Allotment geekery

It has been a good year on the allotment and we're pleased with what we have managed to grow. There is definitely room for improvement, next year we are going for volume especially with broad beans, carrots and parsnips, but that is next year.  In the past month or so MozzyMr and I have been working hard to preserve as much as possible because last year too many tomatoes and beetroots went to waste.

Preserving beetroots is easy if a little time consuming.  MozzyMr and I aren't mega fans of pickled beetroot so we went down the boil and freeze route.  Boil the beetroots in slightly salted water for two hours (!) once done dunk in iced water and rub the skins off (love this bit, huh huh huh huh so satisfying).  Once properly cooled dice or slice, bag up and freeze.

As you know we have been making a lot of tomato sauce, which is lovely but can be a bit samey. This time we roasted our tomatoes with garlic (home-grown of course), a bag of the frozen beetroot and dried oregano.  Once wazzed up the sauce was a beautiful raspberry red, and once sieved it was super smooth I can't wait to use it as a pizza sauce.

Allotment geekery

Yesterday the weather was luuush so of course we had to get on the allotment, at this time of year there is so much to get done.  Not only that we have been so starved of sun this winter it's nice to have the sun on your face, even if it wasn't very warm just being able to get out there was enough.

In the last week the seedlings have really gone for it...

Courgettes at last!  These pesky things weren't germinating at all (or so I thought) so I kept planting more thinking I would have a summer of no courgettes *shudder* but I now have about 10 or 11 plants.  Anyone who has grown courgettes will know four plants are more than enough for two people so the folks at work are going to have to brace themselves for the onslaught of veg I'm going to force upon them.

I reacted in much the same way to beetroot as I did to courgettes, I now have 51 plants growing (oops).  Luckily we love beetroot, if you haven't tried beetroot thinly sliced on pizza you are seriously missing out it is mega tasty, try it.

I have never grown broad beans before so I'm happy with the way these bad boys are turning out.  Other people in the polytunnel have been growing broad beans and their plants have pods on them already, I'm not too concerned, from the looks of these flowers we are going to have plenty to keep us busy (so close to trying out broad bean pesto, I just need to find where I have 'safely stored' the recipe).

Well this is a selection of what we have on the go.  Bottom right we have peas that are ready to go out, on the left many, many beetroots, in the modular tray are the butternut squashes I'm hoping will make an appearance soon, borlotti beans which will be hardened off soon, broccoli, turnips, french beans (purple and yellow) and aubergine.

What we did on the plot: 

• Station sewed our first row of radish
• Got the first batch of carrot seed in
• Dug out the dandelions creeping over from our neighbours plot
• Hand weeded the onions

Allotment Geekery

Ahhhh this is probably the best part of the allotment year in my opinion.  We're still harvesting loads of veg but we're also clearing down the bind weed and other nasties and drying them out ready for the bonfire season which starts in October.  We've cleared down a far amount, this is some of what we have left:

Now, the following compost bin might not look much to you, but it's been a long time in the making on our plot.  We've had one of those plastic council dalek do-dah compost bins since we started but they're rubbish and MozzyMr has been talking about building one out of palettes for AGES, and now we have one!  Shame it's almost full already...

The polytunnel is teeming at the moment, our little plot is full to the brim with tomatoes and a couple of other bits, including a baby melon!  How exciting, can't wait for it to be big enough to eat.

The following bits of veg aren't ours but I had to take some photos to show you how others are using their polytunnel plots.  We do have some chilli's and peppers growing but frankly we grew too many tomatoes and they haven't got as much light as they needed, next year we won't bother with so many tomatoes, they're nice but I am OVER tomato soup.

Allotment Geekery

Not doing too badly with the old veg at the moment, of course Mewster makes a thorough inspection of anything that we bring home.  As it turns out if you leave shredded beetroot unattended, she'll eat it, in fact she'll eat pretty much anything and in the morning when she's ready for her breakfast she'll just keep hurdling over your head until you get up and feed her.  Who knew?

Le Weekend

A weekend of luncheon with my aunt and uncle, a pint in the rain next to the river, some blue skies, getting pot-bound beetroot in the plot, of waiting for the apples to be ready for crumbles and harvesting a bumper crop of strawberries.