Last of the Pumpkins

A quick visit down the allotment resulted in a whole wheelbarrows worth of produce.  I KNOW the pumpkins fill most of the space, but that was the intention, the Tallest had specifically requested some that were of carvable proportions, and this year we have finally delivered.

Sweetcorn is a favourite in our household (minus Mr GT) and these are the absolute last of the cobs, the girls will be tucking into the for dinner tonight and I shall blanch the rest as half or whole cobs, and freeze them. They survive surprisingly well and make for not bad eating considering.

I promised myself that one year I would follow John Seymours directions for drying them, but once again the modern convenience of the freezer wins over – that and the fact that the Tallest can’t join in as it involves boiling water, and is then managed in half the time. I LOVE love love the fact that she is feeling useful it just tends to come at the most inconvenient of times!

Potato Blight

When it finally got to my main crop potatoes. I have dome really well this year, the earlies even managed to get to the point where they died back rather than getting the blight.

So this morning is off to the allotment armed with shears to cut back all the top growth and put it on a crate so that I can dry it out enough to burn it, and this should then prevent the spores from having done too much damage to the tubers.

We already seem to get quite a lot of scab, even with all the precautions that we take every year, so blight on what appears to be a really healthy and pretty bumper  crop of taters this year.

Not quite sure how I am going to negotiate with the two over tired children that I am in charge of this morning!

Back to normal again

The distinct lack of posts has been due to actually having a social life!

And having finally returned from what will be the last engagement for a few weeks things may return to their normal pace.

Prior to going away for our first ever weekend without the children, the allotment was given some serious attention, and was completely hoed, and french beans, carrots, swede, chard, spinach, ‘leeks, broccoli and squashes were all sow or planted so that there wouldn’t be anything suffering in small pots over the four days we were away.

I am today about to sow my last attempts at sweetcorn all three other attempts have seen the seeds rotting away in the compost, and another pack of borlotti beans which did the same as the sweetcorn a few weeks previous.

I am currently picking good flushes of broad beans and digging new potatoes and cutting salad and pulling radishes the peas won’t be long so things are beginning to look up for the larder department, which will cut down on the groceries bill in the coming weeks.

The Allotment awaits

Off to get the Smalls up after this post, and as the weather is dry and fortunately not too windy a la yesterday when we had gusts strong enough to blow the Smallest off her feet!

There is much to be done sown the plot as Hubby and I are off for a well deserved weekend away, our first ever without the children. And even though I’m not down there every day, I tend to find that if I’ve gone away for a couple of days, its like someone has moved in down the plot and been planting weeds for me, whereas they don’t seem to grow quite so quickly when I’m around to keep an eye on them!

So today I SHOULD be planting out Broccoli seedlings (and hopefully setting some more when I get home)

Sowing more parsnips now the first rows have come through

Sowing, Chard, Spinach beet, Carrots, French beans and Swedes.

The Borlotti and French beans that I sowed earlier have been an absolute disaster and discussing it with a neighbour he has also had terrible germination this year too, well I live in hope for this lot.

Oh, nearly forgot I have a couple of Pumpkin and Courgette Plants to go out too, I reckon that the allotment should be well on its way to full by now…

Globe Artichokes

On the odd occasion I do get to stray away from only planting the things that we eat as a family and get to have a ’splurge’ on a packet of seeds. This years little treat was a packet of Globe Artichoke seeds.

Something I have fallen in love with ever since an exchange trip to France when I was 13, but I have always objected to paying a pound + for one head.

The germination rate on this packet has been 100%, so I may have to trade some of the plants off later as I don’t think I’ll have room for them all.

Globe Artichokes are a perrenial plant (but you can grow them as annuals if you wish) and I won’t be harvesting good edible heads off them until nexy year, but as the saying goes all good things come to those who wait…

I’ve never seen any growing let alone grown any myself, so although my rather informative book tells me how far apart I should place them once they are in their bed, I have no idea how large the plants will grow to, thus influencing which part of the plot they go into…answers on a postcard anybody?

Peas in

Tallest seen here posing with the row of peas that she helped plant up and stake in.

We’ll go back to the allotment tomorrow to have a recce to see how many succumed to the bloody pigeons that seem to wait undetected while us foolish gardeners plant the fruits of our labours into the ground, only to turn our backs on the plot and find the remenants of a rave the next day after we’ve left. I’m sure they taunt me whenever I’m down there…anyway that’s besides the point.

My Cut and Come Again lettuces have been rather more successful than I thought they would be, so rather than have them all in pots I think that either I’ll put them towards a swopsies, or I’ll put a row into the allotment and let them grow into full plants rather than cut the leaves.

In the turmoil that was bulldozing the garden, our beautifully well established Rosemary was done for, and given that Rosemarys are not known for their love of moving, I got the knife out and finally ventured into the unknown world of taking cuttings. I await with baited breath the outcome of my endevours (I hope they root, I think that I’ll be addicted if they do, I found it extremely satifying trimming and cutting the pieces).

