarded and we were happy to see plenty of plotholders winning, then there was an auction of all the produce. The auctioneer got fed up with so many onion lots (it's been a good year!) so everything came with an onion - even a swiss roll :-)

Ooh, 1st prize-winning savoury scones - I had to have them!

We took home some lovely chutneys, picallili and scones (fruit and savoury) so it was a brilliant end to the day. Lots of money was raised and donated to the Poppy Appeal and more people in Hungerford are aware of the allotments.

And today we've picked our first harvest of runner beans and found some cucumbers we'd missed...

Shows and Showing

I've been so busy over the last couple of weeks I haven't had a chance to take photos, let alone blog! Suffice to say we've been living on courgettes, potatoes and cucumbers!
I'm very pleased to say that the Open Day went really well yesterday and, given the dull, wet weather we've had over the last couple of weeks we were extremely lucky that the sun shone for much of the afternoon.

Plotholders are so generous with their time: cooking delicious cakes, savouries and pickles; digging crops to provide produce and of course helping out with the stalls. Others brought family and friends along to show off our site in all its glory during National Allotment Week. We even gained a couple of new plotholders on the day! No-one visiting the site could imagine that we won't be here this time next year - we should find out the future of the site next month...

It was so tiring yesterday I was happy to have a relaxing day today, picking veg, watering and chatting to plotholders in the warm weather.

I'm selecting a few things for showing at the Horticultural Show next Saturday. It's the first year that HAHA are helping the Royal British Legion so we're hoping lots of plotholders will join in. It's a small affair with the emphasis on fun and friendly competition. Jamie and I won't have very much to show - our runner beans are only just getting big enough to eat, so I'm out of the running for the longest runner this year - damn! That's one of my favourite exhibits. (Looks like there will be runners on the menu this week though!)

 I've hung all the garlic in the greenhouse - cleaned up and dead leaves removed. And there are some onions drying in there too - phewee, it's pretty strong in there!

There are a few of our silverskins drying in there too, but most are still in the raised bed to grow a bit further.

We may have some tomatoes for the show but I'm not sure we'll ever get a whole truss of red ones! These are our Lizzano. Still our favourite variety to grow outside. The Sungold in the greenhouse don't seem so prolific and are more fussy with needing their side-shoots snipping all the time.

Here's another bit of colour - on our raspberries. Not enough for a bowl-ful or jam (at the moment) but perhaps we'll get more, though they aren't under protection.

We emptied one of our potato bags with the Tenerife potatoes. Probably about the same amount as we got from the one growing in the ground.

 Jamie also pulled a Kestrel potato, which had masses of tubers.

In that photo you may notice our first celery, which is rather bitter but seems to have worked, and also our first Crystal Lemon cucumber and one of plot-neighbour Neal's lettuces - I've got a tasty salad planned for lunch tomorrow!

Also one of our purple carrots, though it's not as purple as other purple ones we've grown. What an exciting harvest!