Xmasy Comestibles

In preparation for Sundays Xmas dinner (round 1) I went up to the allotment to gather in the sprouty goodness. As you can see from the picture, the sprouts haven't done badly (that's the Sunday times underneath them for scale).




The parsnips that I left in the ground also have really bulked out, and there were even a few carrots in there as well that I forgot about.



The leek plot is still there and I reckon should be coming good in about a months time. The fennel finally died off without ever bulking up into proper bulbs so it's gone on the compost heap to be recycled back into the ground.

Well, it's 36 hours till dinner time. I'd best put the sprouts on.

Goosberry Fool

The frost over the past couple of days has killed off the chinese gooseberry so I checked how large the berries in it had become.



By the size of the lantern things that covered the plant, I was hoping for something a bit bigger :-(.

On the plus side, the garlic that I planted a couple of weeks ago is already starting to come up in places.




This gives them about 5 months more to grow than the last lot, so with a bit of luck they should form bulbs this time rather than single cloves.

I also found out that the jerusalem artichokes need cutting down to a foot above the ground until I want dig them up, so some swift pruning endeth todays lesson.

Addendum: That font of knowledge, wikipedia, has just pointed out that a chinese gooseberry is a kiwi fruit. The things I've been failing to grow are cape gooseberrys. You live 'n' learn.

Spinachy goodness

There's nowt to do in the allotment now so I popped up there briefly today just to check it was still there.

The spinach has done well in my absence so I harvested a load of it to take in to work to stop it going to seed.



The sprouts are also firming up nicely ready for Xmas.


The overwintering onions also look to be overwintering nicely so I should have a good early crop to tide me over when the ones in the garage run out.

And the Jerusalem Artichokes are now dying back. Now I've just got to work out what to do with them ;-).

And finally, the fennel. It's just not putting the effort in! 9 months after I planted it, it's still not swelling into bulbs. I'll give it another month or two, but this may be one to miss out next year.

There's no welcome in the hillside for vampires here boyo.

Today I planted 3 different varieties of garlic to hopefully get a decent sized crop next year. These have gone into the beds formerly planted with tomatoes (the ones that got blighted) so next year the toms go somewhere that isn't full of nasty tomato pox.

The chinese gooseberry bush is also looking good. The little lanterny shaped things should contain gooseberries with a bit of luck.



The leek patch is also doing well although there are no more ready to turn into leeky comestibles just yet.



Finally, the whole plot got a good scattering of chicken poo pellets to ensure that what gets planted in here next year should have lots of goodies to suck up out of the soil.

Leeky action

There's not a lot to do on the plot at this time if year so I wandered up to see what was ready to pick, and to turn over some of the empty beds to keep the weeds down.

The leeks have started to come good at last so I harvested the first two for my tea tonight.



There are several dozen in the bed still growing but not quite up to this size yet so looks like leek soup will certainly be on the menu this winter.

Last weekend I cut back all the spinach in the bed that looked ready, and this weekend you can't even tell I was there.



I cut a whole lot back again but looks like this might be a nice regular crop at this rate.

The brussel sprouts are also coming along nicely.

You can just make them out up against the stalks and with another couple of months they should make an ideal accompaniment to the christmas turkey.

Cabbages and salsify are also doing well but the fennel is still not forming bulbs, preferring instead to go to seed which I keep lopping off the top.



Next week, the garlic should be going in the ground (to give it time to form bulbs which this years crop didn't).

Popeye is sorted.

The spinach has now showed itself so I know what is a weed and what isn't.



The cabbages that were doing nothing for ages also have gone nuts this week with all the nice weather we're eventually having.


And the seeds I sowed are also starting to come up (I think).


The cabbages are on the right, but the things on the left are allegedly salsify. However, walking back across the meadow there were a lot of plants with remarkably similar leaves to these, so I think the jury is still out on that one.

There are still a few courgettes swelling up which should be ready shortly to add to my second batch of chutney (the tomatoes for which are currently ripening on the windowsill).

Dying for a leek.....

....but luckily I have plenty.

The leeks are coming on a treat now and should be ready shortly.



The fennel is also doing well although the bulbs are taking their sweet old time swelling up. I've kept chopping the tops off to stop them going to seed which they seem overly keen on doing.



The tomatoes all went down with blight (a problem for a lot of people on the allotment this year) so I rescued all the ones I could today to turn into chutney. The bad ones along with the foliage filled a dustbin bag and have gone in the bin rather than the compost heap so they don't contaminate anything else.



The cabbages and cauliflowers are starting to form hearts at long last, although the caterpillars are munching into the outer leaves of the later.



Finally, the spinach bed appears to have something growing in it, but I'm not 100% sure which bits are the spinach and which are the weeds. I've removed anything that certainly isn't spinach, and will leave the rest to grow and see what is in a straight line.

The Chutney harvest

Well one thing has cropped well this year.... chutney!



