Bad potato news

We discovered something else about our potatoes yesterday - the kestrels. They appeared to have avoided internal slug damage but had fallen foul of the WET weather and succumbed to hollow heart which is most likely due to the wet weather we had this year. It is most likely caused by second growth in potatoes - this site gives a bit more info. We managed to cut round the dodgy bits and made mash which tasted lovely with broad beans. (Actually, to be honest, the broad beans had gone past their best too but they were still nice - even if I haven't sold the meal!) The Kestrel potatoes are a concern though as we've got another 8 plants - seems like we have a lot of meals coming up involving mash...

At least the tomatoes are beginning to change colour, gradually - there are masses of toms arriving if they can just beat the blight!
And here's evidence of squash flowers, but they're all male so far - they are not going to produce any Cornell's bush delicata winter squash so they'd better get a move on!!

At least the runner beans are paying out - these arrived within a day of us picking all the big ones - only 5 plants so we'll see how long they provide us for.

Potato (and slug) time

Had a lovely couple of hours on the plot today. We'd been expecting rain but still haven't needed to use our new brolly!!
We pottered around a bit. Jamie DID finish the digging on the new plot and fed the tomatoes, runner beans and peas with Growmore.  I earthed up the celeriac, some of them are bulbing up pretty well.


Celeriac

I took a few photos and pulled some potatoes; one Chopin plant and one Kestrel - both giving pretty good harvests of nice looking tubers (we forgot to weigh them before we'd cooked them) but there are a few holes.

Geophilus carpophagus

We did wonder whether this centipede had made the holes but it seems that it's slugs. (The centipede eats baby earthworms though, so isn't a particularly welcome guest.)

Slug hole

We weren't too concerned by these holes - they don't look too offensive and don't seem to be too deep, but when we cut into the spud it's a different story...


The inside story

Ugh, not nice.
NOTE TO US: Do not bake potatoes with small holes in them!!
Jamie's already talking about buying nematodes next year, though the problem is most likely because of the awful rain. The slugs that do this type of damage are Keel slugs - not the giants you see when you move anything outside at the moment, but fairly small ones (<6cm) which live under the ground.

Anyway, the potatoes tasted nice, just needed a few extra bits cut off! We also had lovely runner beans and the cucumber is for lunch - also great for a little snack whilst on the plot :-)

Weeding and Digging

Another lovely hot day! It was sunny but hazy so we were able to spend several hours on the plot. Lots of chat and sitting but also got some work done.


Calendula and sweet peas

Jamie very nearly managed to finish digging the new plot! So the whole plot has nearly been properly dug now but there are so many weeds about that dug areas are seeded within a few days!
I did a lot of weeding, particularly round the celeriac and the squashes which appear to be growing pretty well - though no signs of actual squashes yet... just lots of green buds.

Sprouting Rhubarb

There were also lots of insects including butterflies still desperately trying to get at our brassicas - but not succeeding.

There was fluff from groundsel and thistles blowing all over site today :-( The grass paths on our site look good but they sure do generate a lot of extra work. We mowed our paths and someone else was mowing the communal areas. The grass seed that's escaped on to the plot has grown well (grrr) and is a real pain to keep on top of.

Hot and Blighty!

We went to the plot after work as it's been a really hot day and was a lovely sunny evening. We found this mutant calendula - interesting look for a flower!

We had to cut down all the potato haulms (foliage) due to blight sweeping across the site - not at all surprising given the amount of water we've had this year and it's been very humid over the last couple of days - hopefully our tubers are mostly ok, but blighted spuds won't store. We stuck sticks in so we don't forget where each plant is!


Cleared spud plot

We also saw some exciting wildlife! Les and his son, Nathan, came down to our plot for a photo of the slow worm they found in their compost bins. It looked like it's tail had regrown at least once. We saw two frogs hopping round our plot.

Both of these are very welcome visitors.

