Allotment | Not Just Parsnips!

Category: Allotment
- Invasion of the Tomatoes…
  
  Posted at 7:18 am by Kirstie, on Sep 5, 2019
  Okay, so it isn’t quite the invasion of the killer tomatoes, as these are all delicious, especially when eaten directly off the plants, whilst still warm from the sun. But having said that they are, after a slow start, coming thick and fast.
  
  We went down to the allotment at the end of last week and pick just a handful of ripe tomatoes, a few green ones had fallen, so they were left of the table there to see if they would ripen off in the sun, but off the vine. A few days later and there was a trug full. It wasn’t just tomatoes we were bringing back either…
  
  Of course this meant Sunday was mainly spent in the kitchen, using up as much as I could.
  
  First things first and the knives are out, there was a lot of chopping and slicing to be done. With a really good, sharp knife this is actually quite a nice wee job, especially when there is something decent to listen to whilst working away. Before too long I had two pots bubbling away on the hob.
  
  The left hand pot was to be a yellow courgette and tomato relish, a new recipe, but one which would use up that random piece of ginger lurking in the fridge. The right hand pot the sweet courgette relish I’ve made on numerous occasions.
  
  After bubbling away the mixture was looking thick and glossy, the colours were beautiful….. fingers crossed it tastes as good as it looked…..
  
  Whilst the relishes were cooking away it was time to deal with the rest of the tomatoes. I’m lucky that both boys love their soup, so now is the time to stock up the freezer with homemade tomato soup.
  
  Keeping life as simple as possible I opted to wash, halve and roast them in the oven. Just a drizzle of olive oil, a garlic clove, salt and pepper and just let them cook down and concentrate the flavour.
  
  Whizzed up with some stock and the soup is ready for the freezer… well it would have been if the boys hadn’t decided to have it for dinner on Monday evening, when I was out.
  
  Finally packed into sterilised jars and I have a new supply of relishes to store away or give away, I just hope the yellow courgette and tomato tastes as good as it looks.
  
  I also made an attempt at a tomato and chilli jam… but I’m not convinced it has worked as I really wasn’t paying attention and I think I might have over cooked it – definitely one to try again, but with a little more attention being paid!
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  Posted in Allotment | 0 Comments | Tagged Allotment, courgette relish, green tomatoes, roast tomato soup, sweet courgette relish, tomato, tomato and chilli jam, tomato glut, tomato recipes, tomato soup, tomatoes, yellow courgette, yellow courgette and tomato relish
- From sweetcorn to sweetpeas…
  
  Posted at 8:11 pm by Kirstie, on Aug 28, 2019
  The problem with this time of year is time, or the lack or it. There is so much to do, its a shame you can’t work part time over the summer to give enough time to do everything needed both down at the allotment and with the produce you bring back!
  
  Some things just need a wash and serving up… after you’ve created tomato men with them, of course…….
  
  Others take a little more effort. Sweetcorn needs only minimal ‘processing’, but is well worth the effort. The thing with with sweetcorn is time, as soon as you pick them from the plant the clock starts ticking and you need to get them cooked, because as time goes by the sugar turns to starch.
  
  For this reason I am limiting the number I pick each time, so that I can get them processed as soon as possible. Obviously we will eat some the same day as corn on the cob, with butter melting over it, but most will probably be used to stock up the freezer.
  
  Before leaving the allotment I strip the leaves from the corn, just so I can chuck it straight into the compost bin. One less job when I get home and less to bring back to the allotment (okay, so I’m a little bit lazy….)
  
  Step one involves a sharp knife, to remove all those golden kernels from the cob, before plunging them into boiling water for a few minutes.
  
  Finally drained and plunged into cold water and its ready to be weighed out into appropriate size bags and shoved into the freezer. Each bag is enough for the three of us – keeps it simple!
  
  Of course there might have been a little quality testing along the way….
  
  Other things I have brought back have taken a little longer to ‘process’. When I tidied up the flower border in the allotment, removing everything which had died back, I collected the seed heads and brought them home in a bag and left them in the greenhouse. This weekend it was just too hot to work outside, so instead I decided to get on and sort them out…. I wont lie – it took ages, but now I have a selection of envelopes containing a selection of seeds…
  
  In amongst the mess was a mixture of calendula, sweetpeas, peas, beans and another flower seed which I have still to indentify…….
  
