Todays harvest

We've popped down to the plot from time