A walk past the plot (and the last 3 years)

We went for a walk over Freemans Marsh in the sun this afternoon. There were a few moorhen on the river and a beautiful swan but we didn't see anything else of interest. The ground was very soggy (well, it is the marsh :-)) but not as bad as we've seen it before - I managed to keep my socks dry and wasn't wearing wellies!

We were going to walk past the allotments but saw Malcolm so went in and chatted to him for a good while. The ground is rather wet for digging and the weeds continue to grow in our absence!
There were quite a few fellow plotholders around and I couldn't face talking to them all so we decided against walking down to our plot (shame, I wish we had now) - I guess that's the drawback of having such a friendly site  :-)

As I was lazy, here are pics from around this date over the history of our plot (unfortunately not from the same vantage point!!)


This week in 2011



This week in 2010

This week in 2009

 

Holiday? What holiday?!

Well, as you can see...I'm not blogging about growing tomatoes in sunny Tenerife!
We didn't make it out of the country! We're so disappointed.

The Arteriovenous (AV) fistula in my arm, which was used for needling during haemodialysis, stopped working the day before I wrote the last post. Because I have my transplant I don't actually need the fistula any more but it's kept if there's a need for it in the future.
I checked with my renal unit at the Churchill Hospital and they told me it could be painful and to take painkillers. Well, there's painful and there's PAINFUL!

Clotting fistula

After another trip to the hospital and some antibiotics the decision was made - I couldn't possibly travel and wouldn't want to have been abroad with an arm that hurt when a sleeve touched it.
So we've got a couple of weeks in Hungerford instead!

Today was the first day we've ventured to the plot. The sky was blue and sunny but no life in any of our recent plantings yet (garlic or broad beans) and nothing interesting to photograph. The minimum temp has been 2° and maximum of 13° (not 28° like Tenerife - no! Stop that!!)

Anyway, back home pretty quickly to nurse my not-so-swollen-now arm.
Tut, such bad timing  :-(

Blue Skies and Cold Temperatures

We made our final trip to the plot before our holidays. It was a beautiful sunny morning and such lovely blue sky. We just did a bit of composting (I added the dried out sweetcorn sticks and vegetable waste from home to the bin.
The ash tree has lost all of its leaves now - hope this one doesn't get infected by the ash tree dieback which is spread by a fungus. The fungal disease has spread to the UK from Northern Europe and is currently a big concern for all our ash trees :-(

The temperature has reached a minimum of -1° in the last week - with frost on the car a couple of days. Our rhubarb is gradually dying back but appears to have established well since it was planted at the end of July.

So that's that for two weeks - I doubt it'll look much difference when we return. There's not much to change the look of the plot at this time of year.

Happy Halloween

We had our squashes stuffed with Quorn mince bolognaise on Halloween night. Still have 3 squashes left over which will still be edible when we get back from our hols hopefully.

Jamie's head hurt

Over-wintering broad beans

Last night we baked one of the Cornells Bush Delicata squash - well worth growing. Jamie thought it similar to sweet potato and I've today found a reference to it as 'sweet potato squash'. It really was delicious, with butter and pepper on it - ooh, I'm drooling at the memory...

We pickled two jars of beetroot last night - again in red wine vinegar, with thinner slices. The lightest of the beets was yellow once it was cooked! It tasted incredibly sweet. I think they were all boltardy beets but there may have been a couple of moneta in there too, though they were all meant to be red ones!



A rather bleak-looking plot!

We went to the plot this afternoon - it was rainy and rather chilly. It was just a quick visit to sow the Aqua Dulce broad beans for over-wintering. We've covered them with the onion netting - hopefully that will protect them from mice and the worst of the weather (we're holding Kerry to this!). We've only sown 17 seeds - leftovers from last year.

It got to 0° last night... The chives have gone down and the marjoram went black a couple of weeks ago(!) but the hardier herbs (rosemary, thyme and fennel) are ok and even the parsley is hanging on to life for the time-being.

Plot 8 still looks quite colourful in this photo, but the calendula are just about dying back.

And this side of Plot 7 only has sprouts to show off!