Looking Back

I hope you’ve had an enjoyable Christmas and that 2024 brings you plenty of good times as well as an extra day in February. I’m hoping that 2024 runs a bit slower than recent years, but we’ll see. Thankyou for dropping by occasionally and I hope you enjoy the music, here’s a brief look back over last year, with some fave photos and my book list at the end. Happy to receive any book or music suggestions of course!

January 

The first planting of the year was some Egyptian walking onions. Unfortunately, along with all my spring onions, the slugs enjoyed them. I’ll try again though!

It was a wet start to 2023 (we couldn’t know how wet the year was going to continue!). We had at least one super frost, although no snow. The cold nights gave us some beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

The allotment was providing us with carrots, Cavolo Nero and parsnips.

February 

Clearing and digging began in earnest as the ground dried up. We actually felt we were ahead of the game for a change.

And the Cavolo Nero kept providing - I think I’ll plant it again this year - and purple sprouting broccoli finally started producing the delicious flowerheads. A month later than 2022, but worth the wait.

March

Early March was when we got some snow. We had to get up in the wee hours to enjoy it; it (and we) didn’t hang around long.

Last year’s dried beans made for some tasty meals including these bean burgers, served with steamed purple sprouting broccoli - delish.

April

Finally time to start sowing most of the seeds that we’d ordered. Lots of different flowers for the flower plot were protected in the polytunnel. The chitted potatoes were also planted in the ground and a few in bags.

There was a mix of some warm weather among the wet and chillier days. April is a great allotment month, with lots of busy/chatty plotholders and plenty to catch up on, but thank goodness we have the polytunnel.

Along with the PSB, rhubarb and fresh chive flowers joined the meal plans.

May

Aah May! Still more to sow (including pre-germinated parsnips which were direct-sown) and so much growth with proper colour on the plots. The hedge full of flower and birds infuses a keen-ness to get tiny plants into the ground, but we hold off unless we have back-ups on hand.

It was a mostly sunny month so perfect for growing and working. OK, there was some rain but not altogether unwelcome.

We even started an early courgette in the polytunnel. It kept producing for months; we moved it outside in the Summer.

Delicious leeks were on the menu along with a few early strawberries.

June

It really was a flaming June - it was so sunny and beautiful, we thought it was a sign of a sweltering Summer, like last year, but that didn’t quite work out.

We saw bullfinches, a rosemary beetle and a previously unseen red and black froghopper, but even better were the plotholder gatherings!

And we enjoyed a sunny site Open Day.

Salads were getting more interesting with delicious broad beans, mangetout and radish.

July

Nia provided us with the sweetcorn plants as most of ours had failed to germinate and the watering regime was hard work …initially…

And then the rain came and everyone cheered, but the polytunnel still needed watering…

And the rain carried on for a bit too long, but we all agreed that the plants were certainly enjoying it.

And you can’t have lovely trugfuls and platefuls of veggies without some help with the watering!

August

There was more rain, more sun and more allotment events.

Sadly we said happy 95th birthday to my mum and later in the month said goodbye to her for the last time.

Remembering happy times on holiday and her love of gardening through our own flower patch now.

A bumper bed of leeks were planted as our seedlings had grown well this year.

Harvests continued to include asparagus pea, courgettes, salad, potatoes and beets.

September 

Extreme temperatures arrived along with our late beans. We had to buy runner bean plants as ours refused to germinate, but the borlotti and French beans grew well on the tunnel frame.

Super-harvest month! Most of the borlotti beans and yin-Yang beans were left to dry on the plants and then finished their drying in the polytunnel. The weather was perfect for it.

The Scabiosa Stellata produced their pretty seedheads and other flowers were putting on a fine show of late Summer colour.

Apart from beans, potatoes, salad we had sweetcorn, aubergine and peppers on the menu.

October

A few sunny days encouraged the last of the flowers to bloom ahead of the first frosts and we even had a barbecue! And we managed to sow our broad beans as intended.

As well as frost there was a lot more rain as the first Winter storms arrived. We got off lightly compared to other areas, but still completely drenching. 

