When it Rains

 … Everyone gets wet!

Poor little bee, clinging on to his cosmos stalk. We know how he felt! It was the first time in months that we walked to the site because the roads were at a standstill due to the M4 being closed.

We knew it was raining but what rain! We were drenched before we were halfway to the site, but we needed to pick runner beans and it is nice to see the site in all weathers…

I thought I’d practice some macro shots. The Gigantes and Scarlet Empire runner beans are still full of flowers and beans. The weather makes it feel like September so I’m forgetting that we have (probably) another 2 months of growing time for the squashes and at least some of the beans.

The runners, garlic and shallots are key ingredients of our meals at the moment.

And the Nicola potatoes are a really tasty variety. 

They’re delicious hot or cold and we’re really enjoying them mashed too. This meal is based on my mum’s ‘yellow fish pie’, with plant-based This isn’t bacon rather than fish and it is SO DELICIOUS!

The pumpkin foliage has really died back, but the other squashes are still growing. I’ve been checking the squash tunnel for fruits. There are definitely two Boston squashes, two Spaghetti squashes and two Crown Prince squashes, plus quite a few Festivals and Honey Boats. 

There are no giants at the moment (apart from some ridiculous tromboncino!) but that suits me. I must say it’s pleasing standing in the tunnel looking up through the vines. A lot of the fruits seem happier forming closer to the ground, particularly the Festival squash and I gave up trying to get them to grow in the right direction so now the tunnel can only be accessed from one end.

The swifts were gathering on the power lines so perhaps they’re thinking they’ve had enough of our weather too!

Dare I say that the polytunnel tomatoes are still surviving blight and are beginning to go orange. The peppers are refusing to colour up but a branch has snapped off so I’m hoping they’ll ripen in the kitchen window.

So that was it for a day off work on Friday and a soggy Saturday.

The song is provided by Paramore.

Just Got Lucky

I thought I'd start the post on a happy picture, as the next photo is a less happy one - our tomatoes haven't escaped blight so this lunchtime I chopped off all the leaves in the vain hope that some may actually go red. I'm envious of all the tomato harvests I'm seeing on social media!

What a poor show! So it appears that we'll have to keep buying tomatoes for the rest of this year 😔 It's a shame because everything else in most of my meals is home-grown at the moment.

The runner beans are really paying out. And a branch snapped off my dwarf borlotti beans, so I had some of them in their pods along with the first picking of Speedy dwarf beans.

All of the beans apart from the Edamame are producing beans now. The Edamame have only just started to flower, so not sure whether they'll produce in time - the plants look healthy but the weather is definitely feeling like September.

Harvests are a bit more varied, (well, different shaped courgettes!) but how many more courgettes, cucumbers and beans can I eat??

I've made another batch of marrow and carrot soup, flavoured with celeriac stems. I should have removed the centre of the marrow, as the soup is a bit watery; I may need to add a potato to it to thicken it up a bit. I’ll see how it tastes tomorrow.

We have plenty of garlic - good job I'm working from home and not socialising! And I harvested a first Tromboncino for this tasty meal.

That's the before photo and I scoffed half of it before getting a photo after it was cooked, with a bit of cheese on top. It has Ancho chilli flakes added to the carrot, shallots and garlic; they’re not hot but add a lovely flavour - it covered two meals as Jamie's refusing to eat any more Summer squash 😃

That’s me, making holes for planting the leeks at the weekend - look, the sun shone and it was warm. We now have 40 leeks puddled-in, thanks to our plot neighbour Neal. We’d be waiting rather longer if we used our specimens…! How pathetic are they 😄

Leeks are such a tasty addition, particularly as our shallots didn’t produce very much. Jamie’s been trying to buy pickling vinegar to pickle a small jar of shallots but has found that in short supply - along with other items. Is it COVID-related or BREXIT… or maybe a bit of both?

Anyway, (don’t get me started) I’ll drag myself away from my two favourite subjects. The song title is provide by The Jo-Boxers and I’ve chosen it because more and more I’m reminded of how much ‘luck’ can change people’s fortunes - good or, sadly, very bad. Stay safe all.

Colours

Hmm, well, I’m not happy seeing the orange tint to the pumpkins already though I’m not too surprised, there’s been a definite Autumnal feel to the weather of late - obviously we’re all talking about it.

We have two New England Pie pumpkin plants; both planted on top of a big hole filled with manure. One has produced more than 6 football-sized fruits with more on the way. The other has only produced 3 and two of those have only just started developing. Either way, we’re going to have a pumpkin feast for Halloween (hope I’ve had my 3rd jab by then and can actually socialise a bit more!).

In between some serious showers this weekend we have managed some lovely harvests. Those are 2 Rocky cucumbers, the two plants are producing masses of fruits. We even resorted to blending those two with a bit of lemon juice and drinking it - we’ll, you’ve got to try these things….if only once! 

The two courgette plants have been causing trouble too - how can we keep up with this silliness - these were all marrow-sized? Luckily a couple were a bit yellow on one side so I didn’t feel guilty about composting them! 

The biggest one has been made into soup with the carrots and celeriac; it’s very tasty with a bit of turmeric and sweet paprika and has a lovely creamy texture. I took the celeriac stems out part way through cooking, but they’ve added a really nice celery flavour. Those celeriac stems were from two plants that were starting to go to seed, so I doubt they’ll bulb up very well.

