Friday 30 August 2013

Bed 5

So the first 4 beds have been a success. Let's now tackle bed 5.


This one is next to the two composts and part of it is in shade for some of the day. We've planted leek in the shady part and even though they're growing, they're not very big yet. However, they're not ready until next spring so that's not a worry to us.

Apart from leek we have broccoli and, as can be seen in the photo, they're quite big. I can't see any actual broccoli though but that might come later. Who knows? I certainly don't. They do take up a lot of space so let's hope we get a lot out of them. 

 

Half of the bed is taken up by these enormous plants:


Brussel sprouts! They are big and lovely looking and all four of them look like this if you look closely:


 I so hope that we'll be able to eat these at Christmas! So far we seem to be avoiding caterpillars as they seem to be going for the purple sprouting broccoli big time. 

We planted peppers and chili pepper next to the brussel sprouts not realising that the peppers would end up being hidden by the big sprout plants. A mistake we'll have to think about not making next year. Having said that, the peppers are growing and taste lovely. 


I thought we'd bought two yellow ones but only one is developing into lovely little yellow peppers. The one above have big, beautiful green peppers no matter how long they stay there so I've picked a couple.

I'm not sure when the chili peppers are ready to be picked but they do look nice. 


So that's bed number 5. A bit of a mix in other words.

Broccoli next year? Possibly not. Takes up too much space for what we get. 
Brussel sprouts? Oh I do hope so.
Leek? Yes!
Peppers? Yes, but in a sunnier spot.
Chili peppers? Possibly. I don't use chili peppers much but maybe I'll start now.

Last day of the summer holidays today. Must make the most of it!

Mrs. M.


Sunday 25 August 2013

Bed 4

Bed 4. One of the few beds we've been able to leave, watching the produce get bigger and bigger. Fantastic. 


We knew that we wanted to grow onions and that we wanted to dedicate a whole bed. We both use a lot of  onions and as they're easy to store and keep for a long time, this seemed to be a perfect idea. And it was. We're not quite sure why we've got three rows of red onion and only one of yellow though... Maybe the other way around next year. We've also decided to sow onions this autumn, ready to pick early next summer. Just like the other allotmenteers have done.

Onions next year? Oh yes, and a lot of them!

Mrs. M.

Friday 23 August 2013

Bed 3

This is one of our most used beds. We've planted a mix of iceberg lettuce, spinach, radishes and celery. 


We've picked a lot from this bed in the last couple of months. Daily meals consist of freshly made salads including our lettuce and sometimes spinach. We've used spinach on top of homemade pizzas, in homemade ravioli and we've now got spinach in the freezer for future meals. The radishes grew big and tasted delicious and when they had all been eaten Mrs. G. sowed some more lettuce. The celery is nowhere near ready but looks good so far. I love celery so am hoping that it'll be a success.

Bed 3 has clearly been a success this year!

Lettuce next year? Oh yes, but maybe a few different types, sown at different times to stagger the picking.
Spinach next year? Oh yes!
Radishes next year? Yes.
Celery next year? Don't know yet, but hoping for a yes. 

Mrs. M.

Tuesday 20 August 2013

Beds 1 and 2

As I mentioned in my last post, I was deep in thought while watering last time. Are we happy with what we've achieved this year? Most definitely! Have we grown things we've managed to use fully? Not sure. We've definitely filled every bed and planted new things as soon as things have been picked but I'm not so sure that we've really grown vegetables to eat. More like, trying to find recipes for vegetables we've managed to grow. That's been fine this year but I'm not so sure I'd like to do that next year. Therefore I will spend some time thinking about each bed.


Beds 1 and 2. Late and early potatoes. We haven't picked the late ones yet but the early ones were delicious. Potatoes are definitely worth growing.



This is what the late potatoes look like at the moment. It's getting to be time to get them out I think. We haven't been very good at moving the soil up around the stems so unfortunately we have some green spuds on the surface. Something to think about next year.

Potatoes next year? Oh yes.

Mrs. M.

Sunday 18 August 2013

And so I'm back again

After another week's holiday I spent a lonely hour watering the allotment this evening. It was great to come back to see that everything looked healthy despite the fact the both Mrs. G. and I've been away for a week. The older Master M. had been given the job to water and he had done it very well. Hence the healthy looking plot. 

While walking around looking at the different plants I started thinking about what we've done well and what we could or should think about for next year. All of that deserve several posts and I will leave that to another day. Today is just a quick reminder of what my crop basket looked like after today's visit. 


I had to pick this rather enormous courgette. Or is it a marrow? Is that what courgettes turn into when they've grown out of proportion? You can see chard and lettuce in the basket and underneath there are some purple sprouting broccoli, spinach and a green pepper. After a week's camping in Cornwall I feel the need to eat a lot of greens!

