Freebies and weeds

Wahey! I'm back after a blogging drought. I blame the computer people at work, who have decided to block access to blogger so I can no longer start writing posts in my lunch break. Bah!

So, what's been going on in the last three weeks...?

The weekend after the excitement of getting the strimmer working was the bi-annual Bedford River Festival - so no allotmenteering for us! The plot judging took place on that Sunday, and then we had to wait over a week to find out if we'd won anything!

On the following weekend the committee had hired a skip to clear some of the rubbish and unwanted carpets with accumulate around the back ends of allotments. Adam was going away for the weekend so got up extra early to lend a hand clearing bits and bobs. Then I popped down about 10am to spend an hour or two helping clear up and then doing a few odd jobs on our patch. Eventually finished about 2pm when I realised that I was grubby and very hungry! But in that time I'd done some weeding, collected up the shallots and garlic which Adam had left drying in the sunshine, and transplanted our leek seedlings to their 'proper' place, where they can put on some weight ready for winter. Frank - the Italian with the huge field of tomato plants - gave us two old oil drums which we could use as temporary water butts. Now we just have to get them rigged up to the guttering. I also had a coffee with Louise (who's house is just 2 doors down from the allotment gate) and she gave us ten cauliflower seedlings, of various varieties, and some beetroot chutney.

That's one of the very best things about allotments - the sense of community and the fact that people are happy (most of the time) to help out and give you their surplus. Plus - free cauliflowers!!!

In the afternoon Adam's mum popped round along with her sister June and Emma, June's daughter. June especially has been really great, donating bits and bobs for the allotment including a compost bin. This time we were grateful recipients of a rotavator (ooh!) some tools and one of those dustbin-style incinerators. in appreciation we gave June some allotment produce - mange tout, shallots, potatoes and garlic - along with some homemade elderflower cordial and some orange, ginger and rhubarb marmalade.

Monday evening was the presentation of the cups and certificates from and judging the previous weekend. and no - we didn't win anything. But those who did win - it must be said - had quite spotless plots, whereas ours certainly has a few weeds (a few! ha!) here and there. Mike was given the Allotment Society Award 2008, and well deserved, as he's single-handedly cleared three or four plots which had become entirely overgrown, to make them more appealing to newcomers. And they're just down the site from us, so that'll mean less weed coming in our direction too. Anyone who reduces our weedage deserves an award as far as I'm concerned.

Adam spotted our first decent sized courgette this week, but we left in on the plant so as to be able to take a picture before we picked it... and then we didn't go to the plot of a few days.

Oops!


You'd have thought we'd've learned from last year that courgettes like turning into marrows all of a sudden.

Update on this weekend to follow. It's too nice a day to sit at the computer any longer!!!

Short back & sides

The strimmer decided to work! (Raaay!) Fret not, dear readers, the plot is getting neater by the day...

Adam went to the allotment on Sunday afternoon, in the rain, natch, and managed to get the thing going long enough to strim the adjacent path, our paths through the plot, and the area around our sheds. It'll need another quick going over, but we need a bit of dry weather (you know, like the summer holidays I remember from my 'yoof' when it was a 6 week heatwave) and also a new strimmer-wire thing wot whizzes round for underneath.

I put together the certificate template today and emailed it to Louise today, ready to be printed out with winners' names on after the judging of the plots at the annual 'show' on Sunday. There are going to be eight categories:

• Winner - Best 10 Pole Plot
• Runner Up - Best 10 Pole Plot
• Winner - Best 20 Pole Plot
• Runner Up - Best 20 Pole Plot
• Winner - Best Newcomer (in last 2 years)
• Runner Up - Best Newcomer
• Winner - Best Produce (for someone growing something great, whether it be super shallots, brilliant beans or cracking cabbages)
  
• The Allotment Society Award 2008 - for someone who's put in lots of their time and hard work helping out and being a Good Sport.

There are a couple of categories there that we could go for - hence the tidy up! Weeds - you have been warned!

Oh, and to liven up this post, here's a pic of some curly wurly garlic, just before we snapped the flower spikes off...

And the grass grows on...