Luckily our pumpkins were stored in the polytunnel by then and all the sweetcorn and beans had been harvested.

Sweetcorn, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, leeks and pumpkin were on the menu.

November

Yet another rainy month, so a very soggy plot for occasional visits and manure deliveries. 

Surprisingly we’ grown good parsnips this year; all the rain hasn’t caused canker and although some are multi-legged ones they’re tasty and some are very big. Much better than our attempts in recent years.

Squash, beetroot, parsnips and carrots provided meal ingredients.

December 

So here we are another year has flown by with happy and sad times to reflect on. 

Plans are in progress, with fruit trees waiting in the polytunnel and seed catalogues on hand. The weather is wet but warm so weeds are taking over, but we’ll get to them one dry day quite soon…

The nights are shortening and there are signs of Spring bulbs to look forward to. In the meantime we’ll continue enjoying our Christmas and new year celebrations. 

I have two new ‘My Favourite Books’ as a result of this year’s reading list: 

I realise I’m late to reading ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, after all it’s 85 years old, but it is amazing and sadly poignant in today’s world. Definitely worth a re-read in my opinion. 

And the ‘The Murmur of Bees’ is so beautifully translated from the original Spanish. With a touch of magic I found it totally absorbing and delightful.

Happy new year and thankyou for popping by 🙂

Song title provided by Keane.

Round Here

Our allotment planet! I do love these 'little planet' style photos and I found instructions on this site. I thought you needed a special bit of kit to make these images. You must have seen them before, there are some amazing images on-line. I find them very pleasing 😌

Here are some other things that have pleased me over the last week.

Like that beautiful clear blue sky on Saturday and a robin singing his little heart out in the ash tree by our plot.

A trug full of veg, including my tiny butternut squash and some baby patty pans, for delicious garlic-roasted vegetables, which covered one evening meal and two lunches.

Opening the curtains to a beautiful sunny October daybreak so Jamie and I could have a plot barbecue with sweetcorn straight from the plant (sorry I dropped yours in the ash, Jamie).

Seeing the bright pink spindle berries in the allotment hedge, knowing that their next phase is to reveal their amazing orange fruits.

And, did I mention this little chap serenading us all afternoon?

Remembering to zip down the polytunnel so our tomatoes and peppers didn’t get nipped by the frost on Saturday night, it sank to -0.5° and hit plants outside the polytunnel, though not the everything - surely these are the last of the courgettes?! That pleases Jamie 🤭

Pulling a single Sarpo Mira plant on Sunday and getting all these great spuds.

Enjoying fiery Autumn skies as sunrise and sunset get closer together. 

Oh, and did I mention the robin and that blue sky? We sat for hours just soaking up the rays while we contemplated doing some deadheading (pointless, the frost got them the next day) or weeding. And Ivan came to join us for a chat about his wine-making - his first batch of wine from his allotment grape vine is in preparation!

And yesterday I found that Little Planet tutorial which turned this panorama into that tiny world.

It's just converted using a bit of image manipulation. Here's the 'world' from a different angle.

I hope you find some cheer in your world, have a good week. Song title provided by the excellent Counting Crows.

Such A Shame

I thought I'd start with a nice photo of a branch of Redcurrant tomatoes.

And now a tasty pan of lovely fresh veg cooking.

Mmm, fried tomatoes, onions and garlic, with a dash of peri peri sauce. Add a pile of chopped chard and a Granovita veggie pepperoni and finally add fried chopped courgette. An adaptation on this recipe on YumUniverse.

So, here come the reasons for the title track...

First we found our globe artichoke had snapped off :-( We only planted up a tiny seedling earlier this year - we bought it at the HAHA plant sale.

Next, we noticed our Lark sweetcorn at an unusual angle, but the roots are still in the ground, so we should still be able to start harvesting delicious cobs this weekend.

But... our Glass Gem may not survive :-( Lots of stems have snapped. They were just too tall and spindly to survive Storm Aileen.

We briefly tried to help it back up and this weekend I'll try to secure the healthy looking ones but it looks very unhappy and as the cobs are only just forming it may not recover - such a shame!

Thank you Talk Talk for providing a suitable title...