September

So it's been quite a while since I've written on here.

We were away for two and a bit weeks in August, during which time my cousin and her son looked after things for us, watering, harvesting and making sure things were ok. When we got back at the beginning of September, there were hundreds of runner beans waiting to be picked, as well as French beans, huge marrows, loads of cucumbers, and chillies.

Here is one of the marrows!!!

Above- one of our harvests in September.

Runner beans anyone?!

Struggling to find the right 'Carry On..' inspired caption...

Below- Some of the leaves on the Jerusalem artichoke plants had gone like this:-

I don't really know what it was though and since I took all these dead looking leaves and stems off, it's been doing really well, except for the fact that the really strong winds we had a couple of weeks ago blew all the plants over so Baz had to cut them right down. I'm hoping that they'll be ready to pick soon. Yum. We discovered when we used to get a veg box a few years ago that if you roast them (with skins on) they are really tasty.

Above- another one of our recent harvests. We need to grow some other coloured veg I am thinking.

Above- how it was all looking in mid-September, from the bottom. You can see that the area on the left is full of weeds and we will be working on this area in the autumn/winter.

Above- so I'm pretty sure that our tomatoes got blight. But I have managed to save a few of the plants and we now have a whole two red tomatoes nearly ready to pick and a collection of other ones I'm hoping will ripen and be edible.

Above- here is the tomato plant with the blight (I think) showing on the leaves and on the stems.

Above is the cucumber plant which pretty much monopolised the polytunnel this summer, due to us not trimming it back and leaving it to take over. I have since cut a little bit off and attached some of the plant to string which is attached to the beam running above at the top of the polytunnel. But I don't think you can really tell that well from the pictures above and below. It's now pretty much dying off. These are pictures from about two or three weeks ago.

 

Above is one of the chillies we have grown. Unfortunately all the labels I put in the chilli plants I started off got mixed up so I couldn't tell you which type of chilli it is. But I can tell you it's quite a hot one! I was going to try and preserve a few in olive oil but Baz decided to freeze them instead.

I was hoping to do some seed saving this year, but so far I haven't done any. I have gone back through my notes I made though from my food growing course from a couple of years ago and found this article which I've made notes from too, so I'm going to try with the cucumbers, French and runner beans and possibly the chillies. The cucumbers have stopped producing fruit now, I had planned on trying to pickle a few into gherkins, but that'll have to wait until next year because we've eaten them all now. The cucumbers, which came from a plant my friend Sam gave me, have been one of the best crops this year. We have had at least 30 or so, and apart from a couple which we let get too big so couldn't really eat with the skins on, they've been so tasty! We will definitely be growing them again.

The last couple of weekends we have been sowing green manure seeds for over-wintering in the beds which don't have anything in. We bought two types- Phacelia Tanacetifolia and Mustard (White) both from Homebase, which I'm not totally happy about because we should have got organised and ordered some different ones from a nice online organic website, but we didn't. Anyway, these two can be sown up until September so last weekend (the 29th/30th) was the last weekend in theory that we could sow it. We managed to do about 5 or 6 beds, a couple were just half beds, and the first lot I put in about two weeks ago is already coming up.

It'll be two years soon since we first took up a plot on this allotment site, but 6 months of that was on our original plot and a few months of not having a plot at all. 

Hasta la vista.
-x-

Grrrrrrrrrrr............

So we went for our bi-weekly visit today. Neither of us could be that bothered today. Especially me. I was SO lazy and tired today. Could have been due to the fact that I was woken loads of times last night by some maniac shouting up and down the street outside, with threats of killing someone's family. Which we found out today was actually our neighbour, who was fuming after someone threw something at their car in the early hours. Scary stuff.

Back to the allotment.

***
It's now September and so I'll just post some pics for this post as I can't really remember what I was doing at the end of July.

SPUDDIES!

Well I think the highlight of the weekend trip to lotty must have been the potatoes Baz dug up. Here they are in all their spud-like glory...

And here is Baz unearthing them...

Baz cooked them for our dinner, with some mint we pinched from Andy's plot, and they were delish.

Neither of us could really be bothered yesterday so we just did the bare minimum before heading home to play Operation Flashpoint (Baz) and watch The Big Bang Theory (me). Which are equally as important as growing veg, obviously.

Here are some pics of our onions:

I'm not certain but I don't think the onions should be flowering, does this mean they have bolted??

We dug up a couple of the biggest white onions yesterday, so once they have dried out, we'll use them in some yummy dish.

I said in the last post that I would take some pics of the flowers we currently have, so voila:

Above are the sweet peas we grew from seed.

And these are the butterfly wild flower mix.

The 'Sam cucumbers' had their biggest growth yet this week, they've gone from about an inch big to about 8" big, which was pretty exciting. Yes. Other things we have in the polytunnel-
- tomatoes- only one plant really which is looking vaguely the right size, fingers crossed some tomatoes will come through soon!
- chillis- the slugs are still chomping away on the leaves...completely decimating one of them
- basil- discovered I might have accidentally 'weeded' the new seedlings that were coming through, as I didn't realise Baz had sown some more seeds...Oops.
- chives- these are doing well
- some other seedlings are coming through, Baz sowed these so not sure what they are

The 'Sam squash', the two that survived, seem to be doing well, but not sure if they will grow enough. Not sure if they should be bigger by now? The two courgette plants are also doing ok, but no actual courgettes yet and by looking at both our neighbours' plants, there should probably be some by now. But maybe we'll just get a few small ones which would be better than nothing.

