Showing posts with label autumn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autumn. Show all posts

Sunday 26 November 2023

The Walk

It’s been a wet month, I’ve not been inclined to move very far and work has been keeping me very busy but yesterday we had a long walk in the chilly countryside. It had been a very frosty morning and the temperature remained close to zero, but we were dressed up warm and it felt ok in the sunshine.

We walked a 6-mile circuit to Chilton Foliat, which is a neighbouring village.

It was very beautiful and near the River Kennet much of the time. This was looking West from the Fairy Bridge. The river is swollen and very fast-flowing at the moment after all the rain.
Rather strange to see a lone cygnet but he was enjoying eating the watercress.
We saw some excellent clouds during the walk - I think these are cirrostratus.Edit: Turns out they're cirrocumulus clouds.
And this photo is showing a Sundog (like two small rainbows either side of the Sun) they occur in cold weather and under the right circumstances. This parhelion effect is produced by the Sun’s rays being diffracted through ice crystals and ‘diamond dust’, described by the Met Office here
Part of the walk is up this hidden footpath which runs alongside that huge field. One of our previous plotholders has a dedicated bench along there, over-looking the fields surrounding Hungerford.
We’ve seen hares in that field before but yesterday the most interesting wildlife we saw was at the start of our walk - this little muntjac deer.
It was a very cold day, but so pleased that the Sun was shining to show off the Autumn colours in all their glory.
The allotment is looking far less picturesque, this was 2 weeks ago and today has been very dank.
We have had short plot visits each week and the broad beans have germinated. I pulled a parsnip, which had no canker, that’s a rare feat for us! I brought the squashes and parsley home to avoid the frost, but the parsnips should only improve with a bit of frosting.
I had two meals of this mushroom and chestnut casserole - so delicious! Mmm, and look at that roast parsnip - yum yum! And the other meal included a couple of the tiny pumpkins cut into slices and roasted.
I expect my next post will be in December and the Christmas lights are being switched on tonight in Hungerford. It has certainly felt Wintry this week, but definitely still looked like Autumn for our lovely walk.
Enjoy this great song by The Cure.


Wednesday 1 November 2023

Scary Monsters

It’s that time of year again Halloweeeeen, ooh spooky 👻 
Our mini pumpkin was included in the meal, decorated our dinner table and Jamie even managed to carve one, but it was a bit fiddly.
The scary monster is a yellow dung fly - we’ve had another manure delivery to site. Hooray! We had a 10 tonne delivery and nearly half had been carted off to plots by the end of the weekend - we had a few barrow loads.
Behind the manure are our broad beans Aquadulce Claudia which we sowed at the weekend. As usual, they’re protected by plastic bottle cloches and netting. The netting doesn’t protect from everything though 🙄
Our little visitor is back to his friendly self and he joined us in the polytunnel during a sharp shower.
The showers were torrential at the weekend but it was reasonably warm and very pleasant when the Sun came out. We noticed that that the wasps were making the most of Ivan’s grapes, which have sadly gone to waste this year.
They were definitely drunk on them. All binging together - we’ve all been there 😀
It seems that we’re well into Autumn now - November today, unbelievable! The leaves finally changed colour. This is a Creeping cinquefoil leaf, so pretty throughout the year, but it does take over.
Even my little hazel tree looked autumnal.
The pot has some excellent moss forming the ‘forest floor’ for the little tree.
But Storm Ciaran is clearing the remaining leaves off the trees today. I have a day off work, so we’ll go up the plot and batten down the hatches later. First I’m having a toasted cheese and beetroot sandwich for lunch. I’ve always liked cheese and beetroot together, but toasted is even better - totally delicious! Talking of delicious, I made this pumpkin and bean curry the other night - mmm, coconut tastiness but unfortunately I didn’t cook the beans for long enough; even though they’d been soaked overnight they would have needed cooking for 30mins I think, not the 15mins I gave them - they were rather hard still.
I had a bit of good news recently - I wrote a poem (I know! Me!?) and WON a £50 voucher from Nomads Clothing. I love their clothes so I was very pleased 😊 Here’s the poem and the coat it’s written about.
The song is provided by David Bowie.


Saturday 23 September 2023

Sorrow

I’ve been offline for a few weeks and the season moved from some sweltering late Summer days to rainy Autumn ones, although it’s a dazzling blue sky this morning.
In the mornings and evenings it definitely feels like Autumn.
Harvests have been plentiful and colourful. 
The French and runner beans have been feeding us well. We were late with the runners so they’re not stringy yet. I may pod some of the French beans for drying, but I probably have enough dried beans…
Most of the Borlotti and Yin Yang are being dried. I move them from the polytunnel roof drying mesh before the pods pop open.
Flowers are beginning to die back, but the Scabiosa Stellata are now in their prime - their seedheads are only small, but so pretty.
The Spanish Flag began to show flowers at about the same time as Spain beat England in the Women’s World Cup final, but September put on a full show.
The calendula have been stunning, but really need deadheading daily.
The two courgette plants just keep producing. We’ve had to share or compost some giants but they keep on coming!
And sweetcorn is now on the menu, for lunch most days. A few of the stalks had been blown down (or dragged down by the weight of the mini pumpkins), but the cobs are excellent; Incredible are not as sweet as our normal Lark variety, but are delicious.
The radish flowers have been so pretty and the pods have been a tasty, hot, on-site snack and addition to salads/stir fry. So many pods that I pickled some and added nasturtium seeds which are extremely tasty when fresh so I hope they’re good pickled.
The song is provided by David Bowie and reflects the current feeling as we said goodbye to my mum who made it to her 95th birthday but pretty much decided that was plenty and fell asleep. A terrible time for us but doing our best to remember the good times, of which there were many.


