BeetrootandSpuds

  This little beauty (it is, after all, only about an inch from head to foot) is a new product for us, a cucamelon.  Slow to germinate, and even slower to fruit, I had begun to despair by the time it first appeared, but before long it was followed by a couple of dozen.  In fact we have a small number of cucamelons on both our plots, and they have performed about equally.  They like bright sunshine, plenty of water and something to climb over. That apart, they are easy enough - though seedlings have, in the past, proved vulnerable to slugs. So there they are. Now, what can you do with them ?  Well, as the name suggests, cucamelons, which hail from Mexico,  are a cross between a cucumber and a melon, so as the name suggests they can be eaten raw (they have a citrus tang), put into salads, or pickled      

    As I mentioned a few posts ago, blight has struck in our polytunnel. But although that does not mean that we have lost the entire crop of tomatoes, as I feared, it does mean that we have had to salvage what we can before they are attacked, and let them ripen off the bush.  Or not. One way of using a lot of unripe tomatoes is to make Green Tomato Chutney  

    It is my pleasure to introduce Arthur, so called because he "ain't 'arf a biggun." As readers can see, Arthur weighs in at just over 1/2 a kilo. Splendid as he is, Arthur's days (hours as a matter of fact) are numbered.  He will shortly be joining his siblings in a pot or two of Tomato Chilli Jam .    

As keen reader will know, our former partner, Spuds, caught blight earlier this year and departed, leaving us to cope s best we can.  And with the harvest at full tilt, we've got our hands full.  Tomatoes, pumpkins, butternut squash and cucumbers are all at their most productive.  And don't forget the sweet peas:  Thank goodness Cloudberry is keeping his head, and remaining calm.      

  We don't get many visitors to our plot(s), but I am pleased to say we had one recently.  And there she is, inspecting the purple beans on Plot B in the above picture, and her name... Aubergine  

  Yesterday we welcomed a visitor to our plot, and to celebrate, we dug out the first of our French black radishes, or mooli.  More to follow...    

   The reason that we have our allotment might seem simple, to produce fruit and vegetables.  However, it provides much more than that, it requires us take exercise (plenty of it), meet new people, and eat new things (not to mention a few old favorites cooked in new ways).  But that's not all, the allotment is a refuge from the bustle of the town,  a place where we can enjoy being out of doors and appreciate the beauty and complexity of nature. One of the things we are beginning to learn about is the interaction between plants of different species.  Marigolds have a reputation as good companion plants, but we have also planted sweet peas amongst our beans to attract insects.  And, as for so many plants, the more you pick, the more they produce.  

  No doubt about it, the days are drawing in. But that does not mean any let up (or in the kitchen, where we are boiling, blanching, pickling and relishing as hard as we can go).  Meanwhile the runner beans continue to flower, an indication that summer ain't quite over yet.  In fact, this afternoon I planted second crops of pak choi and lettuce where the onions were and radish (Malaga Viloet) where the pak choi was. And - stop press - my cucamelons are now forming their first fruit on both Plots A and B.  Photos to follow    

 I recently came across a couple of websites that readers might find of interest: Allotment history Allotments and the law Vegetable garden guide I will be adding these to the Reading List on the left hand margin of this page.

  You need only look at the still life pictures in any art gallery to realize that quite apart from their utilitarian value fruit and vegetables are in their own right objects of beauty.  Every item has its own colour, form and texture.  This year we have grown one which has particularly impressed me, the purple French bean, whose dark velvety skin, veering almost to black,  contrasts with its lime green flesh.  Its beauty enhanced by the knowledge that when cooked, almost immediately it enters the boiling water, that colour is gone, transformed to a green almost indistinguishable from the less exotic green French beans that grow elsewhere on our plot. It is hard not to reflect, for a moment, on the transitory nature of beauty and, ultimately, life itself, its eternal cycle so brilliantly captured in the words of the funeral service from the Book of Common Prayer, " earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."      

I might as well admit it. We have been stricken.  Blight has hit our tomatoes, and, to make it worse, on both plots.  It arrived at devastating speed. One evening all was clear, and the next morning we were met with wilting leaves and the dread brown blotches- the sure give-away - on the stems. Disappointing, but hardly a surprising result , from the last couple of weeks of hot wet weather.  Nevertheless, some varieties (we put in plenty) are holding up better than others, and we have gathered a few trug fulls, with more to come, with any luck.  Meanwhile, beans and pumpkins are also ready for harvest.    

    At long last some of our more interesting produce is ready to pick.  The tomatoes in our main poly-tunnel (on Plot A) seem to have taken an interminable time to ripen, and meanwhile the deep purple beans that we planted in plastic "grow" sacks, which only a week ago were no bigger than darning needles,  have finally grown big enough to savour. As for the beetroot, see Beetroot and Spuds Recipes

  Earlier this year we planted a butternut squash, and a pumpkins at each end of a long bed that run down from the polytunnel (ie 4 plants in total). For a long time they did nothing and, concerned at the amount of fallow soil in the centre of the bed, I planted beetroot, parsnips and fennel.  They vanished beneath a tidal wave of foliage (you can still see the fronds of fennel if you look closely) , and, gradually, gradually, the fruit appeared.  Yesterday we gathered in 5 of the largest, to complete their ripening at home.  We think they'll make a soup-ah addition to our larder this winter

  Although most people - and we are no exceptions - have an allotment because they want to grow vegetables, that does not mean it is purely functional, natures supermarket.  Flowers attract bees and other insects and provide a dash of colour.  against the forms and textures of the plants, which are themselves a gallery.

  Summer is arrived (in fact judging from the appalling wet weather of the last few days one might almost think it was coming to an end), and our plot is in full production.  The tomatoes are - at last - turning red, peas and beans are now appearing and as for the cucumbers, we gathered 11 the day before yesterday.  Frankly, there are only so many things you can do with a cucumber, but luckily courgettes are rather more versatile. For a few ideas take a took at Beetroot and Spuds Recipes