A less welcome guest, but still interesting to see, was a mole! He was foraging through the grass, digging small holes for worms. Unfortunately my photo was too blurry to post.

As HEAT were on site for their weekly communal allotment evening there were drinks and biscuits provided, so we didn't leave till the sun had gone. HEAT (Hungerford Environment Action Team) really want more people to join in with their allotment - anyone who doesn't think they can handle a full allotment should come along to Marsh Lane on Thursdays at 7:30pm to talk to Suz or Catherine.

A brolly for a shed and leeks

We had some time to spend on the plot this afternoon, lovely and warm and quite sunny. We've bought a fishing umbrella. Hopefully for more sun protection as well as rain (I'm saying that quietly as we can do without rain for a few more days!).

Brolly/Shed beyond the coriander

We were offered some more leeks (thanks Malcolm!) and after losing all ours last year due to leek moth I figured it would be silly to refuse! So I puddled some into a space in the legume quarter - there was only room for 12 but if they get big that's plenty on top of the others that are growing pretty well so far under their enviromesh cover.

The sprouts have grown so tall that they were touching the top of the netting so we've added the extra struts back to the cage (we took them off when the cage blew off in the windy weather in June). We have replaced the netting but it's nice to see the sprouts looking so healthy - there's not much slug damage and no caterpillar problems so the enviromesh has done the trick so far.

There are already sprouts forming and on one of the plants they're really big - well, bigger than these little tiddlers.

When I removed the netting there were masses of spiders and beetles as well as centipedes and woodlouse but this was a prettier visitor (sorry, not you Dave!)

Shhh, no dogs allowed on the allotment!

Seasonal Firsts

It's been rainy and sunny throughout the day - torrential downpours then bright blue skies. We just a quick visit to the plot this afternoon to pick some food for a couple of dinners and to make some soup for lunches.
I was going to make cream of onion soup but once I got to the allotment I opted for my old favourite carrot and coriander as it meant I didn't have to buy any extra ingredients. This will be the first I've made from this season's carrots, so I picked 3 biggish ones, a nice big onion and some coriander leaves - the coriander has well and truly gone to seed so the leaves aren't really suitable though their smell is very strong.

Coriander, carrots, onion, french beans, courgette, broad beans & runners

We picked the first of our runners; only a handful, we're going to have mixed beans with our Quorn fillets and chivey-Kestrel mash tonight - something has been getting into the dwarf french beans, nibbling through the pods but not doing much damage.

We managed to get away before the next downpour started.

Sunshine and Showers

We had a nice couple of hours on the plot this morning - pretty warm and sunny but the wind was rather strong. Everything had grown a lot over the last 3 days! The sweet peas are looking very pretty and there are some runner beans growing long!

We pulled some potatoes:
The kestrel plant looked a bit sickly and clearly wasn't happy. We got 3 reasonably sized tubers (400g) from it, but the blight had got down into one of the tubers  :-(
The Chopin plant was the one that I had pilfered from before, but still got two lovely big healthy looking tubers (500g).
The Red Duke of York plant wasn't very happy looking but produced a fine harvest of lovely red spuds (1.3kg). It's been such a wet year, the tubers were caked in hard mud. It's hard to learn much about the different varieties this year, but Chopin really do seem to have been particularly successful... (hope I haven't spoken too soon!)

There are 4 Courgettes in the plant-uh-oh it's started :-) A couple of the sweetcorn have the male flower developing - the plants are very short though.

The kohl rabi has germinated and more of the broad beans needed cloching. I also had to cloche some parsley which I planted out last week - something has been nibbling it. We saw a tiny little froglet hopping about so hopefully he'll stay near our plot - he was smaller than the one we saw previously (only about 3cm big - aw!)

Took the netting off the parsnips as they were getting rather cramped.

