BeetrootandSpuds

  We've had a few visitors to our plot recently.  Some may come simply to admire, but others are keen to volunteer their help.    

  Our nasturtiums are now in full glory along the edge of the polytunnel on Plot A.  Rather more bashful are the aubergines (one in the tunnel, the others in pots at the entrance to it), the first of which has started flowering. The squash and pumpkins we planted around April are now gigantic, but they do are only modest about showing off their fruit.

    Oh dear, oh dear.  We dug up our potato crop last week, and the results were, to put it mildly, disappointing.  Plot A, which consisted entirely of "first" and "second earlies," Swift and an unknown variety, produced very little tubers, and few of them.  Plot B, which we exhumed a couple of days later, looked, at first glance, more promising.  For a start, the tubers were bigger.  Many of them the size of a small fist.  And thee were plenty of them. But, as we began to sort them through it became clear that many had suffered slug or insect damage, and most of those that hadn't had a skin condition known as "scab." Unsightly though it is scab (which can arise from poorly composted soil, or friction burns as the tubers are rocked around) does not make a potato inedible, but it does mean it will not store well. It is now some time since our erstwhile partner, Spuds, hoiked her trowel and departed (taking with her our supply of hessian storage sac...

We love to share the recipes we enjoy making with the produce from our allotment, but we always keen to try new ones. To celebrate our first year we have set up a new page specially to record the recipes we enjoy, and we hope you enjoy them too, and that you will share your favorites with us. There is a link to the new page in the side-bar to the left, and here is another (it works best after you've pressed "Read More" below: Recipes we hope you enjoy it, Oh, and by the way, to get back here, should you wish to do so, look for "Navigation" in the side bar to the left on the Recipes page

Courgettes, marrows, pumpkins, squash, marigolds and chard.  Our allotments is now providing pure gold    

 One year on:    

    I had a spot of good luck yesterday at one of the plethora our town's charity shops. These days it is hard to believe that throughout my childhood a seed merchant held pride of place at the end of the high street, just a few hundred yards away. That's progress, they tell us.  But, I digress: tucked away on the bottom shelf at the back of the shop I found two excellent books on vegetable growing.  They may cast light on what the wisdom of my decision to replace the potatoes I recently liberated from Plot A with some rows of leeks, fennel and lettuce.  

 

It is hard to think of anything more satisfying than the first meal of the year sourced from our allotment.  This is a very simple dish of courgettes, tomato and mozzarella, a few flakes of basil drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkling of black pepper - into the oven at around 180 º  and Bob's your uncle

 

    Do you know your onions ?  We do

  Early July, and efforts turn to harvesting some of the produce we have grown. Blackcurrant, and gooseberry crops are modest, but the plants have only been in place for a single season, and the fruit is good and solid and we should get a pot or two of black currant jam in due course. Both have their drawbacks, black currants are picked berry by berry - unlike red currants for which an entire cluster can be taken - and the thorns on gooseberries making picking  uncomfortable. We have also started digging our first and second early potatoes.  These have, to be frank, been disappointing, which we attribute to lack of rain to swell the tubers. That having been said the flavour is excellent.  And then there are courgettes and our first cucumber.

We have had our first plot for just a few days over one year, but it already feels like a home from home, and astonishingly we are already beginning to see second year crops arrive including potatoes, pak choi and marigolds (excellent for companion planting, but also quite a show in our old barrow).  This year we also have cucamelons, yellow courgettes, pumpkins and squash, and as for the tomatoes, they are growing like trffids (Sainsbury should be proud).