Back to the plot!

We have been very lax so far this year, having hardly been to the plot at all, but we both went down today.

While I went off to the committee meeting, MrUrban dug up our Jerusalem Artichokes, sorted out the bed they were in and then put some back for this year. So we have quite a big bucket of JAs to eat our way through.

After the meeting finished I got to work on some weeding and tidying and MrUrban sowed some pea and bean seeds in biodegradable pots. That worked quite well last year, so we decided to do it again. I think they are Borlotta, Pink Lady, Runner, Purple Dwarf, and Broad on the bean front and Starlight, Ambassador and Kelvedon Wonder for the peas, like last year.

I had a good wander round the plot too, to see how it was all doing. The strawberries look happy enough, and the runners we took off and potted up in the Leanhouse are doing well too - even a flower on one of them. The soft fruit bushes have lots of healthy looking leaves and shoots too.

The fig trees in the Leanhouse have tiny little fruits starting off which is cheering, I hope we will be able to look after them and get them to ripen. I'm not going to bring them out of the Leanhouse yet as I think there could still be frosts which would do for those fruit.

The only other thing growing is purple sprouting broccoli, but it is a bit small and sad looking. But between the 3 tiny plants we may manage one batch of Stilton and Broccoli soup eventually.

flapjacks 2

They are still cooling, but I stole one to have with some vanilla ice cream and they are fab!

I ended up putting sunflower and pumpkin seeds in, as well as the raspberries. And it took nearer to 30mins in the oven, I think because of the added moisture of the fruit.


I'm looking forward to them being ready, I'm going to take some to the allotment next time I go to keep me going.

flapjacks

I'm getting my hand in with the syrup flapjacks today. Although I don't have any raspberries of my own yet I bought some local ones and am going to make raspberry flapjacks.

Well, I need to get my eye in before our raspberries come along, I wouldn't want to waste any of ours, so I need to do thorough tests!

I'll post some pics when they come out of the oven.

I'm doing 200g oats, 200g syrup, 100g butter, 100g sugar, and a small tub of raspberries.

Put the sugar, syrup, and butter in a pan and melt over a low heat. Remove from the heat and add the oats and mix thoroughly.

Then add the raspberries (or strawberries, or raisins, or chocolate chips, or pumpkin and sunflower seeds) and mix through.

Press into a shallow greased tin and put into a pre-heated oven (180°C or Gas Mark 4) for 20 mins. When they come out cut them into squares but don't take them out of the tin until they have cooled and hardened.

yesterday and today (and tomorrow)

Weeding, weeding and more weeding mainly.

You can now actually see between the rows of strawberries, and the rows of onions.



And the Jerusalem artichokes aren't having to fight with the docks.

The squash have got some room round them too now. And they are starting to form fruit, I'm very excited by the yellow ones and the round ones.

And I got the sweetcorn in, a block of 3 by 3 up next to the Kale, garlic, carrots, and turnips.


We got a load of flower seedlings into pots too. Tomorrow I need to get the salad out from the leanhouse, it is too hot for it in there and it will bolt if I'm not careful.

more growing, less typing

I've been neglecting this blog, so my apologies.

However, you will be pleased to know that I haven't been doing quite so badly on the allotment. It is still a running battle between us and the weeds, but we are winning in enough areas to have some decent crops going on.

So, a catch up post. In May things just kept on growing. I was away on Skye for a while, but everything survived my absence. The summer squash and courgettes went into the beds, the salad started filling out the bath and the peas and beans grew like crazy.


In June this first bit of June we have got our scarlet kale in, potted up our peppers and chillis to bigger pots, saw the Jerusalem artichokes shoot up, and loads of fruit and flowers appear.

The tomatoes have started to flower, the vintage wine and red robins are furthest along: the biggest and smallest fruit.


And the sweet peas have been planted to grow up the old metal frame we put in our flower 'meadow'.

figgy blogging

I had bought 2 little fig plants on Friday (as a birthday present to myself) from Lidl, who are having a bit of a garden extravaganza including plants and tools.

They have been sat in the car boot since then, so yesterday I took them to the allotment to plant up into pots. They were quite sturdy plants, I was quite impressed, especially at 2.99 each!

As it was so cold and snowy I gave them little fleece tents to live in for the meantime; our unheated greenhouse does get quite cold. The instructions on the packet said that they would tolerate down to -5°C so it should be OK, but I figured they would appreciate the jackets.

Fruitilicious

So,

raspberries . . .

blackberries . . .

strawberries . . .

and rhubarb!

