BeetrootandSpuds

I've been away for a few days, but given that we are at the end of the vegetable season I wasn't expecting to find much had changed on our plots when I got back.   And then, hidden away behind the beans on Plot B I found this pumpkin, Syd. He weighs in at one and a half stone (1 6 8 to be exact).  Looks like I'll be having soup for lunch for the rest of this year

    Alert readers may have noticed that a certain lack of posts on Beetroot and Spuds    recently, and there's a reason for that.  The vegetable season is drawing to an end. There is, in the words of Instant Sunshine, "No News Today" (click Read More below to hear all about it

    Rootling around on Plot B yesterday I came across one or two plants of which I had given up all hope, now happily fruiting, of which a round squash and a striped marrow were perhaps the most exotic  

 Hot ? So am I.  In fact over the last 24 hours, the temperature has hit 42.5 ° C in our poly tunnel (on Plot A), and during the night, it got no lower than 15.9 ° C.  15.9 !  In fact it was probably hotter, as the thermometer is attached to our potting bench in the mouth of the tunnel.    I think that next year a few iceberg lettuces could be a good idea.  

  Last year we planted our fennel quite late (around early August).   This year we were ahead of the game (it went in in June) and we have been rewarded with some splendid bulbs.  One thing to watch out for with fennel is that ic can, if planted in bright sun,  easily bolt.  Ours was shaded by a seemingly incorrigible butternut squash (12 butternuts, and counting) and that seems to have saved it. Last year we only had enough to roast as a side veg, but this time round we had plenty for some  fennel-and-apple chutney  

     If truth be told, carrots have not been a huge success for us this year.  The germination rate was poor, as it was for almost everybody else on our allotment - the probable reason being that the soil is too rich.  There is nothing carrots enjoy more than growing up in poor thin, sandy tilth.  Still, we have no complaints over the size and voracity of those that did get started. It seemed rather a shame to use them simply as vegetables, so we have begun with 4 pots of spicy carrot chutney

    I am almost pickled out.  Over the last few days I've pickled green tomatoes, red tomatoes, nasturium seeds and cucamelons.  The plan is to move on to cucumbers and courgettes, which thank goodness are now slowing their rate of productions. There are  myriad recipes for pickles on the internet, all different and many of them mutually inconsistent.  Keep your eyes on Beetroot and Spuds Recipes where I will, in due course,  be posting my own - tried and tested - recommendations. Our tomatoes are also drawing to an end for this year, but they're not quite over yet. So I'll finish with this parting shot of Flowerdew, on guard:    

 About 6 weeks ago we began clearing the "reserve" plants we had prepared to be ready of take the place others that, for whatever reason, succumbed.   These included tomatoes, courgettes, squash and marrows; but, unfortunately, in several cases their labels came adrift.  Tomatoes are simple enough to recognize, but the other 3 could easily be mistaken for each other.  Nevertheless, we had a spare greenhouse (Plot B now comes into play) with space in it, so as an exercise in curiosity we planted a couple in the far corners. And they have flourished ! And fruited, so I now know that they are butternut squash: Finally, it may be worth mentioning that the yellow cosmos I planted outside the greenhouse a couple of months ago are now flowering and proving a great attraction for bees and other insects.  Perhaps less attracted are a few of my acquaintances who assured me that I was muddled and that they were nothing more than common or garden marigolds.  Right...

  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