Mrs. M.

Friday 9 August 2013

Clearing and caterpillars

We seem to have nice weather every second day in our part of the world and when Mrs. G. and I decided to meet up for a bit of weeding and clearing, the sun decided to stay well away. Not that it mattered. We hadn't even brought coffee or cake as we had intended to work!

I am clearly the messiest of the two as I no longer see the mess around the shed. Mrs. G. however is a much tidier person and had brought a big dust bin with the intention of clearing some rubbish. She set to work with Little Miss M. while I got down on my knees to do a bit of weeding. Look at what we had been surrounded by:


We took it all to the dump after we'd had enough of weeding and clearing in the rain. It was a very good idea of Mrs. G.'s to clear all of this as the plot now looks so much tidier. It's a good thing it's not all left to me as I would no doubt have the plot monitors breathing down my neck. 

Something had been nibbling on most of the leaves of our veggies - quite annoying. While weeding I found these little creatures:


Looking in my allotment handbook, they seem to be cabbage white butterflies. Or rather caterpillars waiting to turn into butterflies. It says they feed on brassicas (which is where we found them) and we should put a fine net or fleece over the crops and if need be spray. Well, spraying is what we did. We almost finished a whole bottle. Fingers crossed that they didn't like it. Will have a look later on today when I go up.

Things are coming along nicely and we tend to pick lettuce and spinach mostly. However, the courgette is growing like anything and we had to pick two rather enormous ones - one each. I placed mine next to one I picked last week and that I found rather big. Not compared to the latest one!

 
 I'm not very good at coming up with a variety of dishes involving courgette so I mostly use it in pasta dishes/ratatouille or in salads. I read somewhere that you can chop them up and freeze them and I guess that's what I'll have to do as we're away on holiday next week and I don't want them to go off. I think I'll have to search high and low for interesting recipes. 

Mrs. M.

Saturday 3 August 2013

Rhubarb chutney

As I mentioned yesterday, I picked some rhubarb the other day as I wanted to make rhubarb chutney. I found a recipe in a magazine while on holiday and it turned out to be very easy to make and very yummy to eat. Here's how:

1 red onion - sliced
2 dl rhubarb cut in small pieces
1 - 2 tbsp syrup
1-2 tbsp vinegar
1 Spanish pepper, de-seeded and chopped up finely
salt

Simmer all ingredients for about 10 mins. Stir now and again. Add salt, vinegar or syrup until the taste is to your satisfaction. 



We had this with pork shoulder, cooked on our bbq last night. Delicious!

With regard to my foot, I've been on the sofa all day today with my foot up high. The swelling is going down slowly but it's still fairly painful to walk. I'm taking tablets that Mr. M. purchased from the chemist's and put cream on morning and evening. Let's hope I can avoid a trip to the doctor's. 

Mrs. M.

Friday 2 August 2013

Back again

I'm back again. Having been on holiday for a while it was great to head back to the allotment to see what had happened while I was away. Mrs.G. had been to water and look after our precious plot so everything looked just fabulous!

Everything had grown a lot and that included the weed as well. Little Miss M. and I spent a couple of hours weeding last night and had a really lovely time. Weeding does get a bit addictive once you start so we ended up staying for quite a lot longer than planned. I weeded and Little Miss M. sang songs into a spade. 

There was a lot of "Wow! Look at this!" as I moved from bed to bed. The raspberries caught our eyes as soon as we turned up. 



They tasted lovely! We won't get that many this year as we planted the canes quite late but will hopefully get lots next year. 

The pepper plants have quite a few green peppers. I'm not sure when to pick them so we'll leave them for a little while yet. 



It also looks like we'll get a fair few chilli peppers.


The tomato plants are not very big but look what I found:




I had remembered to bring some tomato feed so I added that to the water. Fingers crossed we'll get lots of these beauties. All three plants were given to us by another allotmenteer.

After weeding and watering we headed back home with a basket full of big courgettes, spinach, chard and 3 rhubarb stalks. Bob the neighbour told me that you shouldn't pick rhubarb after mid-July as the plant needs to rest but I couldn't resist picking just a few as I had found a recipe for rhubarb chutney that I'd like to try. We have a lot of spinach so I blanched what I had picked and have now got enough for at least one meal in the freezer.

I'm very popular in the mosquito community and discovered this morning that the bite I got yesterday has become rather big. Hm. I don't know if I was bitten at the allotment or before that. It feels rather uncomfortable!



Could this be a reason to sit with my feet up? I have a few crocheting projects on the go so that might not be a bad idea...


Mrs. M.