As you can see from the picture, some of these grew to 1lb in weight, while others only reached 1/2 lb ;-)

In true WI style I did these wearing a smock and hairnet while singing "Jerusalem" before bottling them into jars with Gingham print lids :p

For the recipe see here where Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall explains all. The recipe is fairly flexible, and after trying to skin some of the tomatoes I ended up just cutting the rest into chunks with the skins on because a) I thought they would add texture to the finished chutney and b) I couldn't be arsed skinning the rest. In a months time these should have matured enough to be eaten with copious quantities of pork pies, Cornish pasties, and other pastry comestibles.

The tomatoes I've left on the plot don't appear to be going any redder and the consensus on the allotments is that nobody elses have worked out either. This means a second round on the chutney machine next weekend to sort out the rest of them so any takers for chutney, shout up now.

Booker T and the MG's reform for......

........ Green Tomatoes.

As the slugs were making their way through my tomatoes before they had time to turn red, I decided to harvest them all today, leaving just the small ones to grow on a bit more.




I stood on the bathroom scales with these, and if you subtract my svelte figure from the total, there are about 6 stone of tomatoes in here. Or possibly 9 lb's if you prefer reality to fantasy ;-)
These are going to be combined with the mother of all courgettes, apples off my tree, onions from the plot, and miscellaneous spices as recommended by Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall and Aunty Louise.

Given 2 lb's of toms equates to 10 jars of finished chutney, it looks like I'll need to order pork pies in bulk from now on to use it all... which is nice :)

Goodness gracious great balls of ..... courgette !

Today was courgette harvesting day and after many weeks of keeping them supplied with water the boys have done good.





The observant will note that these puppies are 3 1/2 lb's each which should keep me in courgettey comestibles for a little while!

As for the rest of the plot, the cabbages now have hearts in them so should be ready to harvest later on this year. The tomatoes are still stubbornly refusing to turn red so I think I'll have to crop them and turn them into chutney if they don't pull their fingers out. The leek bed is also coming on great guns and looks set to produce a good crop in a month or two. Peppers? Well despite them being mollycoddled in the cold frame for about 6 months, the plants grew to a grand height of about 2" and didn't develop any peppers on them :-(. Looks like these may need a greenhouse to grow in this climate so won't bother with these next year.

That's neat, that's neat.. I really love those tiger.... tomatoes

A quick run up to the allotment to dig out the swiss chard which had gone completely rampant. The tops filled a rather large bag and went to the bunny sanctuary for them to nibble on, while the roots have gone on the compost heap. While digging the roots out I found a load of what looked like small plastic beads. A quick search on the web shows thes are slug eggs, which are now in a bed with no plants in it for them to eat. Hah !

The tomato plants are still doing well, but the tomatoes are staying green. With a bit of luck we'll get enough sun to ripen them up, but if not, green tomatoes chutney here we come. The picture below shows the tigerella ones which if you look closely have stripes on them and little bowls of Frosties at the roots. They're Grrreeeaaatttt !!!



The wood chips I put down on the rest of the plot have some weeds coming through, but 10 mins sorted those out which is a lot less than it used to be.

Too windy for custard creams today so I made a tactical retreat for a bacon butty :-)

The end is in sight

The far end of the plot has been a real pain as it backs onto the wildflower field behind the allotments and scoops up all the seeds blowing through and turns them into nasty weeds.

After weeding this bit for the umpteenth time I bit the bullet today and spent a good few hours hacking all the weeds down and covering the whole area with wood chips. This means that the fruits bushes and Jerusalem artichokes are surrounded by mulch which should a) stop them drying out, and b) keep the weeds from surrounding them. I also carried on the wood chip theme and extended this newly covered area down the side of the plot and also the middle that I'd not done before.


This now means I can concentrate on removing weeds from the beds rather than spending all my time keeping the paths clear.

The rest of the week, weather permitting, will be spent moving towards the front of the plot adding woodchips and removing weeds.

Nurse... I've got a swelling

The courgettes are now coming on a treat so I'm giving them plenty of water to get them all to end up the same size as this one.


I also got a whole load of cabbage and cauliflower plants from Louise which have been grown in plugs which mean they are big enough to fend off some of the critters that eat them when they are very small. These have been spread out amongst my old cauliflower bed (which contains very few cauli's) and the carrot bed now half depleted of carrots.

I also laid into the plot next to me and hacked down a load more weeds. The resulting carnage was then covered with weed matting and a slack handful of wood chips to hold it down.

This now covers all of the plot where it is adjacent to mine and extends a good long way into the plot to I don't get a load of weeds growing nearby and then hopping onto mine. This should mean I can spend less time weeding and more time growing veggies and eating custard creams.

Next week is holiday time and the weather is supposed to be good so hopefully I'll be up tidying the plot and getting rid of some of the weeds permanently.

Know your onions

Today the onions from the cold frame were moved into the old potato patch following the age old "crop rotation rules". The ones I harvested this year should last a while and then these ones should be ready just as they run out (fingers crossed).

