Friday 14th November 2014 – Hello allotment, it’s been a while!

I’ve not been to my allotment for about 3 weeks now. Yes I know that sounds awful, but we’ve had half term and I was decorating the kids rooms, and then for the past couple of weeks I’ve been working non stop. To be honest there’s not really much to do at the moment. All the vegetables that need to come up are up and in various places either in the freezer, shed or greenhouse, so it’s just the hardy ones still in, and some light weeding to do. So after the rain had stopped pouring this morning, and after I’d done a few errands, I put on my wellingtons and went to see how it was all getting along. As we’ve had a fair amount of rain over the last few weeks, there are some wonderful puddles that I had to walk through before I got to my plot. Still I was on my wellingtons, so it wasn’t a problem. I had gone down just to harvest a few bits and bobs, so wasn’t planning on staying for very long. The soil was too wet to even consider doing any light weeding. But I harvested another Cabbage, some wonderfully large Jerusalem Artichokes (if you dig up any that are too small, just pop them back in the soil and they’ll grow the following year), some Leeks, and a couple of Celeriac. These have done brilliantly, and I’ll do a video soon about harvesting them. So all in all a good little harvest. Now that the days are getting shorter and colder, it’ll be time to start having casseroles for dinner, so the Celeriac will be very useful then. The sun is still shining, so I’ll pop out in the garden in a bit and do a bit more tidying there. Got to get it ready and sorted for winter, we had a very mild one last year, so what’ll happen this year is anyones guess. Have a great weekend.

6 Responses to Friday 14th November 2014 – Hello allotment, it’s been a while!

T Jenneson says:

November 14, 2014 at 4:02 pm

Yay! I missed you! West coast of Canada, we had a seriously wet week (we managed to avoid the flooding others had). During the wet week we had a fat black bear push over a good length of our fence and then try to climb the good apple tree (even though we had already harvested)! He broke major tree limbs and many minor limbs. Hopefully the tree will survive, it has terrific apples. Then the big bully pushed over more fence on the way out of the garden! No stopping a determined bear with a sweet tooth. He ignored the chicken coop, thankfully. Now we are on the hem of a “polar vortex” and the sudden below freezing weather has shocked the last leaves off the trees. Cold, but at least it’s bright and sunny this week! No snow.

- clairesallotment says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 2:54 pm
  
  Not sure what I’d do if I saw a bear walking past my house. Most probable run and hide. Little horror, they have no respect for other peoples property. Hope your tree recovers. I hope you didn’t have too much snow. I was watching it on the weather and some places got loads. We complain in the UK when we have a few flakes. I like it when it first arrives, but then after about 4 days even I’ve had enough.
  
Helen says:

November 14, 2014 at 9:21 pm

Hadn’t thought about putting small artichokes back for next year. Still, haven’t harvested all mine yet.

- clairesallotment says:
  
  November 18, 2014 at 4:03 pm
  
  If you put the small ones back, then they sprout again the following year. I roasted mine with other vegetables and they were lovely. I didn’t even take off the skins.
  
  - Helen says:
    
    November 18, 2014 at 6:55 pm
    
    Yes, I don’t bother peeling them!
clairesallotment says:

November 19, 2014 at 4:15 pm

I boiled some Jerusalem Artichokes yesterday with some Potatoes and then mashed them all together. Made wonderful mash. Kept all the skins on, we like our roughage!