Late pickings

I had half an hour today and for once it was the right half an hour, no downpour, no howling wind - I wasn't even supposed to be at work - just a nice, peaceful half hour to take stock of all the jobs I'll need to do when there's time and the right weather.

Amazingly, there's been no real damage, the hut is still upright, the bench wasn't, but was very easy to turn back up the right way. There was a lot of stray black plastic to gather up and stack back under the brambly bit at the bottom and there was even a small crop of veggies to take home. I photographed them on the bench in a delicious moment of sunshine, here they are, some leeks, parsnips, black kale and a little gem lettuce. Brilliant.

Happy gardening (when the weather lets you)

Tidying up

We did a bit of a clear up this afternoon. It was lovely and sunny again, I even worked in a vest for a while, but the weatherman says it's really over now and winter is arriving tomorrow. It's been warm for so long that I can hardly believe it.

J did what was probably the last strim of the year, I planted the garlic and did a bit of digging. I also hauled out some useless brassicas that I'd put in without knowing what they were. They grew vast and stalky but stayed unidentified so we decided that they had to go. They'd been home to several million whitefly, who I evicted with great pleasure. They'll probably find my black kale now.

We went home (tired) with a bag of spinach, some pak choi, little gem lettuces and a handful of mint.

Happy gardening

Apple Day

On Sunday we went to Horfield community orchard's "apple day", which turned out to be a delightful community event with morris dancers, apple tasting and hands-on demonstrations of juice making - cue for lots of enthusiastic youngsters having a lovely time chomping apples amongst the trees. Shame ours are too old and cool to enjoy this sort of thing at the moment. In fact, Roo was 19 yesterday (he tells me that his birthday is on the real apple day) and is more into late nights and partying. However, I believe that the things that we do with our kids when they are little are the seeds that will grow and put down roots for later on in their lives, and I hope that one day they'll be taking their own kids to run about the orchards on apple day too.

Happy gardening

Change of photo

I've just had quite a different sort of haircut and really don't look much like the old photo anymore so I thought it was time for an update. I've been going blonder again too, mostly by design although it's much lighter than I intended because the sun has bleached my hair over the summer.

I'm planning to go to the allotment tomorrow morning. I'll be at work in the afternoon, but if there's another stunning blue and gold day tomorrow I can't think of a better way of spending the morning. It's been such a pleasure to be out doors this autumn, we've had one fabulous golden day after another. Just sitting on the bench with my face turned up to the sun and pottering around with a flask of tea is so lovely when its like this, that I'm spending as much time as I can doing just that.

I haven't mentioned vegetables, there'll have to be proper allotment talk next time, none of this rubbish about tea and haircuts.
Happy gardening

The allotment goes to the farmers' market

Over the past week, we have all been carefully gathering our surplus produce and selecting spare jars of jams and pickles to put on today's stall at Redland farmers' market. There was a fine selection of fruit and vegetables but for me the most exciting thing was the appearance of some beautiful jars of honey from the beekeeper who keeps bees in the little wooded area at the end of the allotments. The bit my kids aways used to call "the wild woods" - just think, those bees have fed on our flowers!

The proceeds from the stall were going to a charity that aids disabled gardeners, and when I did my stint in the morning, the money tin already had quite a few notes in it. Marion (on the left of the photo) had organised the event and stayed all day, with a rota of assistants coming and going. It was a very sociable affair and actually more conducive to having a good chat with allotment neighbours than when you're in mid dig.

I nipped up to my own allotment this afternoon to water, it's still very dry after this lovely Indian summer of the last two weeks and it all needed a good soak. It was boiling hot and very hard work lugging the watering can up and down the beds so I was ready for a good soak myself when I got back home.

Happy gardening ( and oh!, the bliss of a hot shower afterwards!)

"Harvest Hats" event

Yesterday was the annual allotment tea, held as before on Cylla's beautifully eccentric plot. I'm afraid the photo I took of her manages to look like the chicken sculpture on her shed is balanced on her head, but hey, I've never claimed to be a good photographer, have I?

This year we had a talk on companion planting by organic horticulturalist, Tim Foster, shown taking second place behind the laden tea table. Again, not a deliberate composition! Tea and talk were both very much enjoyed by all.

J and I culled a couple of mini sunflowers from our allotment to decorate our hats and Lesley very
kindly recorded us for posterity. I had a bit of trouble with my sunflower, it kept falling down over one eye so as soon as we got home I unpinned it and put it in a jug with some others on the kitchen table. They look gorgeous.

Our contribution to the allotment tea were individual normandy apple tarts (I've now nearly finished the bottle of calvados we bought on holiday in Normandy in 1988, when I was pregnant with Edmund!) and individual plum tarts, made with honey baked plums. There was so much food that we all ended up bringing stuff home again, but I'm not complaining!

Happy gardening (and happy harvest)

Plum recovery

Well, the weird organic remedy for plum brown rot seems to have worked, we sprayed it on fairly liberally 3 or 4 times and the plum crop now looks pretty damn good as you can see in the picture.
So..the magic formula, as promised...

1/4 pint milk
teaspoon bicarb of soda
a few squirts Ecover washing up liquid or hand soap (I'm sure it doesn't have to be Ecover)
top up to roughly a pint in total with warm water

We're having to give the plums a good wash before eating them because sour milk and soap doesn't bring out the flavour as well as cream or custard but that's no big deal compared to losing all our lovely fruit.

I've even had enough already to make a couple of delicious helpings of "exploded plum surprise", a quick and easy recipe that J rather liked. Lovely served cold with a big spoonful of marscapone.

"Exploded plum surprise"
A dozen or so plums, halved and stoned
Runny hunny, as much as you want, really
Bung in a pyrex dish with a lid and microwave for slightly less time than you think it's going to take! Enjoy.

Happy gardening (especially when you get to enjoy the harvest)