As you can see it was a very fruity day yesterday. The two Lidl blackberries went into what I am trying to turn into a (mostly) edible hedge - I'm trying to introduce more fruit (hopefully some Blackthorn next) and then I will gradually remove the Firethorn. Four autumn fruiting raspberry canes went in next to the old ones, and the strawberry runners that we potted up last year had their old dead leaves trimmed; the new leaves they are putting on look lovely and bright and green.

And last but not least our old friend the rhubarb has started pushing up some lovely pink tips. It is a very sheltered position compared to our other crowns, they have also put up a few tiny tips, but they are nowhere near as big or pink. I think it may not be too long before we are harvesting rhubarb again.

Mmmmm crumble.

Artichokes are go!

Well we got ourselves organised and planted the J. Artichokes today. We made a separate bed last year as there was a wasted bit of space at one side of the allotment, so we figured that was a good space for them. It is a bit sheltered from the wind and also not connected to any other bed, so volunteer ones next year (which seem to be guaranteed from what people say).

We also dropped off our 2 new fruit bushes, bought from Lidl for 99p each. We got raspberry, gooseberry, redcurrant and white currant last year. They all did well and we got lots of fruit off them, so we decided to add blackberry to the mix. They will go into the hedge on the western edge of our plot, which is where moved our tayberry to last week. Edible hedge here we come.

Tomato-tastic II

The 8 tomato seedlings have been transferred now; 4 to a smallish terracotta pot. I'm hoping to keep them in these until they are big enough to get moved to their final pots, probably in April.

I planted them quite deep, as they had got quite leggy. They seem to be doing OK so far. I kept them in the heated propagator for the first day and night, and then moved them out of it this morning.

Here's hoping for good strong plants this year.

smoothie charity

I guess if you have an allotment or garden you will normally make your own smoothies (we have this year with our raspberries, strawberries and the rhubarb made good ones too). However innocent smoothies are tasty too (when the fruit runs out) and now they have just got cute and charitable as well.

To raise money for age concern they are asking for people to knit little hats for their smoothie bottles, these will then be sold in Sainsbury's during November and 50p from each bottle will go to age concern. They got 230,000 hats last year (so £115,000) and this year are aiming to raise £200,000 by getting 400,000 hats on bottles. My mum gave me a leaflet on it and I have knitted my first one this afternoon:


modelled here by a Thirsty Planet water bottle (you don't have to buy any innocent products to join in).

If you want to join in they you can find the patterns and details here. Any little knitted hat of a similar size is acceptable, so if you have rather more advanced knitting skills you can go to town rather than following their 3 patterns. Check out their blog section for photos of some amazing ones in shapes of animals etc.

Happy knitting!

Not quite the Whistle Stop Café

One of the branches of our plum tomato plant had bent with the weight of the tomatoes and broken so I brought home the green tomatoes. Not quite enough for green tomato chutney (I'm waiting til September for that) so I decided on fried green tomatoes.



I dipped halved tomatoes into egg (they were only small so I decided on halves rather than slices) then put those into a little tub of flour with chili flakes, pepper and salt in it and shook them around until coated. They then went into hot oil for about 3 mins each side.

I wasn't amazed by the taste, but they looked very pretty on the plate and I think I'll try them again another time.

Plans for Autumn

Our seeds have arrived from the Organic Gardening Catalogue so the next few days before we go on holiday will be spent sowing seeds so that they have hopefully have germinated by the time we return.

The beetroot, radish, and turnips will get sown direct into the beds (I will harvest the beetroot and carrots that are in at the moment), but the spring onion, endive, swiss chard, and lettuce will get sown in trays for later transplanting outside. I'll probably only be able to do that with one sowing unless we have a very mild autumn, but after that I hope to be able to continue with lettuce and endive in a cold frame or the lean-house™ through the winter. I already have some little gem lettuce going which I'm going to put in all the gaps that are emerging as things get harvested. They aren't quite big enough to go out yet, but they are getting there.

I'm also considering a fig tree, I've been wanting one for ages and I don't think I can stop myself any longer. The choice is now Gardening Express or Guardian. I had some lovely witch hazels from Gardening Express, so maybe I should go with them. Hopefully the tree will come with small fruit already on it.

<edit> Just noticed that you get 15 free Purple Alliums with the Guardian, so that might swing it!

Huckleberry Funn

My huckleberries are starting to form berries, which is exciting. I didn't think that they would start doing it so early as I thought that they would be ready around November-ish.


I'm looking forward to Huckleberry Jam now.

