Autumn harvest

Despite completely neglecting our allotment for most of this year, we have managed a small but pleasurable harvest. I have never grown squash before but will definitely be doing so again! The cooking squashvariety that I grew didn’t spread too much – I thought I was growing a summer squash variety but nothing appeared until later in the year. There was only one plant but that produced 5 or 6 good sized squash. When we harvested the squash, we pulled them off from the plant but I have now learnt that you should cut them off, leaving a ‘stub’ of the stalk. This apparently prevents rotting of the squash. I tried a couple of recipes from my ‘Riverford Farm’ cook book (a soup and risotto) – both were a hit!

We dug up a decent amount of Jerusalem Artichoke – something I’ve never even tried, let alone grown before. We were given some plants last year from the land owner and thought we may as well give them a go! We tried not to leave any tubers in the ground as they spread and grow easily apparently. I have now learned that the tubers are best stored in the ground until needed, however we wanted the bed cleared anyway. The Riverford Jerusalem artichokecook book has an interesting recipe for Jerusalem artichoke which I’d love to try soon. However, I am a little hesitant as apparently this humble little vegetable has “legendary flatulence-inducing properties”! The Riverford Farm cook book describes it as a vegetable that “threatens marriages” but reassures us that  “the effect is more thunderous than malodorous”! (Quotes all from the Riverford Farm cook book).

Our onions, although neglected after harvesting, are looking good. I’m not sure they will store for very long as I didn’t dry them well enough but we will keep an eye on them and hope for the best. I use a lot of onions anyway so hopefully will get through them before too many rot!

I’m desperately trying to make more vegetable based meals as our diet has been very meat heavy recently. I’m finding the Riverford cook book very handy in this respect and have added their other recipe books to my Christmas list!

 

Sunshine and Flowers

It has been a beautiful day here in Cornwall! The sun has shone all day and you could almost imagine that summer might be drawing near… if it weren’t for that chilly wind that just will not desist! Ashley and I started our day in the front garden; Ashley potting on his beloved Foxglove plants and myself clearing debris from plant pots and checking my seedlings.

Ashley reminded me this morning that we used to take many photographs, almost daily, with our DSLR camera, but these days photo’s often get taken on mobile phones which then stay there and don’t get viewed as part of our photo collection. Today, we have both picked up the ‘proper’ camera again and have thoroughly enjoyed it! Cameras on phones are so good these days, but there’s a depth of field and quality that you get with a DSLR that just isn’t the same on a mobile phone. And of course, you can change settings, use specific ‘modes’ or go completely manual with a DSLR camera. I hope that we continue to use the camera more again and develop (ha! I’m so funny!) our photography skills.

Saturday 30th April 20161The sun was bringing out the vibrant colours in the garden today. It’s been such a pleasure to sit out and enjoy the garden.

I should be able to fill more of the garden with flowers soon, as there are now no chickens to destroy everything. That’s right, Blue and Penny have gone to their new home to enjoy an endless supply of fresh grass and bugs, make new friends (hopefully) and maybe even meet a man! We have been a little undecided about getting rid of them this week as we do enjoy their daily goings on and adore the fresh eggs. But ultimately, it just didn’t sit well with us that they didn’t have free space to roam and were, at times, clearly bored. So off they’ve gone! We hope to buy fresh eggs from the friends that have taken the girls and we know that they will be well looked after there.

After dropping the chickens off at their new abode, we headed to the allotment this afternoon. I FINALLY planted some onions and garlic, we did some weeding and tidying. The potatoes aren’t showing yet (I was quite late getting those in too), but the rhubarb is romping away! Saturday 30th April 20162It was much later than we had planned when we got to the allotment, so we didn’t get as much done as we’d hoped.  I did manage to get a few snaps of the rhubarb in all it’s glory – I hadn’t noticed the pink edges to the leaves before. That’s something I really love about taking photo’s; noticing the details and seeing things from a new perspective. Tomorrow we will head back and get some carrot seeds in, amongst others, do some more weeding and clear away the brassica’s that aren’t being productive any more. I also plan to sow some poppy and other flower seeds.

I now have to go and supervise Ashley – he has grand plans of a rather large shed going where the chickens used to be in the garden! Without intervention, I fear I will end up with more shed than garden!

