Freezing fog

Sunday morning. Freezing fog hung over the city and wrapped the allotment in a cold, wet blanket. Sounds were either muffled or strangely amplified. I went for a walk and spent some time listening to snorty gruntings from some bushes near the compost loo but didn't see what was making them. Whatever was making them was probably complaining about the cold!

The parsley was completely frozen so I harvested it and put it straight into the freezer when I got home. Herbs freeze well and seem to taste exactly the same as fresh. I've never found dried herbs to be as effective.


I also took home a nice big stalk of sprouts but gave up on taking any leeks. I would have dug up a few if they hadn't been frozen solidly into their beds.

I have yet to put in my garlic. It's getting quite late in the year for planting it but so far, it's been too wet, too dry or too frozen every time I've been free. Or too dark, most of the time when I'm not too busy, it's dark! Next weekend maybe.

Keep warm!
Happy gardening

Pumpkin and tomato chutney

Today I've been mostly making pumpkin chutney!

It's looking dark and sticky now and almost ready to ladle into the jars. The kitchen windows are obscured by steam, but hey, it's starting to get dark outside anyway. It's been a foul, cold, wet day. Making jams and chutneys is a very good way of keeping the kitchen warm on a day like this!

Happy gardening and preserving

Marigolds

I couldn't resist this gorgeous marigold. There's a big patch of them now, all growing where they weren't supposed to be growing, but so wonderfully bright and cheerful that I'm letting them stay there.

I've been away for a few days so didn't make it to the allotment this weekend. Now that the days are shorter, I don't get there during the week unless I'm really lucky. If I miss a weekend it can be ages between visits.

There's not very much to pick at the moment, just a bit of black kale, some over-sized runners and the autumn raspberries. I could have picked some spinach as well but ran out of time.

Some of the marigolds came home with me though and look very lovely next to the laptop as I write this!

Happy gardening (when you get the chance)

Trolley dolly

This is a bit of an experiment. The photo, not the trolley/food waste bin combo. I'm trying to upload a pic directly from Picasa, which I haven't done before and it seems to want me to write my post in Picasa as well. All very well but I can see that it's using Blogger's old format so it probably won't look the way I want it. The trolley/food waste bin pic is because this weekend is probably the last trip I shall make with this particular encumbrance before next spring! (Hurray) In the winter all the compostable waste goes into the compost bin in the garden while the stuff in the allotment bins rots down ready to dig into the ground in the springtime.

In the meantime, I haven't added any new waste to the bin at home for months so the contents should be ready to use soon. That's the theory anyway. In practice, I think there's a rat or two holed up inside the bin so it may be difficult to poke around inside to see if it's useable. My cat, Quincy, has been spending a lot of his time sitting staring at the base of the bin, looking hopeful. He's not very brave though so I think any rats are pretty safe.

Anyway, I shan't miss lugging the trolley up the hill, particularly the last bit where the bumpy path tries to tip the trolley over. I certainly shan't miss emptying the stinky mess into the daleks, and having to sloosh out the brown bin to clean all the stuck on peelings and bits of eggshell off before I take it home again.

Happy gardening (hope you've bin composting too)
Oh and I just want to say that compost is always better if there's lots of shredded loo roll insides and egg box along with the veggie peelings.

Goodbye to the plum tree

RIP Marjorie's Seedling 
Planted spring 2006 died summer 2010

I don't know why it happened. It's been failing for months and we've tried to save it but now it really is too late. I've had several diagnoses from people who are very clued up about arboriculture but whichever of them is right still won't be able to bring life back into my dead tree. I don't think I've maltreated it, in fact I've tended it with more care than many other plants on my allotment. The only thing I can think of is that one time I sprayed it with non-organic bug spray but surely that can't be enough to kill a tree? I mean, don't people use non-organic stuff all the time anyway? There's enough of it in the garden shop that we use. They wouldn't sell it if people didn't buy it.

Apart from the starkness of the plum's shrivelled leaves, the allotment is looking good, J's strimmed and I've weeded and tidied, and the last of the summer vegetables are still quietly producing. But when I stop working and look around I get a melancholy feeling that isn't just due to the change of season.

Not quite so happy gardening this time folks.

Thankyou

By the time you read this, I'll have abandoned redcurrants in favour of blackberries. The bramble jelly-making has begun!

Two things. Firstly, thank you so much to all of you who actually read this blog. I only ever expected it to be read by my Mum (who now doesn't have a computer) and my two best friends from way, way back who don't live near me anymore. It's lovely to find comments from real people out there in internetland who share similar interests. I look at your blogs too and I'm always chastened by pictures of your wonderful allotments and gardens, and all the lovely produce you show. I'm particularly gutted by all the fantastic recipes and photographs of food that appear. It just doesn't happen like that in my kitchen, I have a strong tendency to eat my dinner as soon as I've cooked it - it doesn't hang around long enough to have its picture taken!

The other (earth shattering) thing of note in this posting is that I just have to tell you about the sheer pleasure of finding the right sheet of wrapping paper to cut into circles for jam-pot covers. Just look at this lot! Very Kath Kidson! It wasn't actually, just some nice paper from a local shop, but it's very like her brand. The lovely sweet peas aren't mine, they were given to me by Caroline who says she's been picking a bunch like this every day for a couple of weeks! Wow! Impressive.

If there's time today I shall pick four more lbs of blackberries to drip for the next batch of jelly. Lovely stuff, but the down side is that the kitchen is taken over by an upturned chair with a dripping jellybag attached to it by a Heath Robinson contraption of wires (made by the ever-inventive J) and it's such a slow process and each time, produces such a tiny amount of jelly! Is it worth it? Well, probably. I can't seem to stop doing it, anyway!
Happy gardening and jelly-making

Redcurrant frenzy

Susan looks happy (outrageously so, calm down Susan!) to have picked a nice bucketful of redcurrants.

I can't cope with the amount we get - there's still another bushful even after Susan and I have picked as many as we need. I think there are still some in the bottom of the freezer labelled 2009. And 2008. Oops.

This morning I made what I hope is my penultimate batch of 2010 redcurrant jelly, as later on today I intend to start picking blackberries for the bramble jelly. I love Mondays. (Day off) Mind you, pretty soon there's going to be a jam jar crisis. My jam jar box is kept in the loft when I'm not involved in jelly or marmalade making, but there's never as many as I remembered when I get the box down again. Where do they go?

While you're pondering that - happy gardening and jelly-making