Living off (someone else's) Land

I collected some apples from a neighbouring plot the other day, after OKing it with the secretary. The plot isn't being used at the moment and the apples were starting to fall off the tree. I can't cope with needless waste like that so went and rescued some of them.I had about 5 pounds in the end. I divided that up, the ones in the silver bowl are for tart tatin, the ones in the clear tub for apple sauce, and the ones laying down on the board for apple jelly. So far I've only made the apple jelly , I cooked up the apples with water and a star anise, then let the liquid drip through muslin to strain it. Then added sugar to the liquid (1 pound of sugar per pint of liquid) , stir as the sugar melts and it comes to the boil, and then you boil rapidly for 10mins . I allowed it to cool a little and then added a bit of whisky ( I used Talisker). Tastes quite good so far, but the recipe advised waiting 3 months before use.



The tart tatin is under construction as I write, I will post pictures once it is done.

I'm going to try and harvest the rest of the apples on the community work day this saturday and then anyone who wants any can take them. I'm also going to do the sauce by then so we can eat it with our sausages.

Tomatoes on my Potatoes

I thought I was imagining things the other day, and then remembered that tomatoes and potatoes are both of the Solanaceae family. My potatoes had little berries that looked like tomatoes!

They are inedible, in fact somewhat poisonous. I've been told the berry production is unusual, but about 6 of our plants seem to have fruit. I think I'll remove them so that the plants concentrate on the tubers rather than trying to produce a new generation.

Although we grew potatoes as a child I never remember the flowers setting and producing fruit.

Somewhat more worryingly I thought we may have blight, but having looked at the plants it looks like early blight, which isn't too damaging, rather than late blight. Early blight is also supposedly unusual, so we obviously have odd potatoes. The difference is explained here but one of the main differences seems to be early blight being shaped on the leaves by the position of the veins.

I cut the leaves with signs of it off and burnt them, just in case, and will keep a close eye on them to see of anything further develops. I also signed up for the blight forecast here from the British Potato Council, this uses temperature and weather forecasting, and local sightings of blight in your area to alert you to the risk.

All our tomatoes are unaffected, both indoor and outdoor ones.

Aubergine No 1

We have harvested our first aubergine!



I'm so proud! It is off the plant that we bought as a little seedling, so it isn't quite all our own work, but I have high hopes for the ones we have grown from seed as they are flowering now.

It went into a curry but I'm thinking of Baba Ganoush for the next one.

living off the land

We were just musing the other night how great it is to be popping to the allotment in the evening to collect food, rather than popping to the supermarket. Stuff is so fresh and tasty, and it is really relaxing too just wandering around seeing what is ready. It makes for slightly random meals, but that is quite fun too.

I'm really enjoying it, and plans for how to fit more beds in are afoot. More beans and peas are definitely on the cards, I think we might ditch rocket and spinach (but stick with perpetual spinach) and have more lettuce - which can go inbetween lots of other things. Carrots we are dithering about, they take up quite a lot of room, but carrot cake with fresh carrots is lovely!

And more strawberries, the plants are now sending out runners which is good.

All in all I think these first few months have been good.

Mmmmmmm-mmmmmmm

Harvests continue aplenty.


Latest recipe is a pea, bean, feta and mint salad. Equal amounts of peas and broad beans, then proportionally slightly more feta, and as much mint as you fancy (lots!). Mix in with salad leaves and add lemon juice and olive oil to dress. It's fantastic.

Also good were noodles with chilli (3 tiny ones from our plant), bacon and peas, topped off with caramelised shallots and finely sliced plum tomato. The tomatoes were the first from one of our plants and they taste fantastic, really fragrant.


I'm now wondering what to do with cucumber (no sniggering at the back) as we have two approaching readiness. I've seen a garlic chicken and cucumber recipe on the beeb site that looks promising, and also cucumber salsa to serve with fish, so I might try those. And there is always tzatziki (sp?) and raita.


We also made raspberry and strawberry cheesecake, doesn't really count as from the allotment as only the fruit on top didn't come from the shop, but I had forgotten how good proper homemade cheesecake tastes. Really simple too: digestives, butter and sugar for the base; cream cheese, greek yoghurt, double cream, and icing sugar for the top. Just add fresh strawberries and raspberries.


Mmmmmmm-mmmmmmm

from cane to oat

Today there were a lot of rasberries (and a few gooseberries, strawberries and redcurrants).

I had been planning on making some flapjacks to I decided to combine the two.



Which worked quite well I think. I put a layer of flapjack in the tin and then added a layer of raspberry, and then added another layer of flapjack.

weeds, weeds and more weeds

We had a marathon weeding session on Saturday, the beds with broccoli and lettuce in, the strawberry bed and the cabbage beds. All were absolutely covered in green, looking very scruffy. Now they are lovely and neat.



The greenhouse is awash with greenery, some of the tomato plants we started from seeds are starting to get flowers.



Still don't have our plastic for the greenhouse so it is still a naked frame. I'm promised that it will arrive tomorrow afternoon though. I had forgotten that it was a bank holiday here in Scotland today, so that scuppered my cladding plans.