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!
A very impressive building - and just look at the inside! The vaulted ceiling is so beautiful…dating from the early 1500s.
Vaulted ceiling in the Abbey
and the stained glass - wow!
East Window
The windows were smashed to smithereens in World War 2, but the glass was gathered up and 60% of the current East Window is original.
There’s not much of the 16th century abbey left, there have been so many restorations, but the memorials and inscriptions all round the walls and floor date back to the earliest days of the abbey with some excellent sculptures.
Obviously we had to visit the Roman baths, which are just beside the abbey - the abbey floor is warmed by the same hot spring. I enjoyed the statues around the terrace walls but was disappointed to learn they were carved in Victorian times.
In fact it turns out that much of the Roman Baths are Victorian, including all the columns and surrounds, but the more ancient elements (mostly just the foundations and some paving) were interesting and thousands of Roman coins have been found there.
Roman hypocaust pillar
This surround is Victorian, but the warm (40°) bubbling spring water was good to see, if rather green and a little bit funky. Interesting that the Victorians were basing the design on their knowledge of Romans in Britain.
The Sacred Spring
This protected channel is Roman - the Great Drain taking the overflow water down to the River Avon.
The Great Drain
This is definitely Roman - the Goddess Sulis Minerva who the coin offerings were for. She has healing powers so Jamie through a coin into the cold plunge pool for good luck.
Anyway, back to the modern world - look at this amazing meal I had at Plant.Eat.Licious - I’d definitely return there for a meal. It’s crispy cauliflower with other delicious things besides.
A proper little hidden delight in the basement of an old chapel.
We walked a lot, quite exhausting but our hotel was in an excellent central location. Just walking around is a treat as Georgian buildings are rather beautiful - look at all those chimney pots!
There were plenty of coffee-stops for people-watching when we couldn’t walk any further.
We were lucky with the weather except on our final morning when we got a drenching and there was thunder and lightning as we made our way home. Next time we’ll keep a brolly with us rather than leaving them in the hotel and the car!
So now we’re home and I should go and check out the allotment- I know there will be tomatoes to pick… but perhaps they can wait till tomorrow. Song title provided by The Offspring.
Tomato season has arrived on our plots. I’ve been looking up ways to use the tomatoes and passata was the easiest solution so I have some bags frozen now - they should last 3 months.
We used some of it fresh for this tasty pasta dish - it used up the last of last year’s yin-yang beans which I’d pre-cooked in the slow cooker for 8 hours, avoiding the overnight soak.
The British Tomato Association have some nice recipes so I may use the redcurrant tomatoes for a confit, otherwise they’re mostly good for salads or garnish. I was surprised to see that ‘Tomato Fortnight’ is in June which the Tomato Association consider ‘peak tomato season’ - shows the difference between commercial and home-grown! This was another trug from last week.
The radishes, carrots and aubergine were roasted with potatoes and halloumi and the giant courgette was cut into rings and stuffed with a chestnut stuffing.
Jacob’s Cattle, Greek Gigantes and Borlotti
You can see that I’ve managed to dry some beans, just in time as we’ve had some significant rain over the last few days and have measured 20mm on the plot. I may dry the runner beans too as the meagre amount that we’ve picked have already gone stringy - what a dead loss!
We were lucky that the rain stayed away for the Bank Holiday weekend. Hungerford’s Beer and Music Festival was on for three days. We had two lovely afternoons sitting in the Sun, listening to live music and drinking real ale plus the barbecue had veggie burgers - woohoo!
Cheers!
On Plot3 the squashes are trying to fruit - the Shark’s Fin melon (squash) has a couple of good-sized fruits but I’m not sure that the Festival or Taheri Melon squash are going to achieve anything edible but I do hope so!
Shark’s Fin melon squash
So today’s the last day of August, it’s seemed a quick, but beautiful Summer and I hope it’ll continue for a few more weeks giving the rest of our sunflowers time to bloom 🙄 Poor little plant desperately needed a drink that day!
Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush provide the positive song title as we move into meteorological Autumn and see what September brings us….
We had a trip to a local vineyard yesterday with plot-buddies Linda and Ivan. The Winding Wood Vineyard is a rare thing in Britain - it creates organic sparkling wine using biodynamic practices.
The tour was interesting and gave Ivan a few ideas for his grapevines at the allotment - one half of the vineyard is growing the same variety of Pinot Noir grapes as he is. Interesting that they use horsetail-tea to spray the leaves against aphids/fungus - we can help with that! They also use willow-bark and yarrow flowerheads and china-clay against mildew. They don’t do any watering - even this year - as vines have 5m roots. But they have a fancy heating system to avoid frost damage at vital stages - Ivan will need to stick with fleecing.
