Picking Bush Delicata squashes before the frost

Jamie visited the plot a couple of times during the week. It's been a grotty week weather-wise - basically living in a cloud, so everywhere is soaking.
Jamie said that the mouse or slugs have left empty hulls of the little butternuts, which came to nothing because they got going too late. They were Butterbush variety but did spread over the ground; possibly because they weren't confined to pots. I think the year's weather can be blamed for their poor show rather than the variety as each plant did produce several fruits. The squashes grew to about 10cm but were still green when the frost took them out :-(

More positively, Jamie picked all the good squashes from the Cornell's Bush Delicata - pretty good from one plant! He brought them home as we were expecting the weather to go very cold on Friday and it did - about 5° at work, though no frost on the car.

We're going up the plot later, after my flu jab, but still won't be able to burn the hedging day cuttings - they're probably wetter today than they were last week! As I look out the window now there's beautiful blue sky and sunshine but it sure looks cold - brrr. Where's our flask gone? I've a feeling we're going to need coffee!

Celeriac and Fennel Soup

Mmmm, yum, yes the soup worked though I needed to add more pepper to it - I always do anyway. Lovely for my lunch for a few days this week!

Fennel, Celeriac and Garlic

As I'm typing this there's a lovely smell - my fennel and celeriac soup is cooking. Aah, the smell of the celeriac on my hands is lovely!
I pulled three celeriac roots which, after hacking off all the unusable bits, weighed 500g. I've added a pint of veg stock to that, plus an onion, plus as many fennel fronds as I could cut from the big stem I brought home. I should have used the bulbous fennel stem but there wasn't one(!) so this soup is going to be more celeriac that fennel-flavoured. After I've blended it with my favourite kitchen accessory, my hand blender, I quite often have to add more water, but as celeriac is such a watery-type of veg it may be fine this time..

Soup in-waiting

During our quick visit to the plot I planted the Taylor's Solent Wight garlic - the one bulb had more than 15 cloves so I planted 5 rows of 3 - they're about 15cm apart. Some of the cloves are quite small and slim so not sure how well they will grow but if only half of them grow that will be plenty of garlic. It seems that planted now they should be ready for harvesting, when the foliage is dying back, next June.

Hedging Day

It was the first visit to the allotment for a week and it was a foggy start. The last week has been noticeably darker in the morning but I didn't think it was particularly cold. However, there had clearly been a frost - the squashes have definitely had it now.

Frosted squash

Something had enjoyed the last of our Rocky cucumbers! Not sure if it was a mouse or a slug - or a few of each!


Just hollowed-out skins left

We didn't do anything to our plot today (though I had intended to plant garlic) as it was a HAHA workday. And when the fog had cleared it was a lovely sunny day for it.
We cut back the hedging which was growing through the rabbit fencing and strimmed some of the overgrown communal areas. It was quite exhausting but a nice way to spend the day, though there was some guilt in cutting off the lovely rosehips and other berries - we left plenty for the birds though. It's been so wet recently that we got soaked by the dripping hedge but managed to finish all the way round the site.


Zoe and Alison

The brambles, hawthorn, ivy and other cuttings were piled onto the communal area and Jamie and I attempted to burn it...

Firestarter/Smoke breather

Unfortunately there was more smoke than fire and the wet green cuttings were really not wanting to burn so we've left the big pile to dry off for a bit (hopefully we'll get the Indian summer we've read about).

The barbecue was rather more successful and made for a welcome break for a chat - shame for the workers who couldn't stay for the grub though!

Hmmm, leek moth and lifecycles

Well, I clearly should have looked closer when I photographed the leeks yesterday! We have got some leek moth damage (not too much) and today we found several leek moth cocoons, which we disposed of, away from our leeks - hopefully our little robin will gobble them down! It would appear that the leek moth caterpillars had sneaked under our leek netting cage.



Leek moth cocoon

If these do develop into moths they'll be the parents that start the cycle to trash our alliums next Spring :-(
Talking of which, we visited the local Wyevale Garden Centre to buy a fork - they didn't have any!! - but I did buy a Solent White garlic bulb. So, we dug over the area by the leeks and hoed some chicken pellets in - we'll plant the garlic next weekend. I think there should be about 10 cloves.



Hoe hoe hoe (sorry!)

There are still quite a few butterflies about. Though it was cold enough for a frost last night it's lovely and warm in the sunshine. This small tortoiseshell butterfly was warming itself on the stones and there were a lot of cabbage whites about too. From the patterns on the outside of the wings I think it's a male. According to UK Butterflies, tortoiseshells stay in the UK and hibernate in outbuildings or hollow trees.

When we picked one of the cabbages early last month we took a tip from Liz and Ken on the allotment - they're long-term veg gardeners and know loads of tips. If you cut a cross into the remaining stem you can get extra cabbages to grow - well, this is the result. Not quite cabbages but certainly brassica leaves that can be eaten. We'll try them at some point if we get a chance while they still look edible.

The weeds continue to grow, we have a lot more weeding and clearing to do, especially with the rain and warm sunny days we keep seeing...

We picked two of the biggest celeriac and the last of the kohl rabi and sweetcorn. We rushed home to eat the sweetcorn within 20 minutes to ensure they retained as much sweetness as possible - it worked they were delish!!