  As a treat for all my hard work I rewarded myself by snaffling the yellow raspberries, just so I could finish off the last of a tub of double cream and a few meringues… well it would be rude not to!
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  Posted in Allotment | 2 Comments | Tagged Allotment, allotment newbie, allotment planting, allotmenteers, beans, blanching sweetcorn, broad beans, calendula, corn off the cob, corn on the cob, flower seeds, freezing sweetcorn, preserving sweetcorn, processing sweetcorn, raspberries, runner beans, seed heads, seeds, storing sweetcorn, summer on the allotment, sweet peas, sweetcorn, sweetpeas, tomato, tomatoes, yellow raspberries
- When Veg Goes Bad….
  
  Posted at 10:24 pm by Kirstie, on Aug 21, 2019
  This year, for the first time ever I’ve had some truly awful vegetables, whilst they were as fresh as a daisy, just picked from the plants and they looked absolutely perfect, the taste was absolutely vile. The first time it happened was when I attempted a courgette soup. Followed the recipe to the letter, used some potatoes from the allotment and yet on the first taste it was truly revolting. It wasn’t a ‘too much salt revolting’ but a tastes like chemicals revolting – took an entire glass of wine to banish the taste!
  
  Now I know one of the potatoes had a green bit on it, so I assumed that, despite removing it, this was the cause of the problem and just put it down to experience. Then, a few weeks later, I had a message from my mother to say that the runner beans I had given her were delicious, but the courgette tasted foul! Well that had me thinking and after doing a bit of research I found that the poor plants had been stressed!!
  
  Apparently, if exposed to extremes of temperatures, drought or uneven watering then courgettes and cucumbers can become stressed and the chemicals in the plants, called cucurbitacins, become concentrated and give the fruits that disgusting taste – who knew!! Well not me, that’s for sure.
  
  Allotment Roulette….
  
  Now of course we have the problem that we don’t know from which plant the affected courgettes have come, which makes it a bit of a nightmare when you have given them to friends, let alone when you want to use them. I have now taken to tasting them all raw before attempting to use them in any dishes or relishes, if I give them away then I do so with a warning to do the same!!
  
  Sadly the bad fruits are not obviously different from the good!
  
  As if it wasn’t bad enough that we can’t trust the courgettes from the allotment yesterday we discovered the same was true of the cucumbers from the greenhouse. We harvested two small cucumbers, same size, same part of the greenhouse, in fact they looked identical. Sadly, the first one we sliced for salad was, like the courgettes, revolting! My husband almost binned the second one, but we risked it, tried a wee slice and bingo, beautiful home grown cucumber which tasted perfect!
  
  I know that we have had some extremely hot days this year, but the same is true of previous years, and yet this is the first time ever we have had such problems, I do wonder whether this problem is more rife this year than previous years, or whether we have just been unlucky?
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  Posted in Allotment | 0 Comments | Tagged Allotment, bad vegtables, bitter courgette, bitter cucumber, courgette, cucumber, cucurbitacins, extreme temperatures, potatoes, revolting courgettes, revolting cucumbers, stressed courgettes, stressed cucumbers
- Cucamelons!!
  
  Posted at 5:06 pm by Kirstie, on Aug 18, 2019
  Last year I tried to grow cucamelons and I failed miserably, the seeds did germinate and we did have a couple of plants. Eventually a few flowers and tiny fruits appeared, but that was as far as they got.
  
  I don’t like to fail, so I thought I would give them another go this year. To be honest I wasn’t convinced they would come to anything, but I had the seeds, so nothing ventured, nothing gained!
  
  It was great to see fruit starting to appear, then finally reach a size big enough to pick and eat – my first ever cucamelon!!
  
  With the exception of one tomato, today’s crop is a study in miniature!
  
  Although only a small crop, this heralds the beginning of my tomatoes ripening. These are a mixture of Red Cherry, Shirley F1 and Rosella and just the start, with many more to come. I will freely admit I grow far too much, especially of the things I like. This year I have really gone a bit bonkers and grown, from seed, the following varieties:
  - Oxheart – as the name would suggest, these are large tomatoes, but are sweet and fragrant – we have a lot of these coming through, which I’m really looking forward to trying for the first time!
  - Striped – these were part of a ‘funky veg kit’ – I guess they are striped…
  - Moneymaker – a medium sized fruit which I’ve always found successful.
  - Gardeners Delight – small, sweet fruits grown on long trusses.
  - Red Cherry – sweet and juicy and often don’t make it back from the allotment – best eaten when still warm from the sun.
  - Shirley F1 – medium size fruit
  - Rosella – a cherry sized rosy-pink fruit with few seeds
  - Red Pear – a pear shaped cherry tomato which did really well last year and which have self seeded in the allotment.
  Whilst we will be having a lot of tomato salads, just simply with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and basil leaves, I’m now looking at what I can make with the glut we are no doubt going to be harvesting. There will of course be a lot of homemade tomato soup, stocking up the freezer for winter. Last year our tomatoes were mainly the cherry sized fruits, one of the reasons for trying larger varieties was to make soup. I usually roast the tomatoes first as I think this intensifies the flavour – delicious, especially with balsamic vinegar and a little bit of sugar. I’m hoping a larger sized fruit will make this a lot quicker to prep, but hopefully without compromising on flavour.
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  Posted in Allotment | 0 Comments | Tagged Allotment, crop, cucamelon, cucamelons, cucumber, how to grow cucamelons, moneymaker, oxheart, striped, strpy, tomato, tomatoes, what do cucamelons taste like, what to grow on allotment
- When you turn your back….
  
