Nom nom :)

So, bad Steph (again!), not been down the allotment for a while. I am sure everything is still growing away but I expect it is looking a little jungle-esque! I am planning on a salvage mission this w/e to put things back to rights and harvest what's ready. As usual, I've been busy with other things. I'm currently putting together a catalogue of my glassy goodies & working on commissions.

Last night I cooked up some of the veggies hanging around my kitchen, as it looks like a harvest festival! The pic above shows some roasted 'Hooligan' pumpkin seeds. I didn't really know what I was doing but they turned out reet grand. I added a little olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted at Gas5 for about 10-15 mins. The ones I didn't munch last night will make a tasty snack at work today. Waste not, want not :)

With the fine-looking 'Hooligan' pumpkin itself, peeling was a no-go so I sliced the little devil into two, added a touch of olive oil and roasted it too. Looking forward to scooping out the innards for dinner tonight :) Muhahaha! Ahem.

Don't suppose you remember the 'bell boy' pepper I got from Sainsbury's a while ago? Well, this is he. Look, FINALLY, the little peppers turned red. In a way it will be a shame to eat them. The plant looks great in my lounge in this red pot.

Another 'FINALLY' - the tonnes of tomatoes I've got from the 2 plants at lottie are turning. These ones are ripening on the windowsill. I am probably going to harvest all the remainder at the weekend & windowsill-ripen them too. Batches of tommie sauce ahoy methinks. The green ones I picked a while back are still lanquishing in the fridge. Also on my to-do list but they seem ok.

Hopefully next post will be photo-filled & actually down the allotment! I am also hoping to pick some blackberries this weekend. All this is weather-dependant of course. Fingers crossed for at least no rain!

Marrow surprise, Hooligan harvest & Bilberry bonanza

I'm a week behind on this post. Bad Steph! Ok, so last Thursday I went to lottie to check it out and harvest the goodies. What a nice view from the car (above)!

It was raining a little so I tried to clear some of the weeds from around my sweet william, red lettuce, dwarf & broad bean seedlings. Then the rain got heavy so I gave up on trying to do that and grabbed the harvest I could before getting super-soaked! You can see at the top of the photo the area I weeded and the mass of weeds at the bottom of the pic :(

My vegetable spaghetti is looking good. Looking forward to trying this. I have waited a whole year as last time it didn't work.

I have LOADS of tomatoes on my 2 plants, but all of them are green and not looking like they'll turn. So I picked a whole bunch to make into various soups, jams and whatnot. They're in the fridge right now. Just need some time to make them - bit busy with 'Handmade Heaven : Funky Fused Glass' at the mo, re-photographing things and making new goodies.

I harvested some tasty goodies - beetroots, green & yellow courgettes another MAHOOSIVE marrow which I didn't even spot growing and was lurking beneath the leaves - it was a bit of a surprise I can tell you!, runner beans...

...patty pans, hooligan pumpkins (both upside down, drying here) and a couple of banana peppers. Alas the peppers were all soft and tasted horrid so they went to compost heaven.

I went to visit my folks and took the MAHOOSIVE marrow with me. I weighed it on my mum's kitchen scales and this made me laugh - 'ERROR' - I think the scales were saying "too heavy! get it off, get it OFF!" :)

So I took it to the bathroom scales. I think it was about 8.5lbs! A monster. 

Look how proud I am of my 'marrow bowtie' ;)

My folks and I went out to harvest some wild goodies. Free food - who wouldn't!? I picked my first ever bilberries. Absolutely delicious! A few may, or may not, have fallen into my face... ;) Hehehe! They're very stainy and quite time-consuming to pick as they only grow in ones or twos, hidden in the leaves of the bilberry bushes.

My mum said they were quite expensive to buy and I now understand why. The three of us were picking for around two hours and got this 700g-ish haul. I looked how much this would cost to buy and calculated it was around £32! Nice :)

We also picked 1500g of rowanberries. Lovely!

I'm at my big bro's place in Kent this w/e. We're about to go for a walk so I'm going armed with plastic bags in case we come across any blackberries or other fruity goodies. He has a plum tree in his garden so I am taking some of those. Just have to shin up a ladder! I've already added some plum jam & chutney recipes to the recipe list. Hope you're making the most of all the fruit & veg ready at this time of year. I really need to get in the kitchen and preserve all my goodies.

A quick 20 minutes... PAH!

I should have sorted this post out mid-week but I just didn't get round to it. I went to lottie for a quick raspberry pick. Ya know, a short 20 mins to harvest the first of the fruit ready for picking, then back home to do other things. Well, as usual, that 'quick 20 minutes' turned into a full-blown 3 hours! To be honest though, I was really pleased to actually spend a good chunk of time really working the plot. I got the hoe out and did lots of weeding. The generous watering the plants are getting is, of course, benefiting the weeds too. Once the hoe gets pushed around the plot is transformed and looks nice and tidy. I have very tidy plot neighbours so I usually get guilty if mine looks messy. Silly really!

I also re-jigged bits of the plot I'd planted out. Some plants were being overshadowed by others so they needed to be moved to get more light etc. The peppers in the med bed were being dwarfed by the tomatoes so they got re-homed. Also the charlotte potatoes from last year have popped up again (great, as they were SUPER delicious) and were encroaching on my aubergines. Aubergines, why do I bother? Last year they didn't do all that great and this year they don't look all that great either! Maybe next year I will learn not to bother....!