Thanks for visiting! Hope you all see some sunshine this bank holiday weekend!

Onions are nearly ready!

Last weekend, Ashley and I decided to dig up all of the onions at the allotment. We had planted red and white onions, about the same amount of each. They had started yellowing and most were looking a very good size, they spent a day or two out in the sun and then we put them in the greenhouse to finish drying as the weather has been a bit up and down. A couple had gone to seed and so hadn’t really developed a bulb but overall a good harvest. We also put in some time clearing weeds that we’re starting to take hold on the newly vacated potato bed and around the onions. I’m a little ashamed to say that we haven’t really been to the allotment much this week – the plants in the greenhouse are going to be feeling a little sorry for themselves! And I expect the weeds will have used the time to ‘stretch their legs’! When will we learn to go there more regularly?!
I’m hoping that the weather is now warm enough to get some late runner and dwarf runner beans in the empty beds, also a fresh sowing of chard and possibly some peas. There should be plenty of room in the beds for the cauliflower and kale that I thought I’d try out (that’s if the seedlings have survived the recent neglect).

I think tomorrow will have to include a visit to the poor, abandoned allotment! I expect there will be courgettes galore, Swiss chard to be picked and maybe even some peas ready for picking! We had some peas the other day in a stir fry – they were quite small so not really worth removing from the pods so I cooked them whole, they were very yummy! I wonder how long until Ashley is sick of stir fry allotment veg?! I must look up some other recipes to use the veg – I’m not the worlds best cook I’m afraid!

Allotment visit – 30th June/1st july

Summer arrived here in Cornwall yesterday! High temperatures and glorious sunshine all day long meant that the allotment was really going to need some TLC but watering was going to have to wait until quite late in the evening. After visiting my best friend to help resolve a ‘which dress to wear’ dilemma, it was nearly 10pm when I stopped by the allotment. The temperature was finally dropping (but still not enough to need a cardi!) and it was light enough to spend a good half hour watering everything. I gave everything a good soak (except the onions, which I’ve read you should stop watering when the bulbs are starting to swell) and was thrilled to see some ripe fruits on the raspberry canes, flowers on the peas and beans and even a fruit or two forming on the sweet and chilli peppers in the greenhouse! After feeling for so long that this year might not be very productive and that we’d missed the chance to enjoy fresh peas, it is wonderful to finally be seeing some progress.

So this morning, I couldn’t wait to get back down there in the light of day and really see what’s happening! I was indeed met with the sight of 20 or 30 flowers on the peas (variety – Onward),peas flowering 2 flowers on the runner beans (which I didn’t think would produce anything given the state they were in!), raspberriesjust 2 ripe raspberries (but more looking like they’ll be ready in just a day or 2!) and courgettes (varieties – Zuchinni and a rogue seed from last year) flowering and fruiting (is it a fruit?! You know what I mean!).courgette I’ve never had any trouble with courgettes when growing them at home, they’ve always been so prolific we’ve been sick of the sight of them after a while! Maybe the more exposed conditions at the allotment have really slowed them down because we’ve barely had a flower until now. But there they were, in all their glory! There are at least 2 or 3 that, although tiny, could be picked now. I will wait a few more days as I already have some in the fridge to use up first. It’s so exciting to see things growing and fruiting!

rhubarb

The rhubarb has really picked up in the last week or so. It was a small plant when I bought it, just 2 or 3 stems on and these quickly got damaged by the wind. I was a little worried that it wasn’t going to recover, but I really shouldn’t have worried at all! It is booming! I won’t be harvesting from it this year but I think it will be good to go next year. I’ve seen an interesting rhubarb jam/butter recipe that I’d like to try. We only ever really had it stewed or as a crumble when I was growing up and, although I don’t mind eating it like that, I’d like to try something different with it.

The onions are looking good, too. As I said, I’ve stopped watering them now, a couple went to seed but I’m letting them do that and I’ll try to save the seed for next onions year – I’ve never done that before so we’ll see how it goes! I’m growing a red and a white onion, I can’t remember the specific varieties. Interestingly, none of the white onions went to seed, only the red. I don’t know if the variety has been bred to avoid this or if it’s just luck that the white onions haven’t produced seed but the red have. I’ll have to try and find the packets – I’m sure I kept them!

