Chilly Chillis and Eskimo Carrots

Look at that sad little plant.

The temperature went down to -4.8° in the greenhouse overnight marking the end of the chilli plant and the tomatillos.

It's been a cold weekend; not one for working on the plot but I wanted some carrots for soup so we wandered up this afternoon. The sun just peeped out for a short while, but didn't hang round and neither did we!

I pulled a couple of the Eskimo carrots - one of these weighs 500g, so I only need two for 3 days of soup! And we saved some of the red chillis - they aren't very hot but will add a little spice. Clearly Wilkos had labelled the plant wrong, which I'm quite happy with, as I couldn't have eaten them if they were too hot.

The sprout stems have been blown sideways by the recent storms but the sprouts are looking firm and have plumped up nicely over the last month.

The birds were active on the allotment today. The magpie family are ever-present and were having a stand-off with one of the kestrels before they took to the sky for a dogfight.

The kestrel chasing the magpie off

Pumpkin is not just for Halloween...

... particularly if you grow 6 plants and one of you doesn't like them!
So, I've been lunching on pumpkin soup and pumpkin seeds for a couple of weeks now and am just using the last one to make another batch of soup.

I've used a Thai stir fry paste rather than buying the individual ingredients - it's more economical and easier. Last week's soup included a little can of coconut cream which made the soup extra fragrant. This week I'm roasting the pumpkin with garlic first to ensure the pumpkin flavour gets through the spice.

The rest of the pumpkins haven't gone to waste; I've taken chunks into work for friends and I've also had some roasted as part of a meal, oh, and the bugs and beasties have been enjoying the remains on the plot!

Jack-o-Lanterns rotting away on Plot 3

One pumpkin stored in the greenhouse went rotten because there was a leak directly above it :-( As have a few of the big onions and lots of the silverskin onions started to re-grow because the weather has been so wet and mild. The greenhouse isn't as good for storage as we'd hoped, but we may just need to organise it a bit better...

Pumpkin, squash, onion and garlic

We had a few hours on the plot today - the first dry(ish) day for a couple of weeks. We cleared the runner beans and most of the greenhouse. The pepper is back in the greenhouse and the peppers are finally going red!

We planted up two tubs with layered bulbs for Spring - crocus, narcissus and tulips; topped off with some viola for a bit of Winter colour before the bulbs emerge.

The bulbs should flower at different times to provide some early season colour on the plot next year. Well, that's the plan!

Mmm, the soup was ready before I finished writing this, so I had a bowlful - very tasty, I'm quite glad when Jamie doesn't like my soups :-)

Hallowe'en Feasting

So the pumpkins had their big day yesterday! We gave some to friends and family and we used three for our Halloween activities. We still have a couple left in the greenhouse which I think will be soup (I'm keen on making a thai-style one).

We carved these two during the day and I roasted some more of the seeds - not all of them we'd never get through that many. They're so tasty roasted in a little oil and seasoning, I also added a little turmeric.

I read about taking the hulls off and using the inner kernel like sunflower seeds. The idea of breaking the outer shell beforehand was entirely unsuccessful, so i just boiled them as they were. The hulls didn't slip off easily - in fact it was a real pain and took ages, so I'll stick with the roasting whole method in future!

Our Halloween meal consisted of a starter of purple carrot soup (flavoured with a bouquet garni). And accompanied by cool star-shaped toast.The main was Cornells Delicata squash roasted in rings and filled with chilli Quorn mince.

The allotment site had one Pumpkin Jack as protection against the night's ghouls.

 

Jamie and I went for a midnight meander and it seemed to be doing its job - no trouble on site apart from two slightly tipsy plotholders ;-)

A Wet Weather Walk

And guess where we walked to... We knew we wouldn't be able to do any work on the plot on such a rainy day but it's nice to see it in all weathers and all seasons.

We did manage to pick the last few ripe Sungold tomatoes from the plants in the greenhouse. I may make some green tomato chutney with the remaining fruits but will see if I have the time and inclination.

Geese flying West for Winter(?)