  Posted at 10:25 am by Kirstie, on Aug 9, 2019
  The thing with allotments is that if you are not careful you will turn your back for a short while, come back and find that you have a glut of produce to deal with. This is fine if it’s at the beginning of the weekend and you have nothing else planned. The timing is not so good if it’s the day before you are planning on driving up to Scotland for a couple of weeks!
  
  What to do? Well first of all avoid letting anything go to waste, then tackle it one bit at a time…
  
  Broad beans have such soft and fluffy covers to keep the beans safe inside, once the beans have been shelled they are also a good addition to the compost heap.
  
  Sitting in the sun in the allotment shelling beans is very relaxing, it also saves a journey bringing the pods back for the allotment compost bin, just chuck them in before you leave. This is where is was really handy to actually remember to bring the old takeaway containers along with me.
  
  It was also quite therapeutic to do this and enjoy the peace and quiet, before the rushing about I knew was just about to come!
  
  So this is what I ended up coming home with, broad beans, gooseberries, runner beans, fine beans, courgettes – yellow and green and brambles.
  
  Next, what to do with it all:
  - Broad beans – blanch in boiling water for 3 mins, double pod (remove the outer skin) then freeze for use later.
  - Gooseberries – wash and open freeze.
  - Courgettes – most transformed into chutney, a couple came on holiday with us – not because they needed the break and change of scenery, but because we could cook them for our dinner!
  - Fine beans – top and tailed, blanched and frozen. Last year’s crop lasted for a decent amount of time, so much nicer to still be eating our own produce in winter than anything shop bought.
  - Runner beans – quite honestly… I ran out of time to make any chutney or blanch them for the freezer, so I left them for my lovely neighbour who was kind enough to look after our menagerie, in the hope they could make use of them.
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  Posted in Allotment | 0 Comments | Tagged Allotment, allotmenteers, brambles, broad beans, chutney, courgette chutney, courgettes, fine beans, goosberries, green beans, runner beans
- Little things please little minds……
  
  Posted at 9:30 pm by Kirstie, on Jul 26, 2019
  A quick wander down to the allotment this evening and its a little overwhelming how much we need to do down there. Despite hours weeding the other day the weeds seems to be coming back with vengeance, it’s almost as though we hadn’t been there for weeks, if not months. A worry when you are about to leave it for a couple of weeks!
  
  Right, only half an hour, so some emergency watering – just enough to ensure that we have a thunderstorm and torrential rain, and then we have to go….
  
  Okay, a ‘quick nip down the allotment’ is Never only half an hour and you can’t help but do other bits and bobs whilst there! Our hosepipe had sprung a bit of a leak and so hubby had to fix that first, so time for me to have a quick nosy about to see what was up….
  
  Of course it is that time of year when the courgettes, if left to their own devices for more that a minute, turn into marrows; ours seem to have been having a race with the weeds to see which could grow fastest! We brought home over a dozen, but left more at the allotment, some for others to take and a few more to bring home tomorrow, oh and more beetroot!
  
  From those courgettes and marrows which we brought home, we will use a few, but most have been given to friends. They are so prolific and yet it would be a shame to let them go to waste. Fortunately we bumped into a lady down there and we got talking about the amount of produce which might often go to waste at our allotment. No one wants this to happen, which is why we have a shelter where we put such produce, so others there can help themselves. Having said that, there are some things which are so productive (like courgettes) or which we all grow, that they wont be taken – so what to do? Well the idea has come up that there is an ‘all night cafe’ down the road, which provides food and a roof for the night for the homeless in the area, which might be able to make use of some fresh produce. The idea is we revamp the notice board down at the allotment and make this a suggestion for everyone there, but until then it’s going to be an outlet for all our extras.
  