I’m pleased that runner beans and carrots are on the menu now, they’re always a nice colourful addition to a meal. Like this dish, which I hadn’t made before. These fritters are beetroot, onion, flour and carrot using this recipe. I have to admit that the flavour was mostly of onion but the beetroot came through a bit and they’re a nice colour.

Two were filling enough for me, so I have the other two with roasted patty pan tonight. They’ve lost their crispiness since being in the fridge, so I’ll find out soon if I should have just kept the uncooked mixture which was even more colourful!

I had this salad for several lunches last week with patty pans, beetroot and dried Gigantes beans; my dried stock from last year is running low but the wigwam of plants has plenty of flowers and tiny beans now.

We’ve been assisting the sweetcorn with pollination now that the male flowers and female tassels have grown. Better pollination means more tasty kernels on the cob.

Something that doesn’t need any help with pollination is the tromboncino squash (I know Mal, you did warn me!) Look at that lot just making there way over the framework. At least they can be eaten as a Winter squash as well as a Summer one…. Apparently.

As already mentioned, the weather hasn’t felt like Summer and the damp weather has brought blight to the site. We’ve cleared our infected potato haulms and desperately hoping that tomatoes in the polytunnel will escape infection…  But if plot visits are timed right it’s been rather pleasant and I do like dark clouds like the ones looming as we returned home today.

I’ve been moaning (a bit) that we’ve had so many days of sunshine and showers but hadn’t seen a rainbow. But on Friday one appeared outside our window - perfect and they’re such a pleasure to see, aren’t they?

So the song title for this colourful post is provided by The Avalanches. Enjoy.

Slow and Steady

The squash tunnel is enjoying the rain - we had torrential showers yesterday. The tromboncino have reached the top first but others are joining them. I have been manipulating them skywards but they do prefer to grow sideways and along the ground. 

We didn’t visit the plot today as we had stuff to do at home, plus Hungerford is jammed up because the M4 is closed this weekend. The Sun didn’t show itself at all and there weren’t even rain storms to encourage as outside.

I’ve finished varnishing the crate that I decoupaged using seed packets, allotment magazines and seed catalogues. It’ll be useful for displaying things at the food festival and other HAHA events when they start happening again.

I made a lovely rice dish last night (well, I thought it was tasty) with turmeric and smoked paprika flavouring. It was just courgette, onion, tomato and garlic - I love this kind of meal and it’s so colourful too.

And I did my Big Butterfly Count in the week. I thought I’d hang round the lavender but all I counted was:

3 x Large whites

1 x Small white

4 x Small tortoiseshells 

1 x Small skipper

If the sun re-appears I’ll try again. I’ve seen so many other butterflies on site recently, so it’s a shame they were a no-show but not so unusual!

I’ve made a Google album showing the different flowers on the HAHA Wildlife plot, it’s looking rather lovely at the moment - lots of pinks and purples.

So that brings us to the end of July and just one day left of my holiday, shame as it’s been a lovely break but I know I have another few days off at the end of August so not too bad and obviously I’m still working from home so no commute - hoorah! The song, by Of Monsters and Men, is in reference to the decoupage, which I see that I started in March - well, there was no hurry 🙂

Up in the Sky

I’ve been enjoying my holiday so far. The weather has been perfect, not too hot and some evening (heavy) showers so we haven’t needed to water too often.

Ivan let me pick a punnet of blackcurrants so I made a load of sauce and we’ve been having it with ice cream, it is delicious. I added sugar at a ratio of 1:3 so it still has a tartness to the flavour.

We had a lovely picnic on the plot for my birthday - my sister gave me a veggie hamper from a local deli which was perfect for the hot day; better than the planned bbq.

We’re doing quite well keeping up with the courgettes. Now joined by Patti-pan squash, which I think have a bit more flavour than the green bush courgettes.

I’d not really appreciated how delicious cold roast veggies are before. I’ve been having them for lunch over a few days. Beets, garlic and courgette from the allotment plus other bought veggies at the moment. I look forward to it containing all home-grown, one day soon. Cheese, onion and nut stuffed courgettes are our other current favourite meal (particularly when I fried the onions in Oak-smoked oil prior to stuffing).

I’ve pulled the remains of the broad beans, where the leeks will be planted. The broad beans left on the plants were well past their best, but there were enough good ones to make broad bean and courgette soup using this recipe from Riverford Organic. It tastes really nice and creamy.

The Jermore shallots have done all that they can, so they’ve been moved to the polytunnel for a bit of final drying. They didn’t grow as much as expected, with some very small bulbs and the clusters per planted shallot were rather weak. There are enough reasonable-sized ones to have a jar pickled for Christmas and the rest will be nice additions to various meals.

Most of the beans are flowering (not the edamame or dwarf french yet) and a few tiny beans are appearing on the Scarlet Empire runners. I think the Borlotti flowers are the prettiest, so delicate, but the pure whiteness of the Gigantes beans is also rather stunning.

Monday was a sunnier day than we expected so we took some photos with the camera on the end of a 6ft bamboo cane.

It gives an interesting alternate view of the world.

But then Ivan offered us his fishing rod extension - 4m gives an even better view! Can you see our sun umbrella at the further edge of the site, near the tree?

All the plots are looking so amazing this year. It’s beautiful to wander round. Even the less well-kempt ones look nice because there are so many butterflies (I really must try to do the Big Butterfly Count today) and birds - we’ve been enjoying watching a family of bullfinches on a neighbouring plot (see my wildlife blogpost).

So that’s why I chose today’s song by Oasis. If you’d like to see more of the photos, they’re on the Marsh Lane Allotments Facebook page or here on Google Photos.