Dear sweet (not burny) readers

I am feeling a little better :) Boy it has taken a long time for me to come around this time and I have missed you all. Thank you for your comments on the plan - which has been improved (more about that in another post, I am a tease) and now even has a 'story' or is it 'journey', I can't remember but it was Alan Titchmarsh (the god that he is) said that every garden should have one or the other years ago and I liked it.

I was at my allotment tonight, gathering sweetcorn for dinner and taking photos as I haven't been in a while. Mamma G was actually there too today harvesting some of our runner beans for her vegetarian pal who is on driving duty tonight ;) It was beautiful there, a warm sunny day and hardly a soul about as it was dinner time. I love it when it's like that.

I'll put up a couple of photos - but first I must tell you exciting news.....tomorrow (Saturday) is the great onion competition evening. Fear not dear readers I shall have the camera battery fully charged and will try to capture all the action for your pleasure. There is also a BBQ but we have been invited to another BBQ - oh crikey, we don't get invites for any parties for ages then 2 come at once! Either way both venues are veggie plots so you won't mind, will you.

We had the best sweetcorn ever this year, remember those beautiful red tassels earlier in the season? Well, this time last year we were in glorious Brittany and missed the height of the season. We tried the usual 'F1 Swift' but it failed on us :( so this batch is the utterly yummy 'F1 Sundance' - so good, really I recommend this most heartily.

Before I go I must tell/show you the nasty incident with one of our gorgeous Cheyenne peppers. Andrew tasted it and said it was sweet, I nibbled it, yummy and sweet, pass back to Andrew and again, sweet, then ...I took a photo and then I was stupid enough to taste it one more time. Arrghgghghghh - seeds and burny burny heat on my tongue - thus ensued the pain dance and revenge... I hadn't any milk (quite obviously on a plot) or water so I tried a blackberry...do not do this, ever! A burnt tongue immediately followed by a rather acidic berry = even more aow time including involuntary jumping up and down - the shame.

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

All's well that ends well..

Maggie is home! The vets rang us this morning and said the little angel was ready to go home, so we rushed off to get her and gave her cuddles galore. On the way back to the house we quickly stopped off at the lottie and let her have a wee run round. She is so full of beans and had a bath to clean up the boke-y beard, so she looks great. This afternoon she slept like a log, but I loved watching her and just felt that everything was alright again. I loves my Maggie!!

Speaking of which I have a cute photo of her 'helping' Andy last weekend when he was planting seeds - hahaha. I thought it was too sweet to be annoyed at her for being up on the bed.

What did he plant there anyway? I know the second row was Scorzonera; cool seeds eh? We haven't grown this before but according to the River Cottage Handbook No. 4 Veg Patch it  is ' hugely popular in France and Italy....look[s] like a size-zero parsnip', and '...according to fable, is reminiscient of oysters [or] simply nutty and sweet'. Mark Diacono confesses here that he is 'shamelessly evanglical about them' so I hope they're bloody good!!

Not to be out done I too did some 'proper' gardening for a change. I pruned back the dogwood [afer a little lesson] all by myself; look at the difference. Seems very brutal but obviously necessary. I'll just use the decarded branches for arty-farty stuff. Plus at the far end of this plot the rhuburb is really starting to go for it!

Lastly I thought I'd share some photos of a few of the window sill seedlings in the sun room /nursery. We're doing really well with germination rates so far in the tomatoes, chillies, flowers for the cut flower border and celeriac and marigolds.

 

Bugs, Chilli and Parsley

The weather was bright and cold on Sunday, our favourite, even though we both had the cold. We took lunch with us and after a good looking at, we started to work on the plot. Andrew did more composting - our 2nd bin is now full to the brim, I guess that means the 3rd one (that's in the back garden) will have to brought round soon.

I 'worked' on weeding and general poking about (did you know 1 hour of weeding burns off 300 calories!) . I noticed that there were a few interesting bugs about and with my trusty camera, I took photos. Firstly, Chrysalis watch! Plus 'Chrysalis Watch Too'. This second one is obviously very new, he is up on the shed door lintel too (popular place) and is still technically a caterpillar. Not sure what those yellow egg things are - they better not be evil Spider babies; all Buddhist tendencies will go out the window, I will squish them (or get Andrew to do it; that's more realistic)! Look at that lovely sky as well.

Then I saw this beauty. I've been informed that it' a 'STINK BUG', a horrible name for something so pretty. I can't believe I think that, in the past I would have run a mile in the opposite direction when confronted with bugs, now, with camera in hand (and Maggie near by - she's got my back!) I find them wonderful. Which is just right, they are wonderful and look how colourful and shiny this one is... But why, why Stink Bug, who names these things?

