Clairesallotment's Blog

Now the kids are on summer holidays it’s only possible for me to go to the allotment at the weekend for a while. It won’t be long until I can leave them at home for a couple of hours, but just not yet. The sun was shining today, so I put on my shorts and wellies and pottled down to my plots. I got more of the path done, which is great. I now need to buy more black covering and more pegs. Just doing something simple like this makes the plot look much tidier, why I didn’t do it years ago I don’t know. As I was weeding and moving tyres I kept on disturbing ants nests. One red ant managed to get in the top of my welly sock, and bit me, little bugger! Making strawberry jam, so I’d better go.

Another cycle to the allotment today as Mark is still away with the car. When I got there I could hear shouts and cheers from the running track, which is next to the allotment, as Emily’s school were having their sports day there. They were all getting very excited. I managed to get a load more of the path done, so my first plot looks much tidier now. There’s still a huge amount to do, but it’s getting there. I dug up a few more potatoes, weeded a load more and picked some rhubarb. I didn’t need it, but it needed to be picked. I texted my sister to ask if she wanted any, but she’s just picked a load herself, so I took it home and gave it to the lady next door but one. I know she’ll make good use of it.

Mark is away for a couple of days and has taken the car with him, so I had to use a bit of pedal power this morning. It’s actually on a very slight down hill cycle to the allotment, therefore on the way home when you’re knackered it’s not that easy. However, I got down early as they’re forecasting rain, and managed to do loads more of the path, weed a load more and put in the last few broccoli and pumpkin plants. There was a slight shower, but nothing much to worry about, then just as I was about to leave it started to rain a little harder, but soon stopped. Hopefully I’ll be able to get down tomorrow and do a bit more. One child breaks up tomorrow and the other on Friday, then it’s 6 weeks of summer holidays.

I’ve been meaning to let you know how I got on with these strange looking veggies. Well, I had some the other day for my lunch, and this is what I did. As usual for lunch I have any left overs from last nights dinner, so I had a few potatoes and 2 fish fingers. I fried them in a little olive oil until they were browned and just before they were done I popped in the asparagus pea pods. I then continued to fry for about 1 minute until the pods were soft, then tipped on a plate and ate. The pods were still slightly crunchy, and had a slight asparagus flavour to them. They were very nice. I’m sure there are other ways of cooking them, and I’ll see what else can be done with them.

Well, I decided that it was time to harvest a few things, so I pottered around the allotment to see what I could find. Firstly there were some potatoes. I dug up about 6 plants, so that’ll keep us going for a little while. Some of the potatoes were a bit odd, they were like little black balls. I think they’re purple potatoes, but not sure. Anyway, I’m sure they’ll taste just fine. I also harvest a few peas, (and ate some in the process), some radish, all the garlic, and I also trimmed down the chard and picked any leaves that were ok. I also managed to strim a load more grass and do more path. So all in all a very good morning and not rain! Yippee!!

It was raining today, so no going down the allotment, so instead I popped in the greenhouse to see what I could do. I picked 3 chillies. They started off green, but as they’ve grown they’ve turned a beautiful rich purple colour. I’ve popped them in the freezer and will use the next time we have a curry. I’m not sure how hot they’ll be, so it’ll be a bit of guess work as to whether I’ll use 1 or 2 chillies. I also needed to side shoot the tomatoes. The ones in the greenhouse are growing much faster that the ones on the allotment, but aren’t as chunky (if you know what I mean). I’ll need to feed them very soon as they’ve started to produce little baby tomatoes. For those who are unsure what side shooting is, basically it’s when there is shoot growing between the main stem and a horizontal leaf/stem. The side shoots takes a lot of the goodness from the plant, which needs to go into growing the tomato. Not all tomatoes need side shooting, basically the bush varieties DON’T, and those that grown tall DO. Check on the back of each packet as it usually says. If the rain stops I might get into the front garden this afternoon to have a bit of a tidy, but I won’t hold my breath.

I decided that attempting any work today up the allotment would be a waste of time as heavy showers were forecast. I was right. So I only popped up today to pick some mangetout and some asparagus peas. I got quite a few asparagus peas, they’re coming along very nicely. The mangetout however, are coming to the end, but I may get a second flush if the sun shines and it warms up. I was a little peckish, so I picked another pea pod and ate the contents. If any of them actually reach home is anyones guess, the way I’m going I’ll end up eating them all on site.