My Borlotti beans, are showing very little signs of coming up, out of the five trays that I sowed I can only see two plants shooting, its the same story with the sweetcorn. Last year I sprouted these in a jar first and then planted them out when they had germinated, this year I have sowed direct into modules and it doesn’t take a genius to see whats happened.

The cucumer plants have finally began to show their heads, I am hoping to grow these on in the garden, Hubby is particularly fond of pickled gerkins, and that is one thing that I have never managed to do for him in all the seasons that we have been growing, so we’ll wait and see, although at this rate he’ll be lucky if he gets but one jar.

So late second sowings of my favourite staples seem to be the order of the weekend. We’ll see how much we get done, as the Smallest is currently on a one baby mission to deprive the whole family of sleep, and combined with all the effort that has been going into getting the garden right, we are all beginning to show obvious signs of running out of steam.

Enough for now, time for some sleep while its all quiet up there…

Rhubarb (but no custard)

This was one crown of Rhubarb planted into the garden two years ago now, there are at the last count, now seven crowns! Once I have cut off the flower spikes a bit of separating needs to be done, this isn’t the ideal time to get on with this but if I don’t do it now we will be overrun with gargantuan leaves, which is easy done in our little garden.

The variety is Champagne, it has such a beautiful flavour and has been responsible for several delicious desserts already and will be the basis of many home wine recipes this summer. Rhubarb in combination with other fruits and vegetables makes a fantastic wine, and is much more manageable and less likely to ‘turn’ than when used by itself. It certainly packs a punch thats for sure!

Did I say I was overzealous?

Okay, so leading on from my last post, I was extoling the virtues of having a mini-me on hand to help with all the sowing that has to be done at this time of year…what I omitted was the anecdote that goes along with the last lot of peas.

The Tallest and I were out in the garden, putting one pea in each module, she was having a whale of a time, poking her finger in the soil and then putting in the pea ready to cover them over with a little compost afterwards. Pretty straightforward you might think…

The Smallest then decided (before we had finished) that naptime was over and it was about time that someone let her in on the action. So I leave Tallest to it, saying “Remember Sweetheart only ONE pea in each square “Alright Mum!” comes her ‘of the moment’ reply and I exit upstairs to deal with a disgruntled baby, and to be disgruntled myself with the contents of her nappy!

So a few minutes later the Smallest and I come down into the garden to see the Tallest gently patting down a little compost over the module trays, and fetching her little can to water them in.

“Oh my, what a wonderful job you’ve done” she’s been SO proud of herself and quite rightly so…checking the compost isn’t too dry everyday after breakfast and nursery she has been carefully nuturing her seeds.

Until finally comes germination at long last…I’ll let you guess which tray is hers and which is mine…

I suppose I can’t complain about the germination rate!    I think a little transplanting is in order.

Successional Sowing

As the Tallest grows older, I have very quickly realised that she can be a real help when it comes to all the sowing that needs to be done at this time of year.

As she is only three the amount of time that she is engaged by planting seeds is limited, and to my surprised this has added an extra bonus, because she will not stop at it too long. I have found that the successional sowing is as lot better this year.

Last year I was a bit overzealous and tended to sow too much all at once resulting in gluts of veges, this year inspired by her successes she only wants to sow when the seedlings appear from her last exploits, meaning things are happening more often but in smaller and more manageable amounts.

What a good girl she is…

Weight Loss and (too much?) Activity

So, posts have been a little thin on the ground, but then again so have I…

My diagnosis with Coeliac Disease around three years ago seemed to be the answer to my constant battle with maintaining a healthy weight. And for a while this was so, but 11 months after having my second baby, the weight is dropping off again, so my attentions have had to turn to calorie counting and extra protein, rather than the allotment and getting the seeds in in time!

I have an extremely healthy diet, and I have never had a really sweet tooth nor been a fan of convienience foods so I have always eaten quite alot to keep my calories up throughout the day, but right now I don’t think that that alone is enough so I have had to redouble the efforts to gain weight.

Now, this will sound terribly girly of me, but this summer I have two weddings to attend, and I would like to look ‘good’ not  ’skinny’ so let battle commence!

So while I’m busy eating myself into a stupor, rest assured that the allotment is now being set with beetroot and parsnips, the lettuces, calabrese, sweetcorn and peas are all growing good in the greenhouse and the other seeds are swelling nicely waiting to spring into germination.

A Mum friend actually suggested that I should do less (growing, digging etc) and then I could ‘focus’on my weight issues, she didn’t seem to acknowledge that if I didn’t ‘focus’on the growing then there wouldn’t be anything for me to eat! Nevermind, I’m sure someone will realise one day that we grow the food because we need to, not just because we feel like it and it’s a bit quaint!