Foraging

At the top end of our allotment there is a jungle of weeds.  We are working  up that way in our clearing sessions, but as yet it is a mess. Amongst the mess are blackberries ripening daily. There aren't very many, I've only picked about 6 so far, that's not enough to make a pie with. We're going to let them ripen and then pick them before we finally cut the mess down.  There will still be blackberries to pick though, because I've found some more nearby.

The allotments are situated along a lovely lane, full of wildlife and I went foraging along this lane last week. There I  found an abundance of blackberries. I was in blackberry heaven as I picked. I was dreaming of blackberry and apple pies and crumbles using the apples from our apple tree in the garden, blackberry jam, blackberries mixed with the raspberries from the garden and blackberry gin.

I need to be quick though because other people know of this blackberry place, I've seen them walking down the lane with carrier bags. But I think there is plenty for everyone and I mustn't be greedy.

The down side of this blackberry picking is the scratches and nettle stings to my arms, so I have to remember to wear long sleeves when I go there.  I've also found that the best ones are always just out of reach.  So I take a small rake with me to pull the branches down.

I'm doing well, I've picked lots now and they're in the freezer ready for when I  have a baking session. If  I don't bake soon I may just have to go out and buy another freezer because I'm running out of blackberry space.

What's going on at the allotment?

There's a lot of team work going on at our new allotment. My husband is working hard on the construction side of things, whilst my daughter, son in law and I with a little help from the grandchildren have been doing other things.

We've been digging, weeding and clearing areas. There have been bonfires to get rid of rubbish.  The first one got out of hand and nearly burnt the fence down. It burnt one of the bushes but we were glad about that, it had to go anyhow, so it was helped along.  The grandchildren thought it was great fun.

At our old allotment we are still growing crops, but we are starting to clear things away ready for when we move at the end of the year. The manure and compost bins have been emptied and all the stuff has been wheelbarrowed over to our new allotment and put in the bins there.  Fortunately it's only just along the lane, but it was still hard work.

I spent some time at the old allotment the other day.  I cleared away the last of the broad beans, took down the support frame and weeded the bed.  All that remains in that bed now is the climbing beans and a late sowing of peas.

A few days earlier my daughter and I had pulled up the onions. I weeded this bed, there are still some beetroot and carrots there and some leek seedlings which we will transplant in the next week or two into the beds at our new plot.

 I checked the cabbages for caterpillars. They are covered with a netting frame, but somehow the cabbage whites still manage to get in and lay their eggs. Apart from a few holes in their leaves the cabbages are looking quite good. The pumpkins and squash which my daughter planted are also doing really well.

The last raised bed is the fruit bed.  All the fruit will have to be moved over to the new allotment  some time before the end of the year. There are summer and autumn fruiting raspberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries and rhubarb. We've had a good crop of rhubarb this year, but I think it might be time now to stop pulling it.

Back at the new allotment, the onions from the old plot are drying nicely in the shed.  The raised beds which my husband has built are being prepared for the fruit and leeks from the old plot, and for spring cabbage, kale, swede, fennel and beetroot which I have started off at home. We also want to grow some onions through the winter.

The soil in these new beds is heavy clay, so we have incorporated well rotted manure and compost from the old plot, old compost from our potato bags and good soil from other parts of the plot.

It's good to be able to have a break from all that digging and weed clearing and do some proper allotment gardening.

What's going on at your allotment or veg garden at the moment?

Watercress and other things

I popped down the garden the other day to pick some salad leaves and was amazed to see how well the watercress has grown. I tend to forget it's there because it's a bit hidden by a big clump of oregano which keeps flopping over onto the bed. Perhaps it's grown well because I've left it to get on and do it's own thing or maybe the wet weather has helped it along. Whatever the reason for it's rapid growth I'm pleased. Watercress is not only very healthy, it's also a very versatile salad crop. I love cheese and watercress sandwiches, watercress soup and you can also make a sauce which goes well with fish.

Other salad stuff which is doing well in the garden at the moment are mustard, rocket and red salad bowl. The red salad bowl has just kept on growing all summer and I've kept on picking it. I transplanted some lollo rosso seedlings a couple of weeks ago in different places around the veg garden and was horrified to see two of the rows had completely disappeared the next day. That must be the work of slugs. Fortunately the others are still growing.

The cucumbers in the cold frame are doing well and there are some tiny cucumbers there. The 'tumbler' tomatoes don't look very happy, they seem very slow.  They have flowers but no tomatoes. The beetroot at the allotment was very overcrowded, I should have thinned them out early on, but I pulled some tiny ones the other day. They were much smaller than baby beets, more like micro beets, but they went well with a salad. I've sown some more beetroot recently which is probably my last chance for an autumn crop. I've also got some fennel seedlings which are ready to plant out at the allotment.  I've never grown fennel before and I'm not sure how to use it in cooking, but I believe it can be sliced and added to salads.

Soon I'll be sowing my Sarah Raven winter salad mix, so hopefully there'll still be plenty of interesting salad ingredients for our autumn and winter salads.

For more information on growing salad crops and recipes to try check out the 52 Week Salad Challenge posts on  veg plotting's blog

Taking down the shed

For the last 10 weeks since we took on our new allotment this massive metal clad shed has dominated the site.  Our plans were to demolish it and put raised beds in its place.The demolition started last week.