The site and surroundings are looking good in their autumn colours even though it was such a grey day. The strawberries have flowers on but it's the leaves that are stunning red now!

The chard is still making a good display and the marigolds are still looking good (from a distance!)

The birds have been making the most of few visitors to the site and are enjoying eating our sunflower seeds. We saw blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits flying from the hedge to the plants when we first turned up.

Squashes and Compost

We had a few hours of clearing on the plot this afternoon. We haven't had any proper rain for a week and it was reasonably warm so there were quite a few other plotholders with the same idea. We started by picking all the suitable Cornells Bush Delicata squash from Plot 3 - that lot was from 2 plants.

We cleared all the remains of the squashes and pumpkins on Plot 3. The large leaf cover had done well to prevent too much weed growth so it wasn't too strenuous to dig up the remaining weeds and give the area a bit of a dig over. We've now put all that green waste, plus some rotted manure and straw in a pile along the weed-free section - we're intending to plant our runner beans there next year, so that compost can form the bean trench. We're hoping that leaving it like this will help it to rot down over winter and let the birds deal with any pests that may be harboured in there..

We left as the birds were going to roost and we'd done what we planned to do. I pulled some carrots and took some onions to make soup - I'm adding a bit of rosemary and it smells lovely as it's cooking at the moment.
Jamie pulled one of the Tenerife potatoes but they've been in the ground too long and aren't edible :-( Luckily we still have some lovely Kestrels which are serving us well. We had some baked last week and they were delicious.

Our Brussels Sprouts (Revenge) are looking ok on Plot 7 but the plants on Plot 3 are pathetic - that's what happens when you don't prepare the ground properly!

Autumn on the Plot

I had to scrape the windscreen last week and the nights are creeping down so we moved the pumpkins into the greenhouse. We had to do a bit more clearing in there first. The cornichons are all picked but we're not sure if they'll be very tasty as they've got so huge. We're still waiting for the tomatillos to go purple and they still seem to be growing. I found this lovely dried husk, but the ones on the plant are still green.

 We read today that the husk is meant to go brown when the fruit is ripe... Hmmm.

We got 11 good-sized pumpkins from our 6 plants on Plot3. We were pleased to see that the slugs hadn't got to them.

September wasn't a good time to go away for two weeks as we missed out on so much harvest - look at that waste of lovely tomatoes and we composted lots of cucumbers today. These are our Radish Rat Tails, they're pretty hot. The photo on the seeds showed the seedpods should go red but I can't see that happening.

This photo is evidence for my sister Joanne that I've used the drink jar she gave me!

The tomatoes are blighted so they won't be going into the compost bins - we'll clear them off site very soon.

I was pleased to see we have one (only one) swede that has actually formed properly and we found a courgette that is still edible, though rather big! We pulled a Kestrel potato and have a good supply of spuds for the next week or so - there should be a couple of good ones there for baking - yum!

We're storing manure in the compost bins while we plan what we're doing next year. We haven't got a lease extension beyond April yet!! :-(

Hungerford Food Festival 2015

A lovely day on the plot yesterday in the sunshine and there was a real buzz on site. I'm not sure if it was the weather or because plotholders were harvesting for the HAHA stand at the Food Festival. Everyone was so generous, providing bagfuls of produce for the display.

Jamie spent the afternoon carving the HAHA pumpkin and it looked great, as you can see.

We had a slideshow of photos and the site video, which is so pleasing a year after seeing it for the first time. As well as the displays we had a side stall with tasters of home-made savoury scones, fruit cordials and fruit - along with these pumpkin seeds.

I roasted the pumpkin seeds - mixed with olive oil, smoked rapeseed oil, paprika, salt and pepper - for about 50mins at 150C. They were delicious and so more-ish.

I'm glad we have more pumpkins for Halloween!

The food festival was a great success. So lovely to talk about growing your own with so many people and to see Hungerford bustling. It seems we may have gained a couple of new allotment recruits through the stall too.

What a lovely weekend! Thanks to all involved!

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!