Today Adam's dad Terry, sister Ruth and her boyfriend JB came to the plot see how we were getting on. JB dug up some new potatoes for us, Ruth attacked the shallots with gusto, and Terry made admiring noises about the compost (which is looking rather fine). We ate peas and mange tout straight from the plants, and freshly pulled radish which has a good bit of a kick. Quite nice to be out in the sun on a day which they'd predicted to be rain, rain and more rain. And other creatures were enjoying the sunshine too. I think this is a Red Admiral, but correct me if I'm wrong...

I also stuck in all of the plant labels I made during the week, so it actually looks like we know what we're doing now! But I need to make more labels, as there were a few things that we forgot about like the turnips, broccoli, radish and beetroot.

The strimmer is playing up again. After Adam had it running quite nicely during the week, come allotment-strimming time it decides to sulk. We've both had a tinker, as well as Terry and JB, and even Ruthie made a couple of suggestions for cunning starting techniques, to no avail. I think we may have to resort to slashing at the long grass with a machete.

Everything is growing pretty well now. The pumpkin and squash which Adam sowed from seed under little bottle-end cloches are starting to germinate. The first sowing of leeks are ready to be transplanted (must add that to the to do list) and we've got the first few Marmande tomatoes on the plants. No sign of blight yet, which is great, because last year it wiped out our tomatoes completely. But I think we've come to the end of strawberry season, all of a sudden, which is a shame because I never did get to make that jam.

The Asparagus peas are flowering with pretty little red blooms. Strange little rambling plants they are - and a bit of an experiment. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for when they start podding. We're picking more mange tout than we can eat - have given some away but will probably start freezing it if that's possible - and the onions are looking fatter and fatter as the days go on.

Louise - plot secretary - has promised us some asparagus seeds. Her and Mike have grown a great bed of asparagus from seeds which they were given, so were hoping to be able to create an asparagus bed at the far end of the plot, below the crookedy fence.

And we still have to build a bench from the lovely pallets I picked up last week. So much to do...

Getting organised

Time for some allotment tarting-up methinks... Here are some of the new veggie labels I've made for the plot. Bits of wood painted white and then marker-penned on. I think they look quite professional, personally, and hopefully they'll be relatively weather-proof.

And some good news (for us) - the date of the judging has been moved back a week (12th-13th July) so we've got more time for strimming and trimming and making the plot look pretty, which is great because the weather this weekend is forecasted to be rain, rain and more rain. Boo hiss.

More industriousness

I forgot to mention - on Sunday I also made a batch of orange, rhubarb and ginger marmalade... ok, I admit, it was supposed to be orange, rhubarb and ginger jam, but I was so scared that the rhubarb and/or ginger would be overpowering that I put extra orange in, so it's turned into marmalade. And that's what I'll put on the label, so it seems like it was all intentional.

This evening Adam got the petrol strimmer going by a lot of tightening of tubes and nuts and the taking apart and putting back together again (and again) of the air filter. So, the plan is to strim the plot on Saturday, in advance of the show judging.

Bounty!

Tonight we had an almost-completely-allotment-grown meal! New potatoes, broad beans, mange tout and sliced shallots fried in a wee bit of butter, and slathered over a pork chop. Now, if we can only start keeping pigs we'll be sorted! I thought about taking a picture, but it got eaten too quick, so you'll have to take my word for it - it was DELICIOUS!

Here's a pic of our croppage (a new word I think) from our allotment visit on Saturday... not bad eh? Broad beans, radish, mange tout, shallots, lettuce, new potatoes, strawberries and rhubarb.


So, what did we get up to this time? Well, there was the obligatory weeding to start with - I look back now and thank goodness we didn't get the plot rotovated. The guys next door to us did, and now it's gone crazy as every single little chopped up bit of weed has come back with a vengeance, Bruce Willis style...

I sowed another three rows of carrots, in the vain hope that these ones might, just might, decide to do something. I also sowed some more kohl rabi to try and get the hang of this successional sowing malarkey. Honestly, I know vegetables are just vegetables, but does anyone else think this little kohl rabi is kinda cute?

