It's nearly Christmas!

And it is snowing! We haven't been down on the plot much recently as it has either been too wet or too cold. Our leeks and parsnips are coming along well though and we are still getting lots of lovely cavalo nero - perfect for winter soups and stews.

The potatoes are also doing well in the greenhouse at home though we've had to put the greenhouse heater on a few times recently because of the frost. Not bad though considering we are now mid-December and we have only put in on 2 or 3 times.

We will be there on Christmas morning... hoiking up our parsnips, gathering cavalo nero and digging up our potatoes!

What a whopper!

Sunday 8 November 2009

We needed some veg to go with our Sunday lunch (beef in ale with homegrown roast spuds) so off we all trundled to the allotment in the spitting rain! We picked some cavalo nero and Karen very kindly donated some carrots (thank you Karen!).



We also thought we should unearth some parsnips to check on their progress (now, we didn't want to be disappointed on Christmas morning did we?!). Well, we most certainly weren't let down ... the first one to see the light of day was a whopping 15 inches long! We only needed a couple to feed 4 of us!



The lettuce were still growing although we are not sure how much longer they will last unprotected. Last night was a frosty affair ... I think Winter may finally be upon us. We must cart those logs we had chopped up on the new plot back home for the fire!

The Big Burn is over and so the Big Dig starts...

Tuesday 27 October 2009

The bonfire was still smouldering!

Ordered seed catalogues from Kings Seeds

The new plot has been mostly dug over:



To do: (hopefully this weekend)

- sow green manure (white clover seed)



- sow cauliflowers and winter lettuce

- plant our bulbs in window boxes and pots

Whoosh!

And WHAT a gathering it was! We were joined by our neighbours, friends and their children and fellow allotment holders to behold the almighty whoosh as the bonfire was lit. We kept warm and chatted by the fire for a good couple of hours and managed to work our way through baked potatoes, hot dogs, and some very sticky s'mores. Much fun was had by all and (thankfully) only the bonfire was set alight! Off we trundled into the night, with smoky hair, sticky fingers and a warm feeling in our tummies!

We went back the following evening and were able to rekindle the fire.

Autumn tidying and something foodie to look forward to...

Sunday 25 October 2009

We spent a very sunny afternoon tidying up the plot: clearing the tomato plants and the marigolds and cutting back the asparagus. The edges and pathways were strimmed and we planted some red (Epicure) broad beans and some green ones too(Sutton). Hopefully next year we will have more success with broad beans than we did this year. We only really harvested enough this year to have a couple of helpings of broad bean crostini, which make a wonderful starter or light snack:

Broad bean crostini



Boil a good handful of broad beans per person(remove outer casing) for a couple of minutes or so, then mash them with a fork with a drizzle of olive oil, chopped mint and a squeeze of lemon juice, season and spoon over freshly toasted soda bread. You can add some parmesan shavings too. Simply delicious!

And a real incentive to grow broad beans!

Preparing for winter...

Sunday 19 October 2009

We cleared and dug over the area where the courgettes/squash/sweetcorn were.

The 'back' onion bed was also cleared and dug over.

All green tomatoes harvested and we will remove the tomato plants removed next week.

We also discovered an unexpected bounty on the new plot (potatoes, shallots and onions)so we have added those to our winter store.

We are holding a bonfire next weekend (Sunday 25 October)to mark the grand opening of the new plot! We have invited some neighbours and their children and plan to take baked potatoes, hot dogs and some s'mores (toasted marshmallows sandwiched between 2 chocolate digestive biscuits). YUM!

The Grand Opening of the new plot will start at 5.30pm as it will be dark by then given that the clocks change on Saturday.

Recipes - Tomato tart

So so simple and SO TASTY - it has been a great way to use up out tomato glut and is perfect hot or cold:

a pack of puff pastry
a mixture of sliced tomatoes - different varieties, shapes and colours
olive oil
fresh herbs (eg. thyme, basil)
goats cheese (optional)

Roll out the pastry and lift onto a baking tray. Prick the pastry with a fork.

Layer the tomatoes over the pastry, drizzle with olive oil and scatter over the herbs and goats cheese (if using).

Bake in a hot oven (200°C) for approximately 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

Beware you vampires....