 

 

I started some more Dwarf French Beans (variety – Borlotto Firetongue I think!) in the greenhouse last week as the originals died outside. I really wanted to try these as I just love the colour of the beans and think they’ll be good for winter storing and using in stews and maybe some home made beans on toast! They are just starting to peek through, as are the cauliflowers and kale that I planted at the same time. The cauli and kale were free seeds with a gardening magazine. I just wanted to give them a go as I’ve never tried to grow either before! There are plenty of seeds left over for next years plants. I’m quite surprised that they are coming through already – I guess the conditions have just been right for them.

Weeding was the order of today, after I’d finished inspecting the veg and talking to myself about how much they’d grown or were ‘coming on nicely now’… passers by and the builders working opposite probably thought I was a bit nuts! Once my fingers were tingling from stinging nettles and I cleared as many weeds as I could bear, I started boxing up the mammoth harvest of summer raspberries (ha ha! maybe one day…) and picked some elderflowers for my next batch of elderflower cordial (the first lot is long gone and the second batch is well under way!).

Home for a much needed cup of tea and to write this up… my fingers are still tingling!

A quick allotment tour…

Last night I headed down to our allotment to check on things and give the greenhouse a water. I thought I’d show you what we have going on so far. We started making the beds in February of this year and planting commenced in April. We have just 5 beds so far (the raised beds in the top left of the photo are someone else’s) but have fenced off a patch the same size again which will be filled with beds quite soon. As you can see, the central bed here is full of first early potatoes and doing well. I expect we can harvest some soon, as a few plants are showing flowers. Peas, beans and Swiss chard have gone in the bed to the left of that. The chard is looking great,  swiss chard but the beans are looking a little washed out.runner beans

I’m not sure why, possibly as it’s quite exposed at our allotment so are feeling the elements or maybe the soil conditions aren’t completely suitable.

On the right hand side of the allotment are onions, beetroot, parsnips and a few more potatoes that over spilled the first bed! We are incredibly lucky that the wonderful friends that allow us to use this field also keep horses (as you can see), so we have a ready supply of rotted horse manure to hand which has formed the main structure of the vegetable beds. Unfortunately, some of it is rather too well rotted and has collected a lot of seeds where it was sitting, which have now burst into life! On the plus side, we believe the weeds to be edible but they have out competed a lot of my beetroot seeds. The parsnip seem to have managed quite well though, and now everything’s a little bigger, it’s much easier to distinguish between the weeds and intended crop. I hope that with some constant weeding this year we will see much less of them next year! I’ve never grown parsnip before, so any words of wisdom are greatly appreciated!

The bed at the bottom of the first picture has a bit of a mixture in at the moment. I started with 2 raspberry bushes, one summer and one autumn fruiting variety. On the opposite side of that bed is a new rhubarb plant. We seem to be suffering quite badly in this bed with dock so have mulched part of it with cardboard. There is a courgette plant and a couple of small lavender plants. I don’t intend for the lavender to stay in the veg bed, but it needed a home! I want lavender dotted around the allotment because a) I love it, and b) we love bees! There doesn’t seem to be a particular shortage of bees around us but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still try to encourage them. Ashley would like to get a bee hive set up at some point… I like the idea in theory but w certainly need to do some research before jumping into that one. Do you have any experience in bee keeping? Does a bee hive need daily attention?

There is another smaller bed just out of view in the first photo, that has blackcurrant and redcurrant in. It is also acting as a nursery bed for a few more lavender plants. We have a fairly established bed of blackcurrant bushes at home, we will move them down to the allotment this autumn I think. They are getting on well and it would be daft to move them now and lose what will hopefully be our best crop to date!

In the greenhouse at the moment I have several tomato varieties, some broccoli and Brussels sprouts that are waiting for a home on the plot, and some chilli and sweet pepper plants. One of Ashley’s next jobs is to build me some benches to go in there! For now, an old vertical grower (the mini greenhouse type) that has lost its cover and an old pallet or two are serving as shelving.

Well, that’s our little allotment! I hope you have enjoyed the little tour!