We did some weeding, dead-heading and turned the compost before having to dash off because the light pitter-patter of rain turned into a torrential downpour. And look at the crowd we found in the communal shed!  :-)

Tony, Gill, Geoff and Kerry, with Jane & Derek hidden

Mmmm, lunch

With the few slices of beetroot which were left over I had a lovely lunch; with homegrown chard (red and yellow veins), spring onions, radish, lettuce and GranoVita vegetarian pepperoni - lovely!

Pickled Beetroot

Jamie prepared and pickled the beetroot today. We always bake them wrapped in foil, with the stems still attached to prevent bleeding; this keeps as much flavour in the beet as possible.
After an hour and a half at 190° they're ready and need removing from their skins. It usually slides off pretty easily but can get a bit messy!

25g of sugar was dissolved into 350ml of slightly heated Aspall Classic Red Wine vinegar. After the beets have cooled we like to cut them with the ridge slicer and Jamie packed them into the sterilised jar and covered them with the vinegar.

 There! Ready for Christmas!

It's August already!

What on earth has happened to the year? Can't believe it's August already - having said that, the weather is feeling a bit autumnal in the mornings :-(

We popped up the plot in the evening just to pick a couple of beets for Jamie to pickle. The beets are Moneta - a monogerm variety so only one beet per seed. The skin is very dark, which we think is due to the peaty-mix that we put in the raised bed where these were plucked from. Jamie found them to be much sweeter than ones grown in the normal earth last year, so should be perfect for pickling in red wine vinegar (should be able to post some details once Jamie has done the work tomorrow!)

I picked a few bits of salad - all the lettuces in the cloches have gone to seed but some of the leaves are still edible and I chop the chard leaves up to use as salad leaf too. Also (a bit cheeky) someone had left some lettuces for planting on the freebies table - I took a few of them to eat too ;-)

The squashes as expanding but the next two courgettes aren't quite big enough for picking just yet. It's rained today and yesterday so not much watering except for the tomatoes and the cucumber. Blight is pretty much all over the site. Lots of us have chopped the haulms down - we've only done our first earlies but will have to keep an eye on the other varieties too. We put bottle-cloche protection over the broad beans which have just sprouted; but no sign of the kohl rabi or carrots yet...

Then we had a long chat with Malcolm, discussed pickling and the Olympics, among other things, then went home while it was still light and not raining.

Pickled!

We pickled the shallots. They filled two large jars and two small ones. The shallots felt quite soft when we removed them from the brine so they should soak up the vinegar nicely.

We didn't do anything fancy - just used Sarson's pickling vinegar. Though we did add some dried chillies to two of the jars. We weren't sure how hot they'd be - we were given them by my sister a couple of years ago - but judging by the pain when I touched my eye later in the evening(!) I think they may be hot hot hot!

It's pickling time!

We nipped up the plot this afternoon, managing to avoid some serious showers, just to pick some bits for tonight and tomorrow. Tonight Jamie's making mash with the chopin potatoes and we're having our first crop of french beans with some broad beans and a quorn fricasee-type thing with one of our onions - great to be using four home-grown ingredients. And tomorrow I'm making a tofu, potato, carrot and onion layered dish with 3 home-growns - yum! The other bits are for salady lunches for a couple of days.

Includes first courgette, onions, carrots and green beans

When we got back home we prepared all the shallots for pickling - we should get four small jars and two larger ones. Some of the shallots were a bit dodgy, particularly where water had gone down the stems where the shallots had flowered.

When we'd finished peeling them we put them in strong brine (using hot water dissolve the salt) and they'll stay there until tomorrow or Tuesday when they get put into their sterilised jars till Christmas. The purpose of the brine is to remove water from the onions so that there's less water to dilute the vinegar once they're pickling thus getting crunchier onions - I still don't quite get how the water is removed when they're soaked in water, but it apparently works by osmosis... fair enough!

Onions in brine to remove water

Potatoes and beans

We had a couple of hours on the plot today. It was pretty sunny and warm still, though it's meant to be cooling down significantly with rain on the way - sad to say, we do actually need it!