So apart from that I dismantled the mini greenhouse over the chilli plants. (NB. Rusty water isn't the easiest thing to get off your fingers and nails.) The Jalapeano wasn't doing anything and had a fungus just developing at the very base. The Hungarian Hot Wax has quite a few fruits and I just lifted the whole plant and now it's hanging up-side-down in the shed. The ground under the chillies was then dug over and improved with our own compost. The circle of life.

All that's left in this bed is the lovely Spinach, one lonely lettuce and Robert's windmill.

Lastly there is our Parsley, not necessarily the most exciting of plants on the plot but it is doing very well indeed. Any success makes me proud and is therefore worthy of note. Two of them have their own Cloches made from old Water bottles - big ones from Andrew's office in work.

31st September (I make the rules here)

I was very brave and a little while ago, I gave in and relented to the fact that it is... October. I turned the page on the calendar before my nerves give way and just felt thankful that it wasn't November, not yet. This year seems to be going in way too fast and soon it will be winter and generally that does not cheer me in any way.

Thanks go out to Paul and Caro for arranging to have their wedding this month and thus a trip to Belgium is on the cards in less than a fortnight.

Even so, while I can, I would like to talk about September for a little longer.

We visited the lottie last night, for food for dinner, last nights dinner and tonight. I forgot to even look at the caterpillar chrysalis, so 'Chrysalis Watch' has gotten off to a terrible start, sorry.

We had a good harvest look. Yes, spinach, carrots, potatoes and 2 new additions to the repertoire - Scallions and Chillies (Hungarian Hot Wax). I had the spinach for my lunch there and it tasted great, with the usual addition of prunes, yummy. The Chillies were used last night in a Veggie Curry (made by Andrew), they weren't hot but they are only just turning yellow/orange but they did taste nice. The plant looks very healthy and there are, goodness, around 20+ on it growing away merrily under their own little greenhouse. The Jalapeno also has lots of flowers and a couple of baby chillies.

The Scallions are for this evening, Champ with Pork and Apple Sausages. Mamma G is coming over for dinner, and that reminds me - must tidy up a bit!! I think this is the 1st time we've had anyone over to share in a Lottie meal with us. We generally just give produce away, like these Radishes last night, which went to the afore mentioned Mamma; a good home for a radish to go and fulfil it's destiny. A couple were split a little and one of them was purple, it always was since it was a baby - odd, maybe just a different variety in the packet of seeds, even it's foliage was richer in colour.

Now I have a lesson to share with you, about Runner Beans and what not to do with them. Take note, if you ever grow these fine and tasty beans, never ever put them in the freezer without blanching them first. They will turn to floppy, squishy messes that even their own Mother would despair over. Blanching is the key, I hope anyway cos that's what we have done with the rest. Hopefully they will be better and can be cooked just from frozen.

Here are the floppy beans (sad) and here are the last batch of lottie runner beans, blanched and ready to go into the freezer.

Well, the sun is out, though it is very cold. I really ought to take Maggie for a quick walk before all the noisy kids get released from their schools and explode onto the streets. Haha, it's just started to absoultely pour down, no going out for us - Maggie HATES rain. It's so changable.

New Harvests

Here's a wee run down of what is growing away at the plot for the future (don't forget we are still eating potatoes, carrots, beetroot, lettuce, runner beans, spinach and sweetcorn at the moment).
In this bed alone we have Pak Choi, more carrots, more mixed lettuce, scallions and more turnips (they were a surprise for me, I'd been complaining that we'd finished them all). I thinned them out on Sunday and everything is very healthy. I have high hopes for the Pak Choi, fingers crossed.


Elsewhere we have leeks fattening up nicely, parsnips, beetroots and spring cabbages. Oh and a great turn out for the books - our own chillies, loads of them. We have 2 different types (under a mini greenhouse we bought in Woolworths for next to nothing) both flowering and producing fruit, one is a Jalapeno, but this one is miles ahead and it's the one with no label! Andrew ate a big bit out of one of these, but it wasn't hot - not ripe yet. I thought he was mad when I saw him crunching away.

We also have radishes but we're not interested in them - they're for Mamma G and Anne to eat. But look how cute they are; I managed to get this photo just mins before Mamma G ate it up straight from the bed; the beautiful redness shining at her was too tempting.

There's nothing wrong with them, I just don't think we'll bother again. They are a little fiery, peppery but mainly (and I mean this for all radishes I 've had) watery. It's not exactly wasabai is it!