FINALLY, I have success with sunflowers. This is the 3rd or 4th lot of seed I've tried to get going and by a miracle I've got 4 plants looking pretty good. The rest of the seed were a no-show and the earlier seedlings I tried just got munched. I am amazed at how hard I have found it to get sunflowers growing happily. Aren't they meant to be a doddle, something a child could grow?! Anyhoo, I've moved these into final growing positions and put in some support canes. The way I got them to grow eventually was like with the peas - in plastic bottle tubes in an attempt to keep the slugs away.

I mentioned the rogue charlotte potatoes just now. Well, I had to dig up some of the plants that were growing through the path and over the aubergines - they had to go. Even harvesting a little early I got a good crop from the few plants I culled. There are still lots left. I am sure I will have charlotte pots popping up in the 'road end' big bed for lots of seasons to come, which to be honest, is no bad thing :)

I also spotted this red lettuce (variety unknown - any ideas?), growing under the patio apple, seemed to be nibble-free. Odd, I thought, as I've avoided planting lettuces due to the expected battle with the slugs. I can just about handle the holes in spinach as I love spinach so much. Well, reading blogs and lottie sites, as I do, I learned something I didn't know. Red lettuces don't appeal to slugs. Well I never, why didn't anyone tell me this before?! That's it, I am definitely stocking up on red lettuce seed to grow my own. I actually prefer the red varieties of lettuce anyway - it appeals to my artistic eyes more than the green. These are a few leaves I grabbed to munch on. Tasty :)

I also finally planted out the last lot of sweetcorn that was struggling along in the containers I'd planted the seed into. Poor things needed space to grow. I planted out 24 seedlings so if their older brothers are anything to go by they should do well. Fingers crossed.

Oh, and I did pick some raspberries and it did take a 'quick 20 minutes'! I just got the ripe ones from outside the netting and it was enough for a bowl of rasps for pud. However mostly they need a little more time before the main harvest. I also brought home some of the cornflowers which are making a great sugarsnap support, as well as looking fabulous.

The weekend is ear-marked for catching up on my glassy goodies business but I am getting a 'go down the allotment' urge already! I also need to do something with all those blackcurrants I picked the other day.

Post-holiday catch up

So, what is happening at lottie? Well...

The view from the road is looking good. Nick's been doing a great job looking after things whilst I was away & now things are really coming along. He even edged this big bed. Bless.

The californian poppies look great with the gladioli. They make me smile :)

And this bed of flowers is coming into bloom.

The sweetcorn block is really growing and the oriental salad I put around the bottom is nearly ready for picking.

I planted out some leeks I grew from seed before I went away. They all seem to be doing well. I could, perhaps, have planted too many! Hey ho. I do like leeks ;)

The shed end is also going great guns. The cornflowers are working well with the sugarsnaps, giving them something to hold on to whilst looking pretty!

Back at home the seeds I planted out on my balcony are also growing well. The borage is on the verge of flowering (I nearly lost it when I was away but luckily a good soak revived it), the rocket and coriander will be harvested soon & the bellboy pepper is starting to produce.

My replacement tumbling tom tomatoes, grown from seed, are also doing well. Thank goodness for that!

'Surgery', strawberries and sale plants

...hmm, how do i do this??!

Saturday afternoon/eve was spent down't allotment with my friend, Eva. I needed a helper so I could get my raspberries netted - not a solo task! - so I was terribly greatful she volunteered her help. There are many jobs an allotmenteer can do solo but sometimes one needs help! It took a while to decide how best to tackle the netting as the raspberries are mixed in with the other soft fruit in a 7 x 5m bed. It would cost a fortune to do the whole thing so I am prioritising raspberries this year as my fruit to protect :) I plumped for a longer-lasting net and went with 2 packs of 8 x 2m 12mm pond netting. Luckily most of the raspberries are at one end of the bed so I could net most of them. Here's some pics - I was quite pleased with the results and, like ever, I did a neat (read "perfectionist's"!) job and more or less sewed the two nets together - I felt a bit like a surgeon!

i'm going in!

...and for my next trick, i will make a raspberry net out of bamboo canes, plant ties and pond covering!

ta da!! surgical stitching!

here's the finished result. no bird is getting at them there raspberries!! muhaha!

So, job done :) That was all I'd planned to do. That, and water the plants. However, we all know it is far too easy to get distracted, especially by reduced sale-price plants. Yes, I succumbed to 2x sweet peppers, 1x tomato (will look up the type), 1x pack of 6 cherry tomatoes, 4x pumpkins, 2x leek packs. I also got drawn in by a handsome-looking blueberry bush. Not that I needed more soft fruit but I don't have a blueberry... oh it is all too easy to get sidetracked!

2nd big bed, newly planted out with pumpkins, peppers, tommies to go with already planted sweetcorn, aubergines, baby sweetcorn and potatoes - busy bed!

Next, plant out that impulse-buy blueberry...!

Look at me go! ha! However, this next photo will show you why I bought it - it's so handsome!

*sigh*

I am also having a fantastic run on juicy, scrumptious strawberries. I picked about 750g of ripe red beauties. The net I put over them really has protected the crop and more or less all were pristine. There are some real whoppers and the taste and smell is heaven!


The rest of the allotment is coming on in leaps and bounds. Here are a few snaps of what's growing...

sweet peas

developing flower and herb bed

vialii primula

ripening blackcurrants

globe artichokes starting to flower

charlotte potatoes - bottom right's looking a little sad :(

broccoli, red onions and charlotte potatoes

charlotte potatoes, red onions, broccoli and cauliflower

So, all going well. I hope your growing's going good :)