The runner beans are all doing ok, I spotted the first bean just now in a photograph (failed to spot it yesterday)-

I planted out a sunflower plant in the week, but Baz told me yesterday I need to give it some support because of the wind, so I tied it to a bamboo cane. This is one I grew from an Innocent seed Mum gave me.

Ok well that's all for now folks.

All good, just nothing to harvest...

We seem to have had a bit of a social life recently so last weekend we didn't get to the allotment. So I went up yesterday, watered inside the polytunnel and did an hour or two of weeding. We are still not harvesting much, well nothing yesterday, it's pretty different from this time last year. I really hope things are better next year!

Me looking smug with a load of weeds!

Baz studying....

This is our miniscule harvest from a couple of weeks back!! You can't really tell but those potatoes are actually new potatoes and the cauliflower is also tiny.

Despite not really harvesting anything at the moment, the plot is looking really good. The sweet peas we grew from seed are starting to flower- white, pink and purple- and I spent a little bit of time tying them to the canes yesterday. Also the wild flower butterfly mix I put in a few months ago have gone crazy and there are some really pretty blue and pink flowers. Will take some pics for the next post.

Sadly no frogs or toads in the makeshift pond yet.


What else? In the polytunnel the cucumber plants are growing loads, there are lots of cucumbers, and yesterday I noticed one starting to get a little bigger. I need to look up whether I'm supposed to be pruning the plants at all. The slugs seems to love eating our chilli plants, which is really annoying. We've tried putting woodchip around the base of the plants, but that hasn't deterred them. So we need to try other methods. Luckily the ones we have in pots seem to be untouched, so far. The tomato plants in the ground seem to be doing ok, although I think I started them all just a bit too late, as there are no fruits showing yet. 


Tommy the big black and white cat came to see me while I was weeding yesterday. He is really cute. Until he goes and rolls in the radish seedlings, looking at me as if to say ''Aren't I cute? Yes I am crushing all your precious seedlings. Mwah ha ha ha!''.


Adios -x- 

Solstice gathering

Forgot to write about our small gathering we had to celebrate the summer solstice.

A few friends came and we had a bbq, drinks and even some running races, instigated by the lovely Oiana!

Here are some pics of the night:

Can you feel the love?!

Croc trying to hide.

Not sure what Carlos is doing here, apart from maybe making shapes despite there not being music or a dancefloor.

Ah, lovely family snap!! I love this picture. Going to miss you guys loads...but don't worry we'll be over visiting when we can!

Thanks so much to Philippa and Suzanne, Carlos and Oi for coming, it was lovely to catch up with you and scoff our faces with burgers and hot dogs!!

Until next time/hasta la vista!

-x-

What's with this weather?

Seems like we just don't get summers like we used to. I swear during my childhood we had two months of lovely sunny weather, July and August, ok well I've just realised we're still in June so maybe I shouldn't be too hasty in writing off our summer before it's had a proper chance to start! But even our allotment neighbour has said to us this is the 'worst year' he's known for growing veggies (he's been doing it 20 odd years). I thought we had the worst of the winds, but the last few days have brought lots of wind again.

Things are going ok at lotty. Stuff we've harvested so far, albeit in small proportions....

-rhubarb
-radish (only about 10% was edible though, not sure why, maybe left it too late)
-lettuce
-basil
-spring onions (ok only 2 very small ones!)
-cauliflowers (the smallest ones you've ever seen)

To be honest, we've taken home hardly anything, but it makes me feel better to think we've had a small amount!!

Baz keeps laughing at me for the amount of tomato plants we've got in the polytunnel. He keeps asking me where I'm proposing putting them, and I keep saying, oh I'll re-pot them. ''Yeh, but we don't have any more big pots, Steph''. ''Oh, well, I'll buy some''. ''Yeh but there's a blanket ban on buying things for the allotment'' (as we're totally skint and trying to save for a holiday we can't afford). ''ARGH, leave me and the tomato plants alone, goddamit!!''.

Here are the caulis:

Aren't they cute? I steamed them and mixed in some nutmeg, cinnamon, marge and soya milk and it was delish.

**********

Sunday, 1st July-

JULY?????????? What the hec?!

Spent most of today digging over one of the beds, and sowing lots of seed into it, namely:

- rainbow chard
- carrots (chantenay)
- swede
- rocket

Here is one of the 'Sam cucumbers'.....

Oh my god, how cute is that?!

Baz spent some time in the polytunnel today planting some more of the tomato plants into the ground. We dug up the first potatoes. Sadly, the ones we dug up outside had a puny amount of spuds, but luckily the two we had in pots in the polytunnel gave us quite a few. Baz is making them into roasties as I write....I can't wait!!

Came across four ants' nests today, kind of gross, I just moved the one from the bed I was digging over to an area which is kind of wild, though obviously loads of ants were still in the bed. Baz found two in both the pots with potatoes in, and the other one was in our compost. Kind of felt bad for them, they must have spent so long building their nests, only for a big clumsy human to come along and totally destroy it. At least I didn't kill them, I wonder if any of the ones left in the bed manage to find the new home I gave them. I always remember being on holiday with my family in the Caribbean (yes I know, I am really lucky to have had a holiday here!) and we were watching this line of ants carrying food that had been dropped on the ground, and I remember thinking, wow, it's amazing the way they all work together as a team.

Here's me sowing the seeds...

Still sowing....

And here are the spuds!