Sunday 28 August 2016

I Spy Through the Rain

This is looking through the slats of the stable down to our plot at the bottom of the site - it was a rainy/misty/warm day so we spent quite a bit of time in the greenhouse or in the site stable. All I did was a bit of weeding, picking and taking photos anyway, so it didn't matter that it was rainy - at least it wasn't cold.
I put the camera on a long stick - it looks better from ground level!
The rainbow chard stems are the brightest thing on our plot at the moment - almost glowing in the misty light!
The pumpkins on Plot 3 are amazing... Two plants and at least 7 large pumpkins. The foliage is beginning to die back as you can see.
This was that plant 8 weeks ago - isn't nature amazing?!

A little way to go yet...

We've had some really hot days with sultry nights and yesterday we got the storm. I didn't see any lightning but heard thunder rumbling around. The sun and rain are encouraging everything to grow but our sunflowers are shorter than previous years.
Sunflower peeping through
We've been to the plot to harvest and water each evening. This is our one loofah that's formed - it's about 30cm long. The plant is now producing quite a few flowers, but there won't be time to make any more loofahs at this stage.
The peppers are colouring up now; 2 peppers per plant is rather weak. I hope they taste good, we'll wait till they get their full colour before they get eaten - maybe stuffed peppers, mmm.
We've been alternating between courgette-based meals and runner bean & potato meals over the last couple of weeks. The runner beans are beginning to get a bit stringy on the edges now. The potato has been grey-purple because we've been using the Salad Blues- still tasty, but not very pretty! We should have emptied them out of the potato bag earlier then we could have had them as boiled salad potatoes.
All that (apart from the cucumber and raspberries!) went into a lovely roasted vegetable and halloumi meal.
That was the first of the patty pan summer squashes. We think it has a bit more flavour than the courgettes. They were really slow to get going, but look like they're going to swamp us soon! The courgettes I take to work keep disappearing from the kitchen, so they won't go to waste.
The tomatoes we're mostly eating are Aviditas, I think they're more tasty than the Orange Paruche, which split as soon as they're picked. The Indigo Rose are still on their way to ripening... I've tied them up in an attempt to get the green ones and green parts to see more light..
Our sweetcorn has finally formed some cobs. They aren't very big, but hopefully they're still going to fill out. Looking at previous years (aren't blogs handy?) we normally start harvesting it in September, sometimes late September, so we seem to be pretty much on track.
The Jack-Be-Little plants are producing loads of pumpkins and clambering all over the sweetcorn, the trellis, the courgettes.... And the Speedy dwarf beans which are just forming, so we'll have them to replace the runners in our diet.
A mackerel sky

Wednesday 24 August 2016

Star-struck Cucumber

That's my starry salad lunch - we were so pleased that our cucumber mould was successful this year, for the first time! We may be lucky and find a heart-shaped cucumber waiting for us on the plot one evening this week!
The growth spreads suprisingly well into the corners of the mould and then there's a bit of a fight to get the mould off, but I think it's worth it. (Not convinced it would work too well on tomatoes, but maybe next year)
The weather is sweltering, but still the plants are beginning to look rather autumnal - that's our largest pumpkin preparing itself for October!
And the hedgerow is well-stocked with berries already. Summer seems to have been rather short-lived although we have had some lovely hot days and long evenings to enjoy this year. And recently we've had some hot Septembers and Octobers, so I hope this year follows suit.
My salad was all home-grown: delicious coleslaw, with cabbage and carrot, two tpes of tomato, purple basil, rainbow chard and Rocky cucumbers. And the salad we had for dinner last night included courgette and potato/onion cakes.
We're still waiting for the purple/black tomatoes to ripen, but they can't be too far off now...

Sunday 21 August 2016

Showtime 2016!

It was the second year for HAHA to join forces with the Royal British Legion for the Horticultural and Handicraft Show. With 32 exhibitors and 406 exhibits it was even more successful than last year - See how useful allotments are to local communities!
Setting up the Show
We were picking, selecting, washing and trimming our vegetables on Friday afternoon and early Saturday morning. We managed to gather together reasonable items for the following categories:




  • Tomatoes on a vine




  • 5 Bush tomatoes



  • Matching pair of cucumbers



  • 4 carrots with tops



  • Any 5 veg



  • Any 3 veg



  • 3 onions (over 8oz)



  • 3 onions (under 8oz)



  • Largest circumference onion



  • Plus a photo for each category

  • And now we have a flat full of slightly wonky carrots, dodgy spuds and damaged cucumbers. Also the cabbage that we were hoping to include but that is too holey - I think we're going to have lots of coleslaw over the next week! This is our trug of spuds. The Salad Blue are a great colour, but horribly scabby - they were grown in a bag. The white ones are Orla, grown in a bag, and are really good quality. The Kestrels were grown in the ground when we were searching for coloured potatoes to show.
    Can't believe we couldn't find 5 runner beans that were suitable! And again our longest runner bean wasn't long enough - doh! We got 1st place for a couple of the categories but mostly 2nd, 3rd or highly commended. But all placings earn points so we got equal third prize so not bad considering the year! And we're always happy to share with Ted :-)
    After a busy morning and afternoon it was good fun going along to the prize-giving in the evening. Along with the auction of exhibits and raffle and a bar to enjoy a shandy (ahem) or two or three :-)
    It's such a fun event and great to mix with our fellow growers along with bakers, picklers and handicrafters!We're only sitting by the cakes - we didn't buy or make all of them!! 

    Sunday 14 August 2016

    Count your Lucky Stars

    We had a stroll up to the allotment in the early hours of this morning to look for shooting stars during this year's Perseids meteor shower. It was a beautiful night and the moon had just dipped out of view from the bench so we had a great dark sky to view. 
    That's not a photo :-) We only saw a couple of meteors each, but it was worth venturing out. An owl was very active and noisy in the trees around the site and on our way through the Croft a hedgehog trundled across our path! We'd only mentioned yesterday that we hadn't seen one for a couple of years.
    We had a lovely sunny afternoon on the plot yesterday; watering, feeding and deadheading various plants.
    And look! The sunflowers are here! The tall ones are still growing but not flowering yet, but the short ones are very sweet and the bees love them.
    We picked a few bits for dinner - our yellow courgettes are getting greener each day! Cucumbers are featuring in every harvest now.
    A bit annoying that this was amongst the carrots. That could have been our entry for the 'funny shaped veg' in the show next week. I expect there will be more to choose from though!