Stop Me...

...from eating all the delicious soup!

We've visited the plot both days this weekend. Yesterday I showed a new plotholder around and then we did a bit of clearing of Plot7 and also weeded and dug a bit of 6x fertiliser around the rhubarb. The plants look like piles of burned debris, but there are signs of life in there.

Today we only walked up to pick some ingredients for my soup: parsnip and carrot. Some of the parsnips have rotted right through, but the one I took home was a lovely big one with only a small bit of canker near the top. It was such a big parsnip that I only pulled one carrot.

Two cloves of garlic, some paprika, cumin, salt & pepper were added to olive oil and butter to heat up.

Then the carrots and parsnips for about 15 minutes before the stock was added and it was all boiled/simmered for another 30minutes.

And then I tasted it - yum, it's so tasty but I must save it for my lunches next week!
So, The Smiths song seemed an appropriate title ,but here's the Mark Ronson version (because he doesn't include the 'if you've heard this song before' phrase in the title!). Enjoy!

Five Years

At last! The news we've been waiting for... Hungerford Town Council and the housing developer (on behalf of the landowner) have confirmed ("in principle" - well, nothing's signed yet) that we can have a further five year lease extension - yay!

Our changing plot over the last few years

We can do a lot with 5 years and actually plan a bit. Of course, we are still hoping that permanence is on the cards in the future, but let's not be greedy at this point! Now, where did we put those seed catalogues?!

And, this post's music is provided by the lovely David Bowie, such a sad loss last year...

On a Day Like Today...

... you don't feel like leaving the flat. However, it's the new year!  

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Good luck and good wishes for the next 365 days and beyond...

So, although it was rainy and rather cold, with no risk of snow (shame), we ventured to the plot to pick some sprouts.

We're pleased that they've grown, though the stalk is shorter than the advertised 1m; we think they are a bit stunted because we didn't plant them out till the end of July. We don't need many for our chestnut, sprout and (Quorn) chorizo stir-fry tonight and there should be enough for another 3-4 meals at least.

The top dish is roasted, chopped/mashed potato, carrot, parsnip which we re-baked and had with vegetarian haggis for our New Year's Eve meal. I prefer the Stahly haggis rather than the Waitrose, but it's hard (expensive) to track down. The soup is parsnip and carrot with garlic - really tasty - it was just two carrots and the two legs of that parsnip with about 1pint of stock and a bit of paprika. It's probably the first soup I've made where I haven't added an onion, just garlic. I think I'll try that again.

This year I'm going to attempt to use a song title as the title of each post. It's tricky thinking of new titles for each post anyway, so this is only going to make it harder, but I'll see how I get on... I hope this isn't the last song title I think of!!

I was thinking of the Keane song and someone's helpfully added the lyrics in Spanish to this video - enjoy!

Glistening Droplets

Well, I was meant to have finished blogging for the year, but can't resist after a short visit to the plot to pick parsnips and carrots.

The frost and fog had cleared and the dipping sun was just at the right angle.

All the netting was glistening like diamonds.

Just beautiful!

And we got our veg, after a bit of a fight!

That was 2016

This is going to be a positive post about 2016; highlighting ten good things about another lovely year within our allotment bubble.

In no particular order:

1. Star and heart-shaped cucumbers. The moulds probably work best with small, quick growing cucumbers, like our Rocky. They're apparently suitable for tomatoes too, but we didn't try that. They didn't work on courgettes.
   
   
2. Sunny picnics and some warm late nights on the plot. Summer started really wet with slugs and snails taking out a lot of early growth but July and August were delightful with plenty of sunshine.
   
   
3. A blue poppy. A gift last Christmas and I was so pleased when it actually flowered as the slugs had rather a taste for it initially! I hope there will be a further showing this year...
   
   
4. We grew a loofah. Well, that's cool, isn't it?!
   
   
5. Ratatouille - what a colourful meal - and it tasted good, especially covered in cheese and sprinkled with chopped nuts
   
   
6. Black tomatoes - Indigo Rose look so great but not a great flavour, this year we're trying some stripey ones. But we'll also be growing that tasty little red cherry variety Aviditas.
   
7. We found a coin - a 1744 farthing! For all our searching we've only found 3 in 7 years and this was the oldest.
   
8. Growing potatoes in bags - so pleasing to harvest. We used nematodes which we think worked well to keep the slug numbers down. Our favourite bagged variety was probably Orla.
   
   
9. Seeing a pair of bullfinches in the hedge - the first time we've seen them at our end of the site. We saw them later in the year too, which I hope is a good sign they'll be back next year.
   
10. The second HAHA/RBL Horticultural Show - such a great turnout, with over 300 entries. We're already looking forward to next year.
So, it wasn't all bad in 2016.
After all, at the beginning of the year we thought we may not have an allotment and then 5 days later we were given a reprieve....(which we're currently waiting on again....anyway, stay positive!)

I wonder what 2017 has in store...