Harvest and birthday

It's the last day of June and we've had our allotment for almost 3 months now. The plot is looking very green and lovely but that's no surprise, considering the weather. Yesterday was a gloriously hot day but I was unable to pop up so I went today instead. Despite the fact that there was a mist and everything looked a bit gloomy, our plot certainly made me smile.

There were loads of bright red strawberries just waiting to be picked. A couple of them had gone mushy so we definitely need to pick them as soon as they are ripe.

The onions are growing so quickly that it's almost difficult to keep up. I can't wait until they're ready to pick.

The courgettes are coming on nicely as well. Compared to other plots these do look a bit feeble, but considering that the first lot was eaten by pigeons (?) these have had a late start. 

Look at the broccoli! The netting has so done the trick. Under cover is also the chard:

I love the colourful stems. It's also a really nice vegetable to fry with crushed garlic in a bit of oil.

The lettuce is ready to be picked and I picked a good amount for a salad tonight and some for lunch tomorrow. It tastes delicious and little Miss M. couldn't stop munching.

This is what I brought home with me:

I intend to make some rhubarb juice from here tonight. Even if I've picked rhubarb before, this is my first harvest. It really makes all the work we've put in worth while.

Mrs.G. had a day off today as it's her birthday - hip hip hooray! In true allotment style I gave her a little bag to put her things in.

Have a good week!

Mrs. M.

Finally!

I love strawberries! Having an established strawberry patch on the allotment is such a bonus. The plants are big and full of berris so it looks like we'll have lots of them once they've ripened. When I went to water earlier on today I found these two beauties:

I just had to pick them and bring them home. There are more on the verge of being edible so Mrs. G. will no doubt be able to pick some tomorrow. They tasted delicious!

I wasn't the only allotmenteer around with a watering can in hand. Not-Bob was doing the same as me. But I have to say that yes, size does matter Not-Bob. He had already started watering when I turned up and I finished before him. Not surprising really. He had two watering cans, both the size of children's watering cans...

Mrs. M.

Where is summer?

Yes, where has summer gone? We woke up to a particularly grey and rainy day yesterday so any thought of a trip to the allotment went out the window. It had to be a day of baking, sewing and drilling instead. It turned out to be a rather productive day. 

I started off baking the muffins I thought I was baking last week. This time I found the right recipe and boy are these ones delicious. They're from a recipe book for children by Johanna Westman that my children were given a few years ago. 

This is how you make them:

1 dl sugar
1 egg
2dl milk
6 tbsp oil
2tsp baking powder
4 dl flour
1/4 tsp salt

Mix the sugar and egg until fluffy. Add the milk and the oil. Mix the baking powder and salt with the flour. Add to the egg mix and stir well. Half fill 12 muffin cases with the mixture and add berries of your choice. I added chopped up rhubarb. Then make a crumble:

2.5 dl flour
1.5 dl sugar
2 tbsp vanilla sugar
125g butter

Mix these ingredients to a crumble and put on top of the berries. Cook at 200 degrees C for about 20 minutes. They are truly delicious! I managed to make 14 and there are none left now. And no, Mrs.G. and I haven't eaten all of them. Only one each.

After that Mr. M. got the drill out and we finally put up curtain poles in the older master M's room. The poor thing has been in his new bedroom for 2 months now and not had any curtains. He's got two windows so I had to make 4 lengths. I bought the fabric a while ago but haven't been able to get on with making the curtains as we hadn't put up the poles. They're now up and the curtains are done. He'll be able to sleep a lot better now!

Curtains drawn.

And the other end of the room. We now need to get him a bigger book case...

I've been thinking about our tiny plants a lot over the last week. As the allotment area is quite high up, the plot is very exposed and the plants suffer a lot from windy weather. Several allotmenteers cover their plants with some form of wind shield and I 've been thinking of ways to do this. Maybe get some willow branches, curve them and make tunnels? A trip to the local garden centre yesterday proved to be very exciting as I found tunnels with fleece covers in the sale! I bought 2 and Mrs. G. and I put them up today. Hopefully the tiny spinach plants and the purple sprouting broccoli will now have a chance to grow.

A long row of tiny spinach plants.

Two rows of purple sprouting broccoli were too wide for the arches so we used our imagination to cover the plants.

We spent an hour weeding and the beds look really lovely now. The early potatoes are blossoming so maybe we'll be able to harvest them in a couple of weeks' time. 

The lettuce is also looking good.

I mentioned in my previous post that something, most likely pigeons, had munched on the broccoli leaves. Well, covering the plants with netting seems to have done the trick. All the plants seem to be recovering and some have even grown quite a few new leaves. 

It was quite cold today so after an hour's work we had to have a coffee break. Not-Bob was around and clearly thought we were not working hard enough...He obviously hasn't understood that part of having an allotment is also the enjoyment of being able to stop and have a lovely cup of coffee with a good friend. 

Mrs. M.

Pigeon alert

When Mr. M. and I went to water last Friday we noticed that the broccoli leaves had been eaten by something. They didn't look very healthy at all. 