15th October 2009

- we planted 2 rows of garlic (Thermidrome and Cristo) and a row of red onions (Electric), added concentrated organic fertilizer to the empty bed where the potatoes were and left it to work its goodness down through the soil. Thermidrome should be medium in flavour and Cristo are strong flavoured so beware you vampires!



The bonfire was moved to its final burning position away from nearby fruit cages in anticipation of the Big Burn!

Dig-in with Nigel Slater...

We watched Nigel Slater's Simple Supper's last night. Part of the BBC's Dig-in campaign, aimed at getting people to cook using home-grown produce, it was another mouth-watering programme. Particularly loved his recipe for roast butternut squash and will definitely try that.



Here's the recipe (courtesy of the BBC Dig-in website):

For the squash:2 butternut squash
few thick slices butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the stuffing:
2 slices butter
2-3 large onions, peeled and sliced
finger-length piece fresh root ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2-3 pinches ground cinnamon
2-3 pinches cumin seeds
pinch or so paprika
handful sultanas

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.

Cut the squash in half, spoon out the seeds and discard. Using a sharp knife, score the flesh of the squash in a criss-cross pattern, so that the heat can get to the interior. Place the squash halves, cut sides facing upwards, into an ovenproof dish, dot with the butter and season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Roast in the oven for one hour.

In the meantime, make the stuffing. Heat the butter in a large shallow pan until foaming, add the onions, cover and cook gently until softened, about 15 minutes. Add the ginger, cinnamon, cumin seeds, paprika and sultanas and continue to cook until the onions are starting to caramelise.

Place equal amounts of the stuffing mixture on top of the roasted squash, then return to the oven for 10-15 minutes to allow the juices to trickle through the squash. Serve immediately with some of the pan juices spooned over.

Yum yum!

All the recipes from the series can be found at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/digin/nigelslater.shtml and you can download a recipe booklet here too.

I cannot praise the programme enough, in fact I cannot praise good ol' Nigel enough! I just love his style of cooking - good wholesome food with no 'faffing around' and what stands him apart from other 'celebrity' chefs and their literary offerings, is his books are always a jolly good read. He has a new book out called Tender: A Cook and his Vegetable Patch which is just fabulous. A whopping compendium of 'grow your own' recipes organised into chapters by vegetable (Vol 2 which will deal with Fruit will be published next year, just in time for the ripening of our summer fruits!). I am hoping to be able to test drive some of the recipes from Tender very soon so watch this space for a review.

October 2009 - it's getting chilly but those chillies are still coming...

Sunday 10 October 2009

We dug up our remaining potatoes! (Lady Balfour and Desiree). Very exciting! They are drying off on the patio table and then we will store them in some paper bags. We've got some whopping baking potatoes amongst them so they will be perfect for cold Winter nights and now the potato bed is free for some more planting.



We also pulled down the remaining tomato plants in the greenhouse to make space and tidy up. We will leave the tomatoes on the allotment for another week or so or for as long as no frost is forecast.

We made a batch of green tomato chutney (blitzed the tomatoes, added vinegar, fresh ginger, brown sugar, onions, sultanas, apple, cardamom pods and boiled it all up). Fabulous with a nice chunk of cheddar! The chillies are still producing like billy-o - we've had the larger sweeter ones stuffed with smoked haddock, garlic and onion and we have dried a batch in the oven for the spice rack.






We are definitely going to have to get another freezer for next year as we just don't have enough freezer space and next year we will have twice the amount of plot! We are going to sow salad leaves, spinach, kale, cauliflower, broad beans and peas in the greenhouse over the winter and the Maris Peer potatoes for Christmas are already in and growing well! So, although the summer crops are pretty much over, there's still plenty to do.. and that's without all the clearing that is needed on the new plot!

We are still harvesting cavalo nero, butternut squash, lettuce leaves, rocket and the marigolds are still in bloom which makes for a colourful plot at this time of year. I just hope the frost can hold off for a few weeks yet so the salad leaves and the marigolds can keep going outside but the nights are definitely getting much cooler.



We will probably have a bonfire in the next week or so, so we can start to clear the new plot in earnest.

September 2009

6 September 2009
At the beginning of the month we took over the half plot next to ours so we now have a full plot! It needed some serious clearing.