We pulled our first chopin potatoes - I say pulled, we always excavate them. Can't bear it when we chop into one so definitely can't use a fork to lift them like some people do! The chopins are lovely looking white potatoes which are apparently good to use for mashing and even for roasting. We got about 1kg from one plant and I delved underneath the next plant to pull a couple of extra spuds from there.

We also picked our first beetroot - haven't had a lovely fresh beetroot for months; we've still got some pickled ones from last year at home. Also picked some more broad beans to have in a curry tonight. The broad bean pods look like the beans should be big but we're finding, as others are at Marsh Lane, that the beans aren't filling out much. We have to squeeze each pod to check what's in there before picking - there are still plenty left on the plants.

We took our bucketful of shallots home for pickling tomorrow as they've had time to dry out in the lovely sunshine this week.

I sowed a row of purple kohl rabi - they were really tasty when we tried some before but they are a favourite of slugs and pollen beetle so we've put a cover over them..

And I spotted this little moth - I took a photo of a very similar looking one in May. I am not absolutely certain, but I think they're related but different varieties of mint moth. This one appears to be Pyrausta purpuralis whereas I think the one in May was Pyrausta aurata - from what I've seen on the UK Moths website.

Not so blue but still hot

Yes, today was a little cooler with cloudy skies much of the time, but it still got incredibly hot when doing anything other than sitting! I dug over the patch where we'd taken the shallots and decided not to take on any of Plot 8 (though of course Jamie did some before flaking out).

I did some weeding - all around the onions, which are Santero F1. They're downy mildew resistant and have proved to be worthy of the title as they're looking good compared to a lot of other onions on site (including some of our salad onions).

Also weeded inside the mesh cloche where we planted a row of turnips and a row of radish - the turnips were devoured by pollen beetles and slugs but the radishes got away with it. Some are big and VERY pepper - I have some salad lunches planned for next week.

Our little cucumber won't quite be ready for that but it's getting there!

Jamie cut the haulms off all the Chopin potatoes because blight has got to them - probably due to all the slug damage.
Here are some pics of some of the other potatoes which are flowering at the moment - they're very pretty.

Kestrel flowers	Congo flowers

And finally, we saw this busy little bee on our calendula - shame he wasn't on our beans, but still good to see on the plot!

Another hot BBQ day

Another brilliant day for a barbecue, not quite as hot as yesterday but still way above average at about 28°!
I took this photo by attaching the camera to a 8-foot bamboo and then setting the 12 second timer before holding it high above my head - it looks really high up doesn't it? It makes for a good bird's eye view of the plots :-)

Overhead shot of our plots

We puddled our leeks in and put the Shallot cage over them as some protection against leek moth.
We had to do quite a lot of watering - although it's still damp under the surface we want our veggies, which are just fruiting, to have as much water as possible. The water poured into the leeks holes soon drained away.

Puddling in the leeks

Big Butterfly Count 2012

I did the butterfly count for Butterfly Conservation in the afternoon - it was easy to find 15 minutes and a sunny spot. I decided to do it at the top of site, outside the allotment boundary where there's a bit of wild ground with lovely long grass and some tall weeds. I didn't think 'allotment' fitted any of the other descriptions very well - it's a bit different from a garden, so I went with the easy option and chose 'field'.

By the allotment entrance

The butterflies are different varieties from what we see on the plot. There were no Red Admirals, of which we've seen lots this year, peacocks or tortoiseshells and not so many cabbage whites (which we've been chasing off our cabbages all week).
Here's what I recorded:
  2 x Green-veined White - I'm sure they were this type of white because of the greeny-closed wings
  7 x Ringlet
  2 x Meadow Brown
  3 x Marbled White
I only managed to snap the Ringlet butterfly. All the others were flitting around far too quickly - I got quite a few blurred brown blobs!

Ringlet butterfly