Burning New Year Wishes

We had a lovely couple of hours on the allotment this afternoon; quite surprised to be the only ones there as it was so sunny and pleasant, but I know some people had to go back to work this week.

We were joined by many different birds: a robin, blackbirds, long-tailed tits, blue tits, terns and even the little egret flew over a couple of times - none was willing to pose for a photo though!

So I've sneakily added this photo of a kingfisher which I saw the other side of the hedge, on Freeman's marsh, on Monday (well, it's probably the one that we saw on the allotments last year {poetic licence!})

Jamie and I got on with our chosen jobs. Jamie cleared and dug manure into the sprout bed for next year's Christmas meal! (We missed them this year) The patch is covered in weed suppressant now and we'll weigh it down so the earth is nice and firm, just how the sprouts like it. That quarter will mostly for brassicas and root crops. There's a row of beets still in the ground but they're probably destined for the compost - I think the mice have started enjoying them already!

Before Christmas I went to a Chinese supermarket and bought, what I thought, were some paper hanging lantern kits (not the pretty set-fire-to-wildlife floataway type). I asked a Chinese girl at work for some advice and, after speaking with her mum, she said the paper wasn't for displaying (it would bring bad luck) and that I should write wishes on it, then burn them and put the ashes in a mountain stream (tricky, in Hungerford) or in a tree. Well, I figure on an allotment is probably acceptable so that's what I did. I burned all my wishes and some dried cuttings, but not as much as intended as the smoke was blowing straight along the hedge towards the nearby house and we don't want to cause problems for our neighbours. The ashes were watered into the ground, so my wishes can grow (I think that's the general idea).

It's rather a dull pic so I edited it a bit

I spent the rest of the time moving the compost bins to their new position. It's back-breaking after not doing much for a few weeks! It was a good opportunity to give the compost a turn - I'm pleased I didn't find any mice in there. I added some vegetable scraps, brown cardboard waste (and the remaining Chinese paper) to it. It's looking good; masses of fresh pink worms - lovely!

We left as the sun had gone and the moon was shining. A happy start to the new year - let's hope those wishes work :-)

 

ByeBye 2014!

Looking back it wasn't such a bad year, but with just 32 blogposts clearly much of it wasn't on the allotment - 2015 will be more productive!

HAHA Committee Christmas Meal

I'm happy to say that our Christmas meal included home-grown: carrots, cabbage and parsnips and we've enjoyed 2013 chutneys and pickles over the Christmas break too. I was very pleased with the New Years Eve meal that I cooked: parsnip, chestnut, carrot & potato gratin, with a cheesy nutty topping - Mmm, so tasty, but I had to buy a big parsnip for that. Ours were ugly-looking with so much canker there was little left to work with, but they taste lovely.

Yum yum!

So, we visited the plot on the last day of 2014 and it's looking quite reasonable. The ground was frosted solid, so hopefully lots of unwanted beasties have been killed off the natural way.

2015 has begun with mild, wet weather and I can smell stew cooking in our new slow cooker, with the last of the parsnips in it.

The best-looking of our parsnips

We've got our new poly-greenhouse to play with and as a result we're having to re-organise the plots a bit - still need to do some planning. Is it a good idea to put the compost bins right next to the greenhouse? Apart from the mice who clearly love our Dalek composters, surely we'll be inviting pests in to infect our seedlings..? Advice would be appreciated.

Happy New Year everyone!

A Big Sprout?

No, it's a cabbage! The first of this year's.

There are masses of white fly so we had to remove lots of outer leaves, but there's plenty to have with fresh carrots (carrot fly damaged unfortunately) for our Quorn roast dinner. We're a bit concerned that the parsnips may have succumbed to carrot fly too, but we'll wait till Christmas to find out...

And as we've just finished decorating our Christmas tree I'm feeling Christmassy so here's the annual shot of the lovely Hungerford a Christmas lights - always stunning!

Oh, here's my latest Chainmail article - Hungerford's quarterly publication. I think I wrote it in a hurry :-/

Soup, but no garlic, yet

A rainy and grey weekend means we still haven't planted our garlic - I think there's still plenty of time (even though I hear Gardeners Question Time are saying it's too late). I understood garlic cloves are planted by the shortest day and harvested on the longest day. I'm just worried that our bulb will start sprouting in the cupboard.

I've had three festival squash waiting to form part of a meal but one went off so I decided to deal with the other two a bit more promptly than intended. So, of course, they're now soup! That's next weeks lunches sorted.

I roasted the squashes before adding the flesh (and a shallot) to the stock, with plenty of pepper. I love my hand blender - my favourite kitchen utensil :-) I may spice it up a bit, but it tasted nice as it is. I tasted a bit of the squash before making the soup - okay, but not as tasty as the Cornells Bush Delicata.

More Carrots, More Soup

We only visited the wet plot this afternoon to put some kitchen scraps in the compost bin and pull the carrots. We can't remember what variety they were - possibly sugar snap - they should gave been picked small for salads but it just didn't work out that way. Some had grown so large that they split, so they went straight into the compost.

That's the last of the 'summer' carrots - soup for next week, made with smoked rape seed oil. The soup is a bit more runny than my normal gloopy soup, so I hope it will be tasty, it smells good at the moment.

We left in the pouring rain - felt very similar to last Sunday, but no sunshine through the rain - so, a bit of a cheat - here's a photo of last Sunday's sunset as we walked home from the plot in the rain then too!