The chainsaw came out and the holly tree that overhanged the plot has been cut right back. There is also an elderberry tree growing alongside it and hops hvae clambered up through the branches of the holly tree. We could be making our own wine and beer at this rate! We now have a huge pile of branches and weeds just waiting for a huge bonfire - roll on November 5th! We discovered that the trunk of the holly tree and branches were rotten and were in danger of giving way at any time so out came the chainsaw and the tree received a more severe 'haircut' than it might otherwise have done. Not only have we replenished our supply of logs for the winter but it has really opened up the plot and the change in sunlight was very gratefully welcomed by the lady in the ground floor corner flat behind the plot - she now gets evening sun in her garden! We are also going to put up fence panels at the back to give us privacy.


13 September 2009 - started cutting back the holly tree and we also unearthed a flat-packed compost bin that had never been used so we have put this together as it will defintely be needed for the extra half plot. The area at the back (where you can see the wheelie bin) is raised and you cannot really grow anything there because of the roots of the tree so that will be where we will put our shed, compost bins etc and we will probably be able to have some tubs on there too, possibly with herbs in.

Still picking tomatoes and first beetroot are being pulled up. They are so so sweet. We have been rubbing them lightly in olive oil (skins on), wrapping in foil and roasting in the oven at 200C for about an hour. The leaves are not wasted either but are cooked just as you would cook spinach.

We've also had some truly beautiful dahlias thanks to Tony, Mr Mangetout! We will definitely be growing our own next year...

18 September 2009

Chillies in the greenhouse are turning red - perfect for some homemade chilli sauce to store away.

Sunday 27 September 2009
The fence is half up on the new half plot. We pulled up the strawberries on the 'old' half plot, weeded, dug in some manure, replanted new plants (taken from runners from Tony). The poor Blueberry bushes are not looking healthy. They really need to be moved as they are right up against the fruit cage netting. The plan is to move the rhubarb out of the fruit cage (onto new half plot) as it doesn't need to be in cage. The extra room would mean we could give the existing fruit bushes extra space, especially those cramped blueberry bushes.

The black and red long radishes seem to be more successful than the smaller red ones we had sown earlier in the Summer- they are certainly much bigger and more fiery!



We are still harvesting plenty of salad leaves and beetroot so weekday lunches are an 'all-allotment' affair!

Late Summer Show - Saturday 15 August 2009 - prizes galore!

I won first prize and best photograph in show for my photo of turtles sunning themselves. I had taken the photo some years ago on a holiday to the beautiful island of Madeira!



and I also got a 2nd prize for a greetings card, a couple of 2nd prizes for tomatoes and a third prize for some chillies! Not a bad effort for our very first year!




It was a really fun day and so surprising just how seriously everyone takes it! We now know what competition to expect next year and all the little tricks of the trade (must remember to bring rice and sand to stand our tomatoes in).

19 July 2009 - Elm Grove Allotment Open Day

Another successful, if windy Open Day.

2009 ... we started the year with one plot...

... and ended up with two!

This was the planting plan (click to enlarge):



and the round-up for the year went as follows:

Tomatoes galore after last year's washout where we hardly had any red tomatoes at all. We've made a variety of sauces out of the larger varieties (name) and bottled them. They are ideal for pasta sauces, the base sauce for chilli etc. The smaller cherry type varieties (name) we have been scoffing like sweets and have also semi dried them in the oven for using in salads, with fish etc. Nigella Lawson has a good version of sunblush tomatoes which she calls Moonblush tomatoes as you put the tomatoes on a baking tray, sprinkle with a little sugar, salt, olive oil and herbs, turn up the oven to 'full whack', put the tomatoes in, then immediately turn off the oven and leave overnight. So the drying is being done while you are snoozing! (take a look at the "Recipes" section of the blog)

And the award for New Discovery of the Year goes jointly to spaghetti squash and cavalo nero and it is probably no great surprise that both of these vegetables originate from Italy. We will definitely be growing both of these again next year!

Spaghetti squash pretty much does what it says on the packet... you roast or bake it and when you cut into it (cutting across the squash) ... hey pesto (very nice accompaniment to it!)... sorry hey PRESTO...- you have spaghetti-like strands. We have been eating our own version of vegetable spaghetti bolognaise by having it with our homemade tomato sauces... it makes for a much lighter meal than if you were to take the more traditional route of meat and pasta.

Cavalo nero is black Tuscan cabbage which grows with long tongues of leaves. Wonderful just stir fried with a bit of ginger and garlic, or added to soups and stews and pasta.

