Colin the courgette

Our new friend from the allotment!

Autumn already?

Well, the past few weeks have whizzed by again. Still not had time to do a decent days work at the plot but have spent lots of time picking things and making chutney and jam, which is what it's all about really! Had the last of our sweetcorn today - our best year so far, definitely thanks to having manure I reckon.

Have dug up the first two rows of the main crop potatoes and sorted them into 'use first' (like the ones I inevitably speared with the fork) and 'keepers' (ones which have no scab or any other blemishes etc). I've doubled up paper shopping bags to act as potato sacks. This has worked in previous years and the tatties have kept well, in the shed. We have some right whopper pots (variety Cara), They're really tasty but have a tendency to over cook easily.

I thought we might have had blight but the discolouring of the leaves started off yellow rather than brown so it was probably (hopefully) just the plants reaching the end of their life! I cut off all the tops just in case. I have one more row to dig up and decided to leave them in the ground a bit longer as it's meant to toughen the skins up for better storage.

Today we used our first ready pumpkin to make this lovely soup:
Just peeking in the background is a jar of rather tasty marrow, apricot and ginger jam, which I made a batch of last weekend. I made it last year too and it's right nice on toast, or mixed in with porridge (mmmm I'm looking forward to those cold mornings already!). Anyone want the recipe?

Here's a pic of the other squashes collected today:
Am desperate to sow some oriental greens (have not grown these before). Just need a bit of time to weed where these squashes were growing and pop them in. This weekend?

Photos!

Some photos from this week. Have spent the evening looking up runner bean and courgette chutney recipes. Glut here we come!

Sweetcorn under planted with dwarf french beans

Yumm!

This is my wigwam set-up with courgette, lettuce and beans

First pumpkin of the year - seems rather early - this is actually ripe now! (hollow sounding when tapped)


Part of our wildflower area


The compost bins with courgette and pumpkin plants are doing well :0)

Soooo...

....we have been allotmenting a fair bit the past couple of weeks (when the weather has allowed - generally it's either too rainy or too sunny...can't strike a happy medium!), again we've been grass cutting/weeding round the edges as well as harvesting quite a lot (dwarf beans-a-plenty, courgettes, a few carrots, lots of lettuce - JB particularly likes the little gem which I've grown us for the first time this year, and so on.

However, most excitingly......dah dah dah dah dah DAH (*drum roll*) we had our first tomatoes (cherries) and SWEETCORN!!! Yummy yum yum it was really good and the plants have done way better this year so quite a few more cobs to come. I think they have liked the manure plus being under-planted with dwarf french beans (not a weed in sight as the beans have shaded them all out).

I'm also quite proud of my wigwam set-ups, with a courgette planted in the middle, 4 poles (buddleia cut-offs) with runner and purple french beans winding their way up, and finally, to make best use of the space, rows of lettuce planted in a square at the base of the wig wam. Might be easier to see what i mean with a photo.

Hopefully if the weather's good we'll get down there after work tomorrow and will then report back with some pics. I have feeling we'll be needing to find some runner/french bean chutney recipes soon.

(PS This is Lou, I accidentally logged on as JB aka Ms Idler)

So little time

Well, we've been super busy recently and haven't had much time for allotmenting apart from picking all the things that're ready (courgettes, dwarf french beans, runner beans and purple climbing french beans...bean-tastic!, masses of lettuce, peas, beetroot. pounds and pounds of red and black currants, raspberries and more..phew!)

Hope to spend some time up there on Sunday...so much weeding and grass cutting to do!

Home made...

borscht.....

From these beauties

Yum

Improvised jelly straining set-up.

We now have many jars of redcurrant jelly (with a hint of cinnamon). Really easy recipe from Deila Smith's website originally I think. Basically, equivalant amount of berries and sugar, cook the berries first, add the sugar and disolve, (at this point I also added in cinnamon) then boil for 8-10 mins .....except I forgot the boiling bit and hence they are a bit runny but I have decided to call it redcurrant syrup ;o)

bird's eye view


How colorful is that? Loverly rainbow chard.

Redcurrants...

....now total 12lbs! With still more to pick.
Started on the blackcurrants too - 4.5lbs, having only picked about a quarter so far. Our little freezer is almost full. Will have to start on the jam/jelly making soon.....mmmm

Harvest Time!

Yay we had a good afternoon down at the plot on Sunday and got stuck in to some serious weeding (though of course there's still lots more to do) and also....harvesting! The autumn onions were just about ready and had started going a little bit mouldy on their bums so Sunday was the day for them to come out. Same goes for the garlic. Plus we need the room to put other stuff in. Don't think either of them will keep very well but am drying them out as much as possible in the lean-to at home.

Here is our stash from Sunday. In the back garden we've also got some peas that are ready (sooooo tasty) and a few raspberries and wild strawberries, on top of masses of lettuce (not literally of course).
Potatoes, broad beans, onions, garlic, strawbs, beetroot, carrots and a couple of radishes. Oh and I nearly forgot we also picked over 5lbs of red currants, with loads more still to pick.

Our main onion crop (Jetset)

Our first teeny courgette (Nero) of the year (this is one of those I accidentally planted instead of a pumpkin. Seems to like it in the compost heap)

Rainbow chard!

Sweetcorn - varied success, some doing better than others. Undersown with dwarf french beans.


PS - whoop I have my own log in so now you know if it's me or JB (Ms Idler)

Great idea to share land for veg growing

Just a quick post to flag up a great new website designed to help people share land for growing your own - http://landshare.channel4.com/ - offer part of your plot for a share if you can't manage it all, or sign up to find land or as a helper if you just want to get stuck in.

We've been away on holiday for a week in Dorset, and came back to a rather weed-infested plot at the weekend. Luckily we timed it so that nothing was over whilst we were away and the strawberries, red currants, potatoes, onions and garlic are ready for eating! We'll post some photos shortly...

Our first potatoes of the year!

We thought we'd take a chance and dig up some potatoes to see how they were doing. They'd flowered and were looking ready, and so out came the fork...


Luckily all wasn't in vain - there were a few decent sized potatoes and some wee 'uns also:


But, the ultimate test has to be how they taste, and it's fair to say that these were the most delicious, melt-in-the-mouth potatoes we've both ever tasted! They were earlies - Colleen variety - make sure you buy them next year!

Simply boil in a little bit of water with a few sprigs of mint, drain, add a little pepper and a knob of butter, and enjoy!