Bistro Bumpkin

We have recently bought a saucepan, and taken a small cast iron griddle up to the allotment, so we can cook a bit better. And get that harvest, to pan, to stomach time down.

The first proper allotment meal was our first pea, bean, mint and feta salad of the year. This was a staple last summer, but the broad beans and peas seem to be a little later this year.

It involves lightly boiled peas and broad beans. These are cooled a little and the outer white skin removed from the broad beans. I warmed the pittas on the griddle (well more burnt them really).

Collected plenty of mint. We had the amount in the photo each. The plates came from the site skip, they are in perfect condition so I have no idea why they were there.

And plenty of salad leaves (Saladin lettuce in this case). And then mix, add oil and vinegar and eat. Enjoy!

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'.

peas and cloches

This evening we got the pea plants, which we had started off in the greenhouse, into their bed. 3 Ambassadors (and one seed in the ground to make it 4), 4 Starlight (with pale pods and dark leaves for easy picking), and 4 Kelvedon Wonder (an early). We also got 7 broad beans in, with another 5 or so in the ground to make it up to 2 rows.


We made a cloche for them with a wood frame we had (an abandoned cold frame attempt from last year) and some correx from the previous leanhouse™ covering.


Hopefully that will help them get acclimatised. They were in biodegradable pots, so there shouldn't be much root disturbance, and we have put the copper pipe frame around the bed in an attempt to foil the slugs again. It worked really well with the cabbages last year, so hopefully it will keep our little seedlings safe.

Mmmmm peas!

Back Down To It

I've been a bit lax of late, in blogging here and in going to the allotment. But I'm back to it now.

We have actually been doing quite a bit, but it has been in our flat. We have a small heated propagator and several unheated ones that we have been starting everything off in, and it is turning into quite a production line now.

And several things have made it to the allotment already. Corn, courgettes, tomatoes (several kinds), aubergines, peppers, chillies.



We have also set off plenty of things in the greenhouse at the plot: lettuce of various kinds, including a salad leaf mix, scarlett chard, peas, broad beans, and various herbs and flowers.


Also yesterday I did a bit of DIY pot making. We received a parcel the other day that had tubes of paper scrunched up in it. It was perforated so that they could just tear off as much as was needed. As with most things these days we looked at it and asked 'do you think we could so something with that at the allotment?'. It turns out: biodegradable pots for beans/peas/sweet peas. They don't like root disturbance (their growth slows down for quite a while after being moved too roughly) so it is ideal to have a pot that they don't have to be taken out of when you move them on to their final location.

I separated the paper into a tube about 20cm long, twisted the base together and then turned the whole thing inside out so the twisted base was inside. I put a couple of beans in each, and also did some with 5 sweet pea seeds in each which can just get planted out whole when it gets warm enough.

We will see how they hold up, I'm hoping they don't disintegrate before I want them to!

With these peas Ambassador you are really spoiling us!

We have peas! Ambassador, and Kelvedon Wonder are coming up. Nothing from the Starlight ones yet.


It is lovely to see those bright green shoots popping up.

I also checked out the temperatures we have been getting. I have a weatherstation in the greenhouse and put the little remote sensor in the propagator (also in the greenhouse) with the peas.

It has got up to 27.8ºC and down to -2.6ºC in the greenhouse and up to 20.3ºC and down to -1.6ºC in the propagator itself, so although it isn't keeping them particular warm it is ironing out the extremes a little, which is good.

Clean House

Today we decided to clean out the greenhouse ready for the new season.



So is has now been scrubbed out with insecticidal soap, under the benches have been sort of tidied, and trays and propogator cleaned out.

Once that was done we decided to try starting off some peas and beans in the propagator. It is a bit early really but we figured it was worth a go as we have some little biodegradable pots very cheap the other week, so we can put them in the propogator, out in the greenhouse, then out into the coldframe before transferring them to the ground when they are a bit bigger without disturbing their roots.

We have sowed 4 broad beans, 4 starlight pea, 4 early kelvedon wonder, and 4 ambassador. Last year, we didn't do successional sowing, so ended up with a glut. Next lot of the same can get sowed in 4 weeks. Dwarf beans and runner beans later in the season.


We also put some mushroom spawn in a try under the bench, not sure it is warm enough yet for it really. It is also an old packet from last year, which has got a bit damp at some point so it may not sprout anyway. We will see.

New Bed

Our beans are doing rather well in their drain pipe, so we decided it was time to prepare a bed for them to go into. To one side of the potato, bean, and cabbage beds there was a space next to the fence, filled with weeds and grass and an old chair. A frame was constructed, the space cleared and a new bed installed.


We haven't put the beans in yet, we are going to let them get a bit bigger, but we sowed some peas in there. Hopefully we will get some autumn peas and beans from that bed to freeze for over winter. We've surrounded the place where we've sown the peas with copper mesh tape to try and keep the slugs off the seedlings.

pea moth

We had loads of peas yesterday so decided to pod them at the plot so that we could fit them into our tupperware. Which is when ended up discovering the pea moth larvae. The cheek! Eating our peas!



Fortunately they were only in a few pods, maybe 6 or 7, but I think it might be time to take in the rest of the peas in case more damage is being done. We'll have to remember to net the peas next year when they flower.

However there were still plenty of peas left.


Along with broad beans, tomatoes, and salad. I think this is the first 'pest' attack we have had really (excepting wood pigeons and slugs), which is incredibly lucky I think.

Salad

I mentioned a salad a few posts ago, pea, bean and mint. We are going to have it again tonight with a little paté and bread on the side.


These are the raw ingredients from the allotment (well we won't use all those peas and the tomatoes will be with the bread and paté). I'll pop back and post another picture once I've assembled it all with the lidl feta.

[edit to add photos]

Check out those colours! The plates have orange and red tomato slices laid out alternately.

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