Tuesday 8 November 2022

Bitter Tears

Anyone else had a rainy start to November? It was so rainy on Sunday that we had to shelter in the car when we got back from the allotment! The rain was streaming down the road.

Rain gauge

While we were on the plot it felt quite warm and we even saw the Sun for a short while. We went to the plot specifically to pull our last potato plant - Nicola. Surprisingly they’re not very scabby and don’t seem to have been slugged. Although they were rather muddy.

Nicola potatoes
I pulled up the Chinese cabbage which had been desecrated by slugs and snails. I was pleased to find a couple of cabbages that weren’t completely destroyed and had matured enough for form a heart. I think I'd try them again, under a sealed enviromesh net as they are very tasty. I like them raw but they're a nice addition to a chinese dish too.
November salad harvest
That's a nice harvest for November. The tomatoes are continuing to ripen on the plants and the Chinese Dragon radish are lasting so that was plenty to feed me for a couple of lunches.
Yesterday, I added some left-over marinated tofu to the plate.
Last week I roasted two small squashes for dinner. A Honeyboat and a Winter Celebration. I thought it was a bit too much for just me (Jamie's still refusing to eat my lovely squash) with the Spanish rice and grains but I’m glad I chose to cook both squashes. 
 
Roasting squash
The Winter Celebration tasted nasty, bitter (lucky Jamie didn't choose that day to try again with the squash!). I threw it away along with the two remaining ones from storage. I’m aware that cross-pollinated squash can develop a bitter taste, however these weren’t saved seeds and looked pretty regular. Apparently environmental stress can also cause bitterness, but that’s usually a result of temperature fluctuations rather than just the extreme heat of this year. Or, perhaps the lovely looking orange squash wasn’t entirely mature. Whatever, it was rather disappointing! Luckily the Honeyboat was as tasty as usual.
Tomatoes with everything
We’ve had so much rain recently and it’s been mild so there’s a lot of new growth. The HAHA Wildlife plot is looking good with plenty of ground cover with mostly welcome weeds and evidence of self-seeding from some of the flowers from this year. Very little grass and not too many thistles in evidence so far… In this photo I can see borage, foxgloves, allysum, daisies, evening primrose, golden marguerite and lots of nigella seedheads.
HAHA Wildlife Plot
I should have put this photo on my last post, which was titled Autumn leaves, it’s been so colourful this year. Just look at this lovely lot from a tree by our flat.
Autumn leaves
The song title is provided by INXS, partly due to the bitter squash experience, but also the bitterness I feel to the housing developer and landowner of our site. In February a 10-year lease was proposed, with a  1-year cancellation clause, and was verbally agreed - Hooray! - then in September they "changed their minds". So the Council have to cover the cost of legal fees every year. Appalling and disrespectful behaviour to the 80+ households currently enjoying the site and the wider community. The latest development plan showed the Marsh Lane site as being 'not currently developable' - for 15+ years but they're just trying to use the site as a bartering chip for other inappropriate building schemes.  They make me sick 🤬

Sunday 30 October 2022

Autumn Leaves

Halloween Pumpkins
Halloween tomorrow and the clocks have returned to Greenwich Mean Time so we got an extra hour in bed. We’ve spent a couple of hours concentrating this afternoon… carving pumpkins is a serious business 🤭
Carving pumpkins
Only one of those is home-grown this year but we have to have one each; one for the plot and one for home. I’ve had a 4-day weekend which has been great. We had a lovely walk at Bowdown Woods in Newbury on Friday. It was warm and sunny. I was hoping to find some fly agarics but they were all past their best, nibbled or booted.
Bowdown Woods
I photographed this little lone mushroom at the allotment. I’m not sure what variety it is, it’s looked like that all weekend. I’ll see if it changes over the next few days, if it isn’t completely eaten.
Unidentified white mushroom
At the weekend the temperatures reached 21° so we were in tee shirts on the allotment. I wonder if this is weather we’re going to get used to for future years. The weeds are loving it, especially with rainy mornings and sunny afternoons. The garlic has germinated already, in just 4 weeks - that’s fast, I normally find it quite slow to germinate, which is why we’ve ended up with two plantings some previous years!
Garlic sprouting
Jamie sowed the broad beans yesterday. Aquadulce Claudia We don’t want them to grow too quickly this side of Christmas but we wanted to get them sown before the really cold weather arrives… if it does arrive. The little cloches are for mouse protection.
Sowing broad beans
They’re far enough apart so we can put net cloches over once they’ve germinated.
Broad beans sown under cloches
I cleared the raised bed. I’m planning on it being a herb bed from next year. That’s lettuce at the end of the bed. Slugs have avoided it so far - famous last words; they ruined my Chinese cabbage ☹️
Cleared raised bed
Ivan showed me how to trim back the bearded iris where a fungal disease has damaged the leaves. They’re sprouting new plants around the crown. That’s spread a lot since it was planted last year; the corms need 7hours of sunshine a day to be happy and flower.
Bearded Iris
Talking of Ivan, he gave us some of his dried peppers. They’re not chilli, so I look forward to adding them to some dishes over the next few months. And our peppers in the polytunnel are finally changing colour! They’re yellow at the moment.
Dried peppers
This was a meal we had in the week - mostly home-grown (apart from the plant-based steak strips) including some of our Salad Blue potatoes, roughly chopped and roasted.
Home-grown veggie meal
Have a fun and spooky Halloween, here are a few more pics from our Autumn woodland walk. The song title is provided by the Goo Goo Dolls.
Autumn woodland