I wanted this photo of the ripening grapes in row 23 when Linda snapped me 😊
After the tour - it’s across 2acres, so not a lot of walking, we went into the lovely big barn for tasting of three 2020 wines. The rosé was mine and Jamie’s favourite.
The Winding Wood’s 2500 Pinot noir and Chardonnay vines are 13years old, so about twice as old as Ivan’s.
Winding Wood Vineyard - Chardonnay vines
These are Ivan’s 10 vines - I just know we’re going to find him stripping back leaves next time we see him on site!
Ivan’s are larger than the grapes at the vineyard, which I think were intentionally smaller but about the same state of ripeness. Harvesting will be likely. Be mid-September or October.
It was a very pleasant couple of hours in a beautiful quiet location, so peaceful. And very interesting to see their techniques for growing organically - I think I want to dig out my biodynamic gardening book…
Meanwhile, on the allotment I’ve cleared three areas - the over-Wintering broad beans will go where I pulled the leek flowers up. Look how dry it is! I disposed of the leek seed heads and composted the stems.
The sweetcorn patch has been cleared, apart from a few snapdragons, to get a bit more light to the Jacob’s Cattle dwarf beans which are drying on the plants - I’ll move them into the polytunnel before it’s due to rain. Last year my drying beans got such a drenching they went mouldy on the plants so couldn’t be saved.
Harvests have mostly been tomatoes now. All three of our varieties have produced plenty of fruits - I may need to make some passata to store.
Cocktail Crush, Black Moon, Redcurrant
I had fried veg which included radishes and radish pods - the radishes were really tasty, like a peppery turnip.
It’s a bank holiday weekend and we also get Tuesday off - yay - and the Sun is shining so I should get off my butt. Have a good weekend all. The song is provided by Empire of the Sun.
It’s been extremely hot again, reaching 30° and there’s still a holiday-feel in Hungerford when the Sun shines. We’ve enjoyed walks to feed the ducks in town and on Sunday went to the monthly Food & Artisan market and had a cake by the canal - lots of canal boats visiting. The allotments are further up the canal in that direction.
On Wednesday I took leave so Jamie and I had a trip to the seaside - Hayling Island, we haven’t been there for years. It was rather cold and windy 🙄 but we did enjoy some terrific thunder and lightning!
We went on the little train along the beach, well, why wouldn’t you?!
It was fun trundling along waving at people and we couldn’t have walked it.
We played on coin-push machines, had chips and watched seagulls arguing over some biscuits. Traditional British seaside amusement ☺️
We even had a paddle in the sea - I was panicking that Jamie would fall down, but I’m pleased to say all went well!
I’m leaning rather than the horizon - I was paddling at the time
So, no matter what the weather we had a fab, exhausting, day. Of course, the next day I had to work and it was really hot again - we were too tired to even visit the plot so it had another day without water - the plants, especially the flowers and sunflowers really didn’t appreciate it and were completely flagging by Friday but have cheered up again now.
The amaranthus (Love lies bleeding) was transplanted when it popped up having self-seeded amongst the potatoes so I’m pleased that survived. And I think I sowed the cerinth last year (or maybe it was this year) and there’s a nice little cluster of those interesting flowers in the flowerbed.
Many veg plants are going over now though, seems like a short season. The Baby cucumber has burned itself out and I’ve started removing some of the dried bean pods from the Gigantes with the Borlotti following soon. But the melons are trying hard to produce something…. This is in the polytunnel and the outdoor plants have a few fruits too.
And the squashes on the tunnel are beginning to flower and fruit - this is the so-called rampant Shark’s Fin melon squash. Well, perhaps not rampant for us this year… or perhaps there’s still time.
I’m pleased that the earlier-sown radishes have produced their seed pods now which I enjoy snacking on and the flower is quite pretty too.
The aubergines are bulking up and more tomatoes are ripening - even a few of the tiny redcurrant tomatoes so there’s still more to enjoy - but I’m glad I didn’t sign-up to put anything in the Horticultural Show!
The Doobie Brothers provide the excellent song title - enjoy ☺️
We were lucky with the weather except on our final morning when we got a drenching and there was thunder and lightning as we made our way home. Next time we’ll keep a brolly with us rather than leaving them in the hotel and the car!