We had to empty it first of the stuff which the previous tenant had left in. And there was quite an assortment of stuff, some of it was useful, like rolls of polythene sheeting (I'm thinking of how many cloches we can make), bags of nails, plant pots, tools, buckets (always useful around an allotment).  Of the less useful stuff there was an old aquarium, a hamster cage, a pair of stirrups and a bridle and  lots more.  A few trips to the local recycling centre were needed.

So for the last two weeks bit by bit, section by section my husband has been taking the shed down. As he worked at this he was able to see how much of the shed he would be able to recycle around the plot. The metal panels can be used to clad the fences to keep out weeds from neighbouring plots.What we have left, well there is a waiting list of neighbouring allotmenteers who want to take it off our hands.  The wood from the floor will be used to make raised beds. Some of the wooden framework is going to be made into a polytunnel/greenhouse. The many bricks underneath the floor supporting the shed will be used around the plot.

Finally the shed was no more.  We are now left with the plot looking like a scrapyard/building site and an amazing amount of work still to do. But we are encouraged by our allotment neighbours who keep telling us how well we are doing, it helps to keep us going.

Beach day

 

We live about an hour's drive away from the coast, but for some reason, although I really love the seaside we don't often go to our 'local' beaches.  We prefer to go on days out to the hills and countryside.  But in the last couple of years since we've started looking after our grandchildren during school holidays, it's become an annual event  to take them to the beach. That's where we went this week--to Morecambe beach.

Anyone who knows the Lancashire coastline may not think that Morecambe is the ideal place to go, but we have found the perfect spot, away from the crowds. We can park the car nearby, have a picnic on the seafront, then walk down to the beach. 

The children love the beach, they are in their element just digging in the sand or climbing rocks. Paddling would have been nice too but the tide was out and in Morecambe Bay it goes out a long way.

Nothing changes really with beach days. As we sat there in the sunshine I was transported back to when our children were young and even further to family holidays when I was a child. Children love to play on the beach--writing their names in the sand, building sand castles, collecting pebbles and shells.

As for me, well I just love to walk along the beach barefoot, with the sun warm on my back, or to sit and watch the children play. It's a good feeling.

A bit of TLC

 

Last weekend I decided to give the garden a bit of love and attention. It's been neglected recently in favour of our new allotment.  But I felt I needed to have some time with it, to enjoy it's beauty before plants went over and  also to do some much needed work.

I pulled up weeds, hoed, cut back hardy geraniums, deadheaded. It was very quiet, I got lost in my own thoughts as I worked and the garden seemed to wrap itself around me.

I also noticed things. I looked at the borders where I have been trying to achieve some colour effects. These haven't all gone to plan but they looked good anyway.

This was a new border last year and has filled out really well. The astilbe have put on a good show this year. The colours in this border are pink, blue and purple with splashes of yellow from foliage like the grasses and heuchera.

This border looks a bit of a jumble of plants.  It's known as 'Phyllis's border' and was newly rearranged this year after we had the big conifer cut down. Things seem to be growing better here now, but I may need to tame it a bit.

This is what I call the 'yellow border'-- you may wonder why. Originally I wanted it to have a yellow theme because most of my garden borders have a lot of pink in them. So I planted yellow plants, then I allowed some orange in. I thought it needed a contrasting colour so I planted some blue which does work quite well. At the moment the dominating colour is the red of the crocosmia lucifer. Pink is not allowed in this border. I think I need to work on the yellow/orange theme a bit more.

I enjoyed my time in the garden, giving it the love it deserved.  I think it gave me a lot of love back.

New allotment week 7

It's our seventh week of working on our new allotment and I am now beginning to feel we're getting somewhere, even though it still looks like a building site or scrapyard (I'm not sure which).

The plot came with four sheds which is a bit too much for anybody. We've decided to keep two of them, one will be for general storage, the other more of a potting shed.  Richard has built staging and shelves in the potting shed and it's looking good now.

One of the sheds was taken down this week leaving a lot of rubble, but also lots of space.

There was a lot of interest from grandchildren, who wanted to see what grandad was doing.

Richard has also made some more raised beds and  my daughter Helen and I have dug the ground over and put the beds in place.

We have found that the soil is mainly clay, but there are some areas of good soil.  This better soil  we have dug out and put into the raised beds along with our own compost and anything else we can get our hands on to improve the soil structure. We have started to empty the compost and manure bins at our old plot and bring the stuff over to use on our new growing areas.

We are also finding loads of stones and boulders as we dig over the soil.  These are being used to make drains, or as hardcore for paths.  Nothing goes to waste here! The wood for the raised beds has all been found on the site.

We now have vegetables growing too, in the first lot of raised beds at the front of the plot. We've planted red cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, brussels sprouts and cauliflower.

 As we progress we are building a sort of plan in our minds as to how we want the plot to develop.  We are pleased that we have spent very little money on the plot so far.  All the materials for building raised beds, making the compost bins, and shed staging have been found on the plot. The next stage in the plan is to take down the fourth shed--the big metal cabin.  This will not only create more space but  will also provide materials for building more raised beds.


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