A second bed of carrots were then planted (Autumn King 2 and James Scarlet Intermediate) where the peas and beans were, again to follow on from the ones that are ready at the moment. The whole of the bean harvest fitted into a single hand but having a word with an owd boy on the plot next to me, these might have been dwarf beans whereas he plants climbers which were much more successful. You live n learn in this game.

The first lot of spinach I planted all went to seed and died off so I've tried another bed of this where the onions (first lot) were. There's perpetual spinach, which should last all year, and "Popeye" which I got just for the name ;-)

This now fills the first three beds of the plot with the second lot of veggy comestibles.


The Chinese Gooseberry from my coldframe has also got planted out into the covered cauliflower bed as it seems to be coming on a treat. Apparently Chinese gooseberries are the same as English ones, but you want another one an hour later ;-)


The sprouts (planted by Harry, age 5) are also starting to appear. the small blobs you can see next to the stalks are what will be on the side of my plate at Xmas along with unfeasible amounts of turkey.


Finally. the courgettes I planted are starting to bear fruit (or veg... I'm not sure what a courgette counts as).



Finished off with a mammoth weeding session (I thought they were extinct myself) and copious quantities of lemon puffs and custard creams (cheers Morrison's who put these on Bogoff)

Spud U Like

Today I dug up the last of my spuds, sacrificing yet another fork to the allotment gods in the process. These have gone into a hessian sack (cheers Louise) to stop them going green until I can turn them into various spuddy comestibles.



I also pulled up a cracking crop of shallots and onions, filling a fairly big tub with each.





The onions on particular grew to enormous proportions.


However, to compensate for this, the french beans have put on a pretty poor show as the following picture shows.



Four beans per plant appears to be all I'm going to get from them :-(. Better luck next year.

The Cambourne Pygmy Vampires

The garlic that I planted earlier in the year has now died back so has reached it's ultimate size. However, on digging it up I found it was somewhat smaller than I was hoping for.



As you can see, rather than forming a bulb with a number of cloves in it, there is a single bulb of garlic making it perfect for banishing very small vampires. As I've not seen any of these on the allotments recently, they obviously are doing the trick ;-). Apparently the reason for there being a single bulb is that I planted these too late in the year so they didn't have enough time to grow before dying off. Next time they need to go in in the autumn.

The first row of early spuds also were ready for harvest so I dug them up, and baked one with some slices of the garlic on the top. Mmmmm..... cracking spuds grommit.



The courgettes that I planted only a couple of weeks ago are also coming on great guns.



The leeks also got replanted today in 6" deep holes which hopefully will make the bottom half of them white and the top half green.




And finally I harvested the first of my shallots and tied them up in dainty bunches along with the dwarf garlic. This should let them dry out and keep for longer.

Completely cabbaged....

.....the cabbage plot that is. Full of em.

Today, despite the forecast for rain, I managed to get up to the plot for a few hours and removed the netting from my cabbage patch now that the cabbages are large enough (I hope) to survive attacks by those pesky birds.

The first produce is now coming off my plot as well. After the carrots from earlier this week I've harvested the first of my Swiss chard, and also a handful of peas. I tried some raw on the plot and they are absolutely cracking!!!



The tomato plants have also managed to produce a lone tomato.




I'm hoping for a somewhat larger crop than this so that I can go in for some hot chutney action later in the year.

Finally, my spuds, fennel, spinach, and Swiss chard are all showing signs of yellow leaves which according to my good friend Dr Hessayon is a sign of Magnesium deficiency. A quick trip to the garden center and they've now been sprayed with Epsom Salts which will either cure them, or make them regular ;-)

Hux's DMZ and agent orange

After a week away the plot was getting overgrown with weeds so today I took the morning off to create a DMZ between my plot and the disabled one next to it. This should provide a barrier to Charlie (the weeds) and stop them running rampant all over my plot. It is the strip about 3 ft wide to the left of the coldframe below.




I also spent some time thinning out the carrot bed which I should have done a lot earlier in the bed. The idea is you plant loads of seeds, see what comes up, then thin out to leave a few with plenty of room around them. I neglected to do this which meant that the carrots got very chummy with each other as shown below.



By the time I had finished, the bed looked pretty well decimated, but the carrots that were left now have space to grow a bit. The ones I pulled out got split between myself and the lab at work as there were several pounds of reasonable sized carrots in there.



The leeks which had been growing in the coldframe (the second batch) had reached the limit that the seed tray would let them reach so I planted these out in the original leek bed. After a couple of weeks I can then replant them as per the instructions on the packet (you drop them in holes so the bottom half remains white and the top stays green). The large leeks below are the original ones, but there are now several rows of the much smaller ones if you look closely.



The dwarf beans are now at last starting to grow after sitting idle for the past couple of months.


The peas next to them are also making some cracking progress.



And finally the tomatoes have perked up and now look a lot healthier.