  The other thing I noticed was, for all the plants we put in to provide flowers, there are other which will also provide us with those little flashes of beauty…..
  
  The self seeded wee pansy, the thyme in the herb border, the runner beans, they all provide their own little bit of beauty, sometimes you just have to stop to look around….
  
  Oh, of course there are also the weird shaped fruit or veg!
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  Posted in Allotment | 0 Comments | Tagged Allotment, allotmenteers, beans, beetroot, cougettes, gardening, herbs, marrows, produce, runner beans, thyme, tomatoes, weeding
- Wombles of Wimbledon
  
  Posted at 9:25 pm by Kirstie, on Jul 23, 2019
  Why is it when you get an allotment you start becoming a bit of a Womble?
  
  Things I might once not considered using will now take on a whole new life, down on the allotment.
  
  Our shelter was constructed of pallets, the small greenhouse thrown away by someone else and the table given to us by someone else on the allotment, who had found in on a skip!
  
  Bricks no longer of use to anyone else become borders…
  
  A broken spade takes on a new life, helping us out with the watering…..
  
  Even my water butt was courtesy of a fellow allotmenteer who works as a gardener and had a client for whom it was surplus to requirement.
  
  In these times when people are looking to lead a more sustainable life it’s good to see that less is being thrown away and more things put to a new, if not different use.
  
  When we arrived on the allotment we were given the choice of two sheds which were already in place. One was a small metal construction with a bent and twisted door. The other, concrete, slightly larger and with a good roof on it. The floor was rotten and moves when you walk upon it and there was no door – but it had a wee window! I requested the latter and then asked Freecycle if there was any chance someone might possibly be throwing out a shed door. By the power of the internet (not Greyskull) a kind gentleman answered and a couple of days later we drove over to collect a new door for the shed. He had even pinned the hinges and screws to the door – perfect!
  
  In times when the internet and the news scares us with tales of how awful the world is and everything that is bad, it’s hard to see the good. But, when you look, you will start to see it everywhere, shining through, sometimes in the most unlikely of places.
  
  It is more satisfying to help someone else and know you have created happiness, than to do anything which would upset or annoy others. Again, something we see all the time down on the allotment. Like minded people, from various walks of life, all trying to make the most of their plots and their time, but also taking time out to help each other out.
  
  Such help maybe an offer to water plants when others are on holibobs, an excess of seedlings, strawberry runners or even the fruits of their hard work. It might be help to make the site itself a nicer place to spend time, doing up the shelter, clearing away any rubbish which may have built up over the years or clearing the brook from weeds and silt to help it run more freely. It is this sense of community which I think many of it miss in a world that often moves all too quickly.
  
  We are at that time of year when the courgettes are coming through thick and fast, if not picked quickly enough them soon become marrows. Because they are such an easy and delicious vegetable to grow, almost everyone on the allotment will have plenty of their own, so no market for any extras there. When I have the inclination I will make either courgette cake or courgette chutney, but at the moment it is simply to hot to slave away in the kitchen for longer than necessary!
  
  Fortunately I have family and friends who are always willing to take any extras, now with all the lovely people I train with at dragon boating this pool of people has been extended out. In one evening I managed for find takers for an entire trug full of courgettes/marrows. It’s always good to be able to share the love…… and the vegetables!
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  Posted in Allotment | 0 Comments | Tagged Allotment, allotmenteers, community, friends, garden, gardeners, gardening, marrow, recycle, vegetables
- Chives today, chives tomorrow….
  
  Posted at 9:31 pm by Kirstie, on Jul 18, 2019
  When I was given another plot at the allotment it was a blank canvass, there were no borders already in place, only those I dug out myself. I started with the standard rectangles, but then got to thinking outside the box…. okay, someone mentioned they looked like a line of graves. To which end I ended up doing a couple of circles, but what to plant in them…..
  
  Turns out that wasn’t a difficult decision, I’d use one for flowers and the other for herbs. We have two bee hives on the allotment, so I figured a few extra flowers would be appreciated by them as well as us. The herbs were just an obvious choice, it’s always good to have a selection on hand for cooking, they also smell so good and the bees are just as happy there as on the dedicated flower bed.
  
  I’d bought a chive plant in the supermarket, used it and then, when it looked a bit sad moved it into the greenhouse, then with my new herb plot it made sense to give it a chance down there, well there was plenty of room! To be honest I really didn’t think it would survive, but it did and it thrived.
  
