Can't keep up

Oh dear! Everything is growing so quickly now that I can't keep up. Beautiful, warm weather has meant a trip to the allotment more or less every day this week. Lugging water cans back and forth, almost emptying the trough has been more powerful than a trip to the gym. I've come home with lettuce, potatoes and strawberries practically every time. Lovely!

Mrs. G. has had visitors this weekend and I've been busy sorting out the garage and sewing a "prom" dress for little Miss M's end of primary school do on Wednesday. However, I've managed to squeeze in two trips to water and harvest since Friday. I know that one shouldn't water in the middle of the day but that can sometimes not be helped. I had planned to take a walk over to the plot very early this morning, but a rather late dinner party last night put a stop to that. I set off this afternoon and came home with this:

Huge radishes!

The chard is now ready to pick.

We have loads of lettuce to pick.

The spinach is also ready to pick.

Lovely potatoes that melt in your mouth,

The rest is looking so fabulous. 

You should apparently pick the top of this purple sprouting broccoli so that it grows more heads. I'm leaving that one to Mrs. G. on Monday.

Look at the tiny courgettes growing. They'll be big in no time!

Just look at the spinach! We've got so much to pick now that I don't know where to start. We'll have to live on vegetables, which is not a bad idea. 

The ground was fairly hard when I dug up the potatoes today. Rumour has it that this heat wave will continue. This is of course fantastic news but a little bit of rain would not be a bad thing for the allotment. How about sunny, hot weather during the day and rain during the night? I'd like to order that please.

Mrs. M.

Sun, cider and spuds

The weather forecast experts (?) had predicted a heat wave and I was waiting for it throughout the week. Hm. I didn't need to water on Tuesday as it was raining and when Mr. M. and I turned up on Thursday evening there was a raven on the shed roof and mist everywhere. I felt part of a Hitchcock film! Then Friday came along and the sun came out. I spent all day at the local secondary school with my pupils attending a primary schools sports day. It was great fun and despite using sun screen I turned into a tomato... I then spent the evening at school listening to wonderful singing and playing so no trip to the plot. 

Until Saturday. In the afternoon I met up with Mrs. G., who had already been up to plant leek in the early hours of the morning. Isn't she good!?! Bob, the neighbour, had also been there and given her some useful tips. The leeks should be planted in holes, then watered and left. No need to fill the holes in as the leeks need to root themselves. This is what it looks like:

Very neat and tidy!

It was rather hot so after a very short weeding session we settled down on the lawn and had some cider. 

It was lovely! Cold and refreshing and just what we needed before getting on with another of Bob the neighbour's tips - dig up some potatoes to see if there actually are some underneath. And there were! It was all really exciting and we dug up roughly 3/4 of a row. 

Shared between the two of us we set off home. Or in my case, off to another concert with children performing.

Today was just as hot and glorious so Mrs. G. and I met up in the afternoon. Mrs. G. had been to the local garden centre and bought some more plants and some netting. Our plants are now growing really well and we need to lift up the netting. When we spoke to another allotmenteer the other day we were told that netting is necessary more or less throughout the season as the birds eat and eat and eat. However, the netting we've been using is not big enough to raise up on sticks so Mrs. G. went and got some more. While I was busy weeding she did a grand job of creating netting boxes. 

It looks like we know what we're doing now!

It's great to see how the plants are growing. Just look at these:

Broccoli

Chard

Parsnip

Brussels sprout

Can you see the tiny pepper?

Today we also planted some cauliflower where we had dug up the potatoes.

After a good couple of hours of weeding, planting, netting and watering we went home. You feel rather tired, but in a good way. Mr. M. was just about to light the barbeque as I got home and little Miss M. had a friend over. The potatoes from the plot were an absolute hit with everybody!

These just melted in the mouth!

We also had some radishes. I had to cut them up so that everybody could have a taste. 

And as the grand finale we had some of these:

They were so lovely and I can't wait to pick some more on Tuesday!

Mrs. M.

Mmmmmmm

I didn't get round to making anything with the rhubarb yesterday evening so tonight was the night. Straight after dinner I started cutting up rhubarb and measuring up water and sugar. A lovely smell filled the kitchen and I filled a bottle and a jar. I only had 1kg of rhubarb but that resulted in around 400ml of cordial and 1 jar of jam.

There was a little bit left of the jam that didn't fit into the jar so I put that on a piece of crispbread and mmmm, that was delicious!

The vanilla in the jam made all the difference. It's sweet without being too sweet if you see what I mean. I think I'll have some more.



Mrs. M.

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.