Open Afternoon - Success!

We had fabulous weather for the Open Afternoon - we were so lucky! It was warm (probably about 23°) and the sun even showed itself at times.

We were pleased it was so well attended - there were about 80 visitors that I'm aware of.
We even had a group of people from Swindon join us, they just happened to be visiting Hungerford and followed the carrot arrows that we'd posted along the route from the High Street!
I was really pleased to see Bill Acworth again - he was on the council when the allotment site was first set up. Without him we'd never have our lovely site. He was impressed with the changes over the last couple of years and understands what an asset the site is to Hungerford. 

The burgers went down so well that we had to send out for more stock half way through the afternoon. Even all the veggie burgers were all sold!

The cream teas were also a great success; people had made cakes and scones for HAHA to sell and, of course, there was lovely home-made jam too.

Children were entertained with paper flower making and a questionnaire which meant they walked round the plots spotting certain veg and water butts, etc.

Some visitors spent a lot of time wandering through the site looking at the various methods we use for protecting our veggies and our growing techniques - that's why we always like to see what's going on on other plots too.

I was looking after the tombola and really enjoyed it. We had over 40 prizes, mostly donated, and with a 1-in-5 chance of winning all the tickets were gone by 3pm! (Next time we'll need more prizes). It was such good fun and when I did have a couple of breaks my sister stepped in to deal with customers - thanks Joanne!

The produce stall was well stocked and visitors went off with bagfuls of fresh veg and home-made pickles, jams and chutneys. A bit of a shame that Joanne bought the cabbage that we'd put on the stall - I would have given her a freebie :-)

Jamie was on standby to provide me with food and drinks and enjoyed chatting with other plotholders and visitors.

Now we are looking forward to holding more events like this in the future!

Bye-Bye Toms and Hello Sweetcorn!

This last week has really felt autumnal; we had a lovely Summer but it feels like it's over far too soon. I went up the allotment before work during the week. There was heavy dew on the paths and look at our sad tomatoes :-(

Lots of fruits to be had but blight had struck so this weekend we cleared the area and to be honest, it's a bit of relief to have some space on that part of the plot! There were calendula there too but they had long since been buried by the pumpkin leaves and haven't been seen since July so they got composted too - not to our compost bin, but to the Council green bins.

The Jack-o-lantern pumpkins have taken over but probably won't have much more growing time - just hope they start going orange soon...
We cut back the runners on the strawberries - we've potted on a couple which will replace non-fruiting strawberry plants from this year.

Today we picked our first Spring(?!) cabbage. It's there in the trug with our first sweetcorn (fabulously sweet and didn't even need butter to make it delicious) and some of our Kestrel potatoes. They're extremely scabby and only about 5 tubers per plant...but one weighed 850g! Don't know what went on there - we're blaming the weather...! 

Marsh Lane Allotments Open Afternoon 2013

Have I mentioned the Open Afternoon on here? I don't think I have, though I have been talking about it a lot in real life! It's a little later in the year than intended, because of the lease extension and then time constraints of HAHA committee members but we're really hoping the weather will be reasonable - or, even better, SUNNY!

I'm going to be looking after the tombola/produce stall and am looking forward to it. Especially now that we have some gazebos to use, thanks to helpful plotholders and my sister :-)

So, next Saturday we're going to have a busy day tidying the site and making the communal areas look their best and then Sunday we'll hopefully have lots of visitors to see how great the allotment site is. There are going to be activities for children too including a 'Nature lotto' (allotment hunt) and paper flower making so they can be entertained along with the adults.

Hope to see you there and maybe a few more Hungerford locals will be inspired to get on the waiting list for a plot! Follow the carrots from the High Street to find the site :-)

Chain Mail Article 2

Just a quick link to my second article for the Hungerford Quarterly magazine, Chain Mail.

I pretty much summarise what I've written on the blog over the previous months and try to raise the profile of the allotments within the local community. We need all the help we can get with the short lease still hanging over us.

Anyway, here's a link to the article.

And here's a photo of a hover fly that I took on our wildflower patch on Wednesday - every blog post should have a pic :-)

Lunch at the Allotment

I was working from home today and it was such a hot day that we decided to go to the plot for our lunch. It was lovely; certainly could have stayed there for the afternoon!

Jamie picked some long-awaited runner beans for his dad and we picked some bits for our dinner tonight - fried marinaded tofu with veggies (tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, basil).
Our peppers are rather gnarly but they taste fabulous.

I also took some photos of the many 'beasties' and will put entries on the wildlife blog. I'm not a fan of spiders but the one I took a photo of today is quite amazing looking! It's your standard orb weaver garden spider - the type that makes a web across your porch so you walk through it in the morning <shiver>

I meant to post this photo the other day of our pickled silverskin onions, runner bean chutney and tomato & courgette chutney.

We've decided that the pickled onions will provide us with enough for next year too so we won't plant any shallots next year - will give us a bit of space on the plot for something else...