  Fast forward and down at the allotment this weekend the chives were looking distinctly rubbish, until you looked a little closer…
  
  In amongst the dry, straw like chives there were fresh stems and the flowers had dried out. I reckon the plants will come back as good as ever, but now I have seeds.
  
  I’ve picked out a few, popped them in a plastic bag, given it a shake and now have some chive seeds, ready to sow for some new plants for back at the house.
  
  When nature provides it is always worth following her lead and making the most of the opportunities.
  
  This is a point proven by my sweet peas. Last years plants were okay, but I didn’t save any seeds. When I cleared away the spent plants the pods were dry and seeds inevitably fell from them into the soil. I didn’t think too much about them, after all, to get new plants you need to sow seeds at the right time of year, soaking them in warm water first to help the germination…. err, no, apparently not.
  
  I did sow new seeds in the greenhouse, but they really were quite weak and pathetic. Meanwhile, down at the allotment, the fallen seeds were poking their heads through and have become the strongest, most beautiful mass of flowers, encompassing almost the entire flower plot. They were so prolific we not only brought a constant supply of flowers home for the kitchen, but also gave them to friends and family. The smell was so sublime that they had to be shared.
  
  I’m planning this year to see if I can save more seeds, allowing some plant’s to ‘go to seed’ so that I can try to grow my own right from my very own seed, peas, beans, carrots and onions, who knows what will or wont work…. only one way to find out though…..
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  Posted in Allotment | 0 Comments | Tagged Allotment, allotment basics, allotment newbie, allotment planting, allotment planting tips, allotment tips and tricks, chive seeds, chives, flowers, gardening, herbs, how to make an allotment, keeping an allotment, seed heads, start allotment, sweet peas, what grows best allotment, what to plant now in the allotment
- The birds and the bees…..
  
  Posted at 9:41 pm by Kirstie, on Jul 16, 2019
  One of the things I love about being down at the allotment is the wildlife we are surrounded by, quite often things you just don’t see unless you are quietly weeding a bed or planting out seedlings.
  
  A few weeks ago I was clearing a bed, ready to plant some young leeks, when I was joined by a small friend. I’ve always found robins to be the bravest/friendliest of birds (with the exception of my hens who can be positively brazen!) and this one was landing within arms reach.
  This young robin was braver than previous visitors and definitely new to our part of the allotment, how could I tell? easy, he was the most tufty looking robin I’ve seen.
  
  Action shot, bug seen and about to be caught
  
  I have no doubt this one will be very fat, very quickly, as he jumped down to the earth to pick out wee bugs as I was working on clearing away the weeds and turning over the soil, he had no fear of me, that was for certain!
  We are also lucky enough to have a couple of bee hives, down on plots nearby to ours, on the allotment. Watching them bumble from one flower to another is fascinating, especially when they become fully laden with pollen.
  
  All in all our allotment is heaving with wildlife, we have squirrels, fox, a couple of cats who come over to hunt the rats and mice and my favourite, the slow worm. I can’t tell you how excited I was to discover slow worms as I was digging out the compost bin. I’m happy to say none were hurt and all relocated to the other end of the plot to a compost heap which is now their little sanctuary.
  
  Of course I have no love lost for the snails, slugs, aphids and caterpillars, but I find the rest of the wee beasties down there quite beautiful in their own way. Apologies if you don’t like bugs, but they really are worth taking a second look at, unless of course, they’re in the house, in which case they can leave and never be seen again!!
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  Posted in Allotment | 0 Comments | Tagged Allotment, bees, gardening, slow worms, wildlife
- Know your onions…
  
  Posted at 6:32 pm by Kirstie, on Jul 16, 2019
  These are mine….
  In May 2017, after years on the waiting list, we were finally given a plot at the local allotment. At last the space to try to realise our growing ambitions. Did we know what we were doing, errrr, no. But, we had ambition and willingness to work hard and learn from anyone willing to impart any knowledge our way.
  
  Come in number 12, your time is up!
  
  The plot was completely engulfed in weeds, it was truly unloved and uncared for, but it had potential… a lot of potential. We were very lucky to find there were raised borders in place, at least that helped in as much as we could tackle the plot one border at a time.
  
  Before long we had uncovered a selection of fruit bushes, red and yellow raspberries, black currants, red currants and white currents, along with two beds of strawberry plants.
  We worked hard, cleared and planted and before long it was starting to look like we had made a difference…
  
  The first year definitely proved productive, with more than we could eat ourselves, this meant sharing with friends and family as well as learning how to preserve in chutneys and with freezing.
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  Posted in Allotment | 0 Comments | Tagged Allotment, gardening, growing, New allotments
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