Preparing for Sprouts

What a cold, grey day, but it wasn't raining and it's March so we had a few hours on the allotment this afternoon. This is the plan for Plot 7 this year - rather more basic than previous years, but it's enough for now.

Today I worked on the Brussels Sprouts plot. We're having it the same size as last year, enough room for three plants.

Not too bad to dig and looked so much better as soon as the weeds and old swedes were removed. I dug some manure/compost in for a bit of added nutrition, but sprouts don't like too much.

And because it's for sprouts the ground needs to be trampled down - otherwise the sprouts will 'blow', that is, grow with loose leaves rather than a nice tight little parcel of deliciousness (I love sprouts!).

And finally, some weed suppressant which will be weighted down with bags of compost to make sure the ground underneath is nice and firm before the sprout plants are planted in a few months time.

Jamie was still fighting the raspberries and couch grass on Plot 3 to make way for the spuds. I think that will be my job too tomorrow...

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.

A Word in your Ear

Another very windy and wet Saturday, so just another quick visit to the plot. Really not very much going on on the site, but I found these Jew's Ear fungi on an elder tree branch which had blown down.

The name Jelly Ear or Wood Ear is perhaps more politically correct, but the Latin name is a bit more specific Auricularia auricula-judae. It is edible, but I didn't pick it. We have eaten it in the past. I've got a vague memory of its chewy texture, but not the taste.

Most of our visit was spent in the greenhouse looking out for wildlife. Something with four feet had walked on our raised bed and one garlic clove had been pulled up, but no other clues and no sign of mammals or even many birds today.

We walked home through the wind and rain, with a few of last years garlic harvest to have with dinner tomorrow. I hope they haven't grown when I cut into them.

Our seeds arrived in the week - look at that little lot! It'll be good to get started, but there are a few weeks and lots of preparation to do yet...

All Routes Lead to the Allotment

Ooh, that's a chilly wind out there! We went to the allotment with a plan and stuck to it but I was happy to be on the way home when I took this photo in the St Lawrence Churchyard - it's looking so pretty at the moment with daffodils, snowdrops and crocus.

On the allotment we now have about 20 cloves of garlic planted (too cold to count) in the little raised bed. I sprinkled onion fertiliser around and dug a bit in before pushing the garlic in, just below the surface.

Here are the leeks that Jamie pulled and we also got some sprouts for tomorrow's dinner. Tonight we've got leeks and Quorn lardons (like little bits of bacon, without the piggy) in a cheese sauce, topped with potato - yum yum!

I pulled some carrots (which are way past their prime, even though they're Eskimo). They're rather slug/fly eaten and the two-legged monster may be rather tough... I may make soup, but haven't got any onions. I may use some of the miso we have left over from Chinese New Year - if the carrots are ok once I've chopped them up. Or I may just have a bath instead :-)

This blogpost got me thinking about the various routes we walk to reach our Marsh Lane allotment (as you probably know, this may be the last year for this particular site). It's pretty much a mile from home no matter which route we take.

• We can walk along the canal towpath from the High Street
• and cut through the Churchyard
• or walk along further to the lock
• We can walk across Freeman's Marsh, along the River Dun and then cross the canal
• We can walk up the High Street
• under the railway bridge and go past the library (currently under threat of closure due to Government funding cuts) 
• or cut through The Croft past the Hungerford Club

What a lovely location we have, but, if we need to move so-be-it. I'd rather have a permanent site, in a not-so-pretty area than go through this lease debacle every year or so! The Council and HAHA are working on a plan - well, there's a workparty which I'm a member of so hopefully we will get something worked out.. soon.

They're He-ere...

No, not these little potato chitting dolls 'Sprouting tuber mimics by Karly Perez', Aren't they sweet? Although they are rather sad in this photo as they haven't got hair or clothes yet!

Here's the real thing. This is the Salad Blue.

And these are the Athlete, much more hairy! We were trying to work out whether the hairs are roots or whether they let the potato that it's buried and time to grow properly (Jamie's theory). I couldn't find the definitive answer, but now we reckon they are the beginning of roots.

It's worth zooming into the photo a bit more if you can...

It's a rainy day (of course) so we stayed in this morning and ordered lots of seeds online from Thompson & Morgan. We used our Tescos Clubcard vouchers so got all the seeds for a third of the price and T&M had a deal too, so we added a few more flower seed packets to the basket. I included purple honesty; the flowers are so pretty and, of course, the seed heads are too. My mother always has lots in her garden (I should have collected some seeds in the Autumn).

In the afternoon we went to the plot to feed the birds. There were couple of robins and we also saw thrushes and a tiny wren. Brrr, it was cold. Some of our leeks aren't looking that healthy, but they should be tasty - we intend to have some for dinner tomorrow.

In fact, the whole plot looks a real mess, but there's plenty of time yet...