Adam planted some Wee Be Little pumpkin seeds along with some more squash - acorn and scallopini - hopefully these will enjoy the warmer weather we've been having and may actually germinate. We pulled up the first of our potatoes and bunged in some turnip in their place... I know it's probably not the right thing to do but we thought we'd just see what happens! We also sowed a couple of rows of swiss chard and some more broccolli.

And then there's the mystery of the disappearing cucumber plant. Last Saturday it was planted next to its friend, all happy, and now - poof! - gone! All that's left is a little indentation in the soil. : (

Mike from the lovely plot with raised beds (jealous) had a tinker with our petrol strimmer, but unfortunately couldn't get it to behave itself, so our paths are still un-strimmed. Well, we've got a week until the people from the allotments in Clapham come to judge our plots, hopefully we'll have sorted it by then. The bonus was that Louise, Mike's other half, gave us some chilli plants, with a label in saying 'jalepeno', which is great, except I can't remember if they're the really hot ones or not... (I'll just keep calling them Al Pacinos like our mate Anna does, and see if it catches on...)

I chopped off all the shallot flowers. And then wondered about taking them home to put in a vase, as they're really beautiful. Then I realised they smell quite onioney (surprise surprise) and probably aren't the sort of thing you want in your living room. Anyway, shallot flowers are Not Good News. I used a couple of shallots on Sunday and it's true, the ones that had bolted did have a little hard core in the centre, but if you get that bit out the rest was fine, they just won't keep as well as the others.

Along with our delicious meal on Sunday night I also made some strawberry daiquiri type things. Well, what else is a girl to do with a glut of strawberries? Yum! And when they were gone, I obviously had to make some more, except we'd run out of rum (Why is the rum gone?) so I used vodka and gin instead. Also quite lovely and delicious... Even Adam liked them, and he's a boy wot usually drinks beer...

(*hic!*)

Sarah's Strawberry Daiquiri Type Things

• handful of strawberries
• handful of ice cubes
• good glug of elderflower cordial
• a tablespoon of sugar
  
• good glug of dark rum OR a good glug of vodka plus a splash of gin (just for that tang, you understand)

mash about with a rolling pin or a potato masher 'till the strawberries have given up their strawberry goodness.

• if using rum - top up with tonic to taste
• if using vodka - top up with half tonic, half bitter lemon to taste.

Strain through a sieve - unless you have one of those posh cocktail shaker things - and enjoy! (responsibly, of course...)

The old methods are best

If at first you don't succeed... delete the post completely, and try again.

I've had problems with line spacing, words jumping about into Places They Shouldn't Be, and then the issue with the whole blog getting smaller and smaller down the page.

Anyway, I deleted the problematic posting - no dealing with coding and HTML for me, oh no - and re-wrote it. And now it seems fine.

So, back to the important allotment stuff. I'm on the Queens Park Allotment Association Committee, and we had a meeting last Monday evening to sort out, amongst other things, the best way to distribute The Rules (which some people had never seen, despite having a plot for 5 years... we'd certainly never seen them either), when to have a skip on site for a general clear-up, and how best to organise the Annual Show, which is in a couple of weeks. Some of the cups awarded in the past have gone missing, or at least haven' t been returned, so I'm going to use my Word skills to make some certificates for the winners in case we don't get them back.

We're off to the plot today to do some tidying up - the grass around the edges is getting a bit long but we need Mike to have a tinker with our petrol strimmer to get it going. Then we also need to hack back at the brambles from the nest plot - which are trying to take over. We're also planning to build a bench seat (an allotment essential I think you'll all agree) so I manager to pick up a few small pallets. (Also, it gives Adam something to hammer and nail at, which keeps him quiet for a while...!)

Also - panic panic! - we were reliably informed that you don't need to worry about shallots and onions flowering, that you can just leave them to do their thing until they're ready to be harvested. BUT now I find that other bloggers and websites recommend chopping off the buds as soon as they appear! Aagh! What do other people do? Any advice? Here's a pic looking along our rows of young leeks (leeklets...?!) You can see all the shallot flowers in the background!