The stems look sturdy enough so we're hoping that they'll survive the present lack of leaves. There are no slugs or other little creatures to be seen but as we're not around very much, it's difficult to work out what's so hungry that it feels the need to munch on our precious plants. Luckily we have pros around us! It turns out that the most likely culprit is the pigeon. I didn't expect that. It turns out that the reason why a lot of people have empty water bottles on sticks all around the plots is to scare pigeons. We had wondered why... Another way to keep these birds away is to put netting over the plants so that's what we did today.

Invisible black netting

This whole area is covered with black netting that we found in the shed. Hopefully this will do the trick.

We've also put netting over the strawberries. They are looking so fabulous that we definitely don't want to lose them to any birds. Just look at them:

There are lots of green berries that will no doubt taste delicious!

We spent most of the afternoon weeding and after some hard work we felt we deserved some of this:

Mrs. G. provides the coffee and I seem to be providing home baked something every week. I've got into the habit of baking every weekend and today was no exception. I still have quite a few rhubarb stems in the fridge so I made some muffins after breakfast. I found the recipe in one of the cookbooks for children we have. They were not bad but not as yummie as some other muffins I often make. That one is also from a children's cookbook but I got the wrong one today. Looks like I have to do some more baking.

Anyway, we were sitting on the grass chatting, munching and drinking and after a rainy and dull morning the weather had turned hot and glorious. It was so relaxing and beautiful that we ended up staying at the plot for a good 3 hours instead of the hour we had decided on, due to other commitments. Well, those commitments were quickly forgotten about. 

We could have sat there for hours on end but that's not why we were there. One of our neighbours came by with three plum tomato plants so we quickly planted those. All our neighbours are so friendly and generous. Their crops are much bigger than ours but we've now learnt that the reason for that is greenhouses. They all seem to have them, either on the plot or in their own gardens. That's why they plant out really big plants. It made us feel a whole lot better finding that out!

Thank you neighbour!

I had been to the local garden centre earlier on today and bought some pepper and chilli plants that we planted out. 

Red and yellow peppers.

Red chilli pepper

We also planted spinach and radishes. Mrs. G. filled in the gaps in the lettuce row with seeds. 

It all looks really good now but we can't go on planting new things where the previous plants have died or been eaten. As Mrs. G. is away next week ( work related - not pleasure!) we won't be meeting up during the week. It'll probably rain anyway... I'll pop over to water if the weather is dry and then we'll meet up next weekend to admire our crops and do some more weeding. It really gives you a lot of pleasure to see how plants grow, knowing that your hard work is paying off.

The potatoes are looking so good!

Have a good week!

Mrs. M.

TGIF

Thank goodness it's Friday! I've had a long week this week. It's been very enjoyable and, at the end of it, totally worth it. I hope all my pupils have enjoyed baking and preparing for a cafe end of week and I know for sure that all the visitors to our cafe enjoyed the cakes and biscuits and the service. I, however, am shattered.

Nevertheless, I went to the allotment to water our precious plants. Potatoes are still looking great and so are the strawberries and onions. The rest? Hm, not so good I'm afraid. Something has eaten the broccoli leaves. I don't know what but the leaves seem to be popular... Not too good.

After lugging the watering cans, with the help of Mr. M. I went home to this:

Well worth it! Finally a decent evening! Sun and no wind. Could it be better? The chickens and little Miss M. seem very happy too.

They're happy doing whatever. Chickens are not very bright and  clearly do whatever the little Miss wants them to do.

Happy Friday!

Mrs. M. 

Is this better Bob?

We don't hang about! After a rather hectic first half of Saturday including shopping for birthday presents for Mr. M. and clothes for a son who's grown out of everything as well as attending a school summer fayre (phew) I headed up to the allotment. Mrs. G. was already there putting posts along one side of the plot. She had been to the local garden centre earlier on this week and bought some mesh that would be suitable as a wind break. When I turned up she had researched where the wind was coming from and hammered down quite a few posts. We then got to work on attaching the mesh. Team work resulted in this:

The tiny plants became still pretty much immediately so let's hope this will do the trick. Our plants do look quite feeble compared to everybody else's and we have no idea why. Do other people spend more time tending to their plots? Have they planted better plants? Are they simply a lot better at this than we are? I think I know the answer to all three questions. As the wind sometimes comes from the other direction (the sea) we'll get some more mesh and put up another wind break on the other side.

Bob came by with his wife when we were having our coffee break so he didn't see what we next did. I'm sure he'll be very impressed next time he comes by. Once we had dug the canes up it was pretty obvious that they were separate ones... From the 4 clumps we'd first planted we got rid of 2 canes that were dead and were left with 17 that we planted out, put manure around and watered a lot. From having a half filled fruit section, we've now got this:

Mrs. G. clearly enjoyed a bit of wood work as she got on with improving the border while I was lugging water. It looks a lot neater now.

