Slurp, Slurp Soup

I made the parsnip and leek soup, but didn't bother with the spice. I thought it would be a shame to hide the flavour of the vegetables. Peeling the parsnips really brought the lovely smell out and the leeks being cooked in butter were lucky to get as far as the soup pot!

The parsnips were huge so, it's produced a rather thick soup and needs extra water adding as I heat it for my lunches this week, but it really is delicious. 

Consisting of:

  2 Parsnips

  4 Leeks cooked in butter till soft

  1 litre Vegetable stock

  Salt and lots of Pepper

I do like a simple recipe! But please don't believe my mousemat at work!!

Grow Your Own...

...or, if you're lucky, eat the generous offerings from fellow plotholders! Neal gave us some parsnips yesterday and today Jonathan gave us some leeks. Thankyou, that's a few meals sorted for this week!

We spent another sunny afternoon working on different things. Jamie was doing more digging on Plot3 - really hard work because of the tree/hedge roots. I sowed some salad leaf into a pot in the greenhouse, but my main job was to plant the Santero onions - about 40 of them. Each one had a sprinkling of onion fertiliser. The four rows are covered with netting to protect the early growth from birds. The rows are about 30cm apart with the onion sets planted about 15cm apart.

I think Mrs Blackbird already had an eye on the onions!

The garlic has grown well since the netted cloche was added a couple of weeks ago. It looks like the Flavor variety has grown a bit quicker than the Solent Wight, but there's not a lot in it.

Now, spicy parsnip and leek soup recipes...

Out with the Sun

We had a lovely few hours on a sunny allotment site today and it was nice to see fellow plotholders also taking advantage of the warm sunshine. We even saw some tortoiseshell butterflies and bumblebees so it was very Springlike.

I've re-discovered my Fujifilm camera, with the Super Macro button...

Well, these crocuses look lovely from every angle!

This is the remains of a squash, I think...

Interesting isn't it? 

It was amongst the green waste that we piled on Plot3 in October. Jamie dug it in to the bean trench today, along with some great home-produced compost - look at all those.happy healthy looking worms from our compost bin!

Jamie also transplanted the little rhubarb plant that wasn't doing very well on Plot3. It's on top of a hole filled with compost now, so perhaps we'll get to taste it this year.

I sowed 24 broad beans into pots - Masterpiece Green Longpod. We've not tried this variety before. We normally sow directly into the ground, but the mice enjoy them so much just as they germinate we've decided to protect them more this year. They're on a shelf in the greenhouse, under a plastic cover so we hope they'll survive till it's time to plant them out!

We left as the sun was going down and the birds were singing sweetly as they were going to roost.

Hail to the Plotholder..

Hail and cold winds, sleet, rain but also sun! Yay! It's March! And the birds were out in numbers. I've updated the wildlife blog, but I can't resist adding this photo here.

So exciting when you see that flash of bright red!

Jamie had a morning session on the plot and I joined him after lunch. He had dealt with the rhubarb; weeding the area and adding manure around the two plants on Plot 8.

We cleared all the dead foliage from the strawberry plants and Jamie planted up a couple of new plants to fill gaps in the row that we planted in 2014.

Before

This row was going to be pulled out this, their 4th, year (they were planted up in September 2012), but if it's the last year on Marsh Lane then we won't waste time on that job. The plants are really over-crowded so don't look that pretty but I'm sure they'll still produce plenty of tasty fruits.

After

We ate the last of the leeks last weekend, so we've cleared, dug and Grow-Mored that part of the plot. That's where our Santero onions are going this year. They were delivered this week so we plan to plant them out next weekend when the ground has settled a bit.

Uh-oh! Looks like a hailstorm

There were potatoes here last year. We didn't find any today, but I bet we'll find some growing there in a couple of months time!

We were pleased to get that sorted and pleased that after a few years of digging it wasn't too painful!

Digging, Stoning, Composting

The last week has been dry and today was too, even though it's a Saturday in February 2016!

Jamie wasn't IN the compost bin!

We were digging up the raspberries on Plot3. They are a real mess. It seems like the ground wasn't dug before they were planted, probably about 6 years ago. It was tough digging through the couch grass, raspberry roots and mares tail which is pretty bad on that plot. 

And we gathered a bucketful of big stones. But among the stones we found this one...

We're sure this has been shaped by man rather than by nature. Would love to know if anyone has any advice on this type of thing. This is the other side.

And this one...

This stone has a hole, it doesn't go all the way through, but I love the look of it in close-up and I'm thinking that little bit of grit may be what caused the hole in the first place... Maybe(?)

I replenished one if the compost bins, mostly with tea and coffee bags and other kitchen waste. Then topped it off with a load of dried-out calendula. There are lots of worms and other critters that will enjoy tucking in to that lot.

And lastly, the garlic has sprouted - yay!

I've also updated the wildlife blog.