Salad Leaves of the Year goes to... Romaine. Wonderfully crisp and less prone to bolting than other varities of leaves we have tried.

Other successes:

Rocket - much more fiery than the leaves you buy in the supermarkets

Carrots - we grew these in pots this year to try to deter the carrot fly and... IT WORKED! clean, pock-mark free carrots!

Parsnips - these need 9 months or so in the ground so we are already looking forward to going to the allotment on Christmas morning to pick them for our Christmas lunch!

Potatoes Pentland Javelin (first early); Nadine (second early); Lady Balfour (maincrop) and Desiree (maincrop)

Sweetcorn - planted v early (along with squash etc) so the risk paid off. However, they were nowhere near as sweet as last year's crop so will need to choose our variety carefully

Courgettes - Rugosa Friulana (Seeds of Italy) - very ugly but tasty and prolific



Butternut squash - my favourite vegetable! Love it roasted, in soups, and makes for a fantastic risotto and lasagne.

Artichokes - we were duped! These were in fact cardoons! Wonderful in flower displays but not much cop on a plate drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar

Celeriac - these should be ready this Winter, and again, we are hoping they will be a friend for our Christmas parsnips

Onions - white + red from sets

Red Italian onions - who says onions are dificult to grow from seed?!

Spring onions

Pak choi - very tasty but with the dry weather we had it bolted very readily

Planted more asparagus (will be cropping first crowns next year)

Added more strawberry plants - thank you Tony (Mr Mangetout for the
runners!)

Broad beans - planted on 14 February and we had a moderate crop but lost quite a few to blackfly

French beans - after last year's success, these were very disappointing - oh well, you can't be good at evertying (not this year, anyway!)


Broccoli - purple sprouting and green - taste and colour to die for

Cauliflowers - white + purple - again, amazing colour but we must try some successive sowing next year... as much as we like cauliflowers, having all 20 come at once is not ideal

Greenhouse:



Melons - we left these a little too long and lost all but one. But.. that one was the sweetest, juiciest melon I have EVER tasted!

Aubergines - cooked up with some aromatic spices ([ ]) these were wonderful with couscous and tasted even better a couple of days after cooking

Chillies - a bumper crop and boy oh boy are they fiery!

Tomatoes and cucumbers- they just kept on coming, and coming, and coming...it is October now and they are STILL coming!

20 July 2008 - Elm Grove Allotment Open Day

The scarecrows were made by Shepperton Brownies.

An annual event which is designed to give members of the public an opportunity to see a working allotment. They are able to wander around the site freely and chat with allotment holders about their plots and the produce that they grow. Everyone is welcome, the young and the old and it is a fun day out, especially for children, many of whom may not even realise where carrots, potatoes and beans come from! The trading hut was open and some lovely cakes and biscuits were served up and it managed to stay dry... always a bonus!

July 2008 - a pile of .... dodgy manure

Thankfully we escaped this but many people's crops were ruined.

1 July 2008

Planted more carrots, dug up the radish and beetroot bed that hadn't been successful replanted the bed with more beetroot, pak choi, butterhead lettuce, oakleaf lettuce, rocket, mooli, spring onions, and baby carrots (Amsterdam).

5 July 2008

Shallots harvested (dried in sun and pickled) and bed replanted with: turnips, chicory, swede. Planted marigolds and sowed nasturtium seeds at the ends of rows. Transplanted more tomatoes and mange tout.

12 July 2008

Planted cabbages.

20 July 2008



Potatoes needed feeding (hence the yellow leaves) but they are still tasting good, which is the main thing! We are continuing to get a good crop of mangetout and chard,the strawberries are still fruiting, the melons are in flower and our very first courgettes are appearing.

A bumper crop of dwarf green beans (we hadn't realised they were growing until we inspected below the leaves!)and the fennel is ready to harvest. It went very nicely with a lovely bit of white fish:



26 July 2008

By the end of July we had dug up most of the maincrop potatoes so replanted the area with leeks for the Winter, turnips, chicory and swede. We also put in some more potatoes and black French beans in the hope that we may get some late ones. We were still picking beans, courgettes, strawberries, fennel, rhubarb (ahh that longed for rhubarb crumble!) and we dug up the remaining Anya salad potatoes.

And so our late Summer allotment plan was looking more like this (click to enlarge):