While being down on all four firming the soil around the canes, my eyes caught this:

Strawberries! And they're not the only ones. Lots of the plants have flowers and quite a few have now turned into berries. Looks like we 'll have a good crop this year. Though we probably need to put some netting over to avoid the birds taking them all, so I'll need to put that too on the list for the garden centre. I might even pop over there today.

Mrs. M.

Ooops!

On the plot above us we have Not-Bob and on the plot below us we have Bob. (Yes, the plots are on a slope). When I went to water yesterday evening I met the very nice man called Bob for the first time. He has clearly been around for a while as his plot looks fantastic. In comparison, ours doesn't look much but it doesn't really matter. We're very proud of what we've achieved and the potatoes still look fab.

Anyway, Bob and I got talking and he too thought that the potatoes are coming on nicely. After a little while he pointed to our raspberries and mentioned that the canes are probably (his choice of word there shows how polite he was) meant to be separated when planted. Oh. He told me that they are sold in pots with 4 - 5 canes tied together  but should be taken apart and planted individually. This is how we planted ours:

All four groups have a lot more leaves now. This photo was taken when we first planted them.

Oh dear. Could we dig them out and replant them now? Possibly was the answer. We would have to water a lot though as raspberries are very thirsty and moving them might disturb the growing. Otherwise we could wait until the autumn. He concluded by saying that if we ever needed any help he would happily provide it. I couldn't help but laugh at that point. We most definitely need help!

Mrs. M.

Spuds

It's not difficult to work out where the previous allotmenteer planted his potatoes. We've got spuds popping up amongst newly planted broccoli and chard and showing no sign of realising they're in the wrong place. There were clearly potatoes left in the ground even though we dug the soil over fairly carefully. Let's hope they get on well. It could be fairly cramped.

In between newly planted chard.

In between broccoli plants.

Very close to a broccoli plant. 

The chard was kindly donated by another allotmenteer. More about that another day.

Mrs. M.

Soil mates

I found this in a shop the other day and thought it would look good in the shed. It certainly sums up Mrs. G.'s and my weekend relationship at the moment. 

Potatoes and onions. Onions and potatoes. Looks like we're doing well in that department. I'm actually very pleased with our potatoes. Look at the early ones:

I think I'll stick to my day job. Photography is clearly not my thing.

Mrs. G. and I are very pleased with these but all the neighbouring plots seem to have much bigger and greener crops. Hm. Don't know why that is . Hopefully there is plenty of spuds underneath. The late ones are doing OK too. They've just come through and the leaves are much darker.

We spent a few hours this afternoon weeding and moving the soil up and around the potatoes. The weather forecast predicts sunny weather for the rest of the week so my soil mate and I have agreed on a watering schedule. 

Next week is a plot inspection week. These weeks seem to be fairly frequent and rumour has it that the plot police are quite strict. To be on the safe side, I decided to mow the lawn today. The lawn being the little grass covered space outside the shed where we sit and drink coffee and mowing being an act of using these:

It's a good thing that our "lawn" isn't very big. I have yet again invented a very amateurish and strange way of gardening. No wonder some of the plot neighbours were looking at me shaking their heads. One neighbour who didn't seem to find it weird was our neighbour just above our plot. I had only met him to say hello to before and didn't talk to him then as he was on the phone. Mrs. G. however had spoken to him previously and mentioned that he was very nice and his name was Not-Bob. Not-Bob seems very nice and introduced himself to me today and yes, his name was Not-Bob but Mike. However, Mrs. G. and I decided that we would carry on calling him Not-Bob. He has a huge rhubarb plant and invited us to take however much we wanted. 
 

Not-Bob's rhubarbs. There is twice as much on the other side of the compost.

So I did. I'll browse this blog page and indulge in rhubarb delights in the week to come. 

Mrs. M.

Sister and mingle

Five days with my sister went by in a flash. Her stay with us started and ended with lovely weather. In between? Well, rain... Not that she came to spend the days on the beach, but sunshine kind of makes a holiday that much nicer. However, we had a very good time. 

Mrs.G. has gone away again (lucky thing) and managed to miss a little spring mingle at the allotment the other evening. What a good thing my sister was here to join me. The gates were open and the communal hut was filled with food and drinks. I met some new people and had several useful chats that confirmed my suspicions that it was the wind that had caused some of our plants to die. I was told we need windbreaks. OK, windbreaks it is. I've put that down on my little list of useful tips. Before dashing off to meet the rest of the family in the pub, we went down to the plot to check on the potatoes. The early ones are looking fab and, to my delight, I could see the late ones coming through. This is so exciting!

Yesterday we spent a couple of hours in the sunshine at Michelham Priory before setting off for the airport. The weather was glorious and wandering around the beautiful garden made me want to plant flowers. Maybe we should sow some annuals between the strawberries and raspberries until we've decided what to plant there. Hm, I think I'll suggest that to Mrs. G.

 

 I'd better head off to the allotment to water tonight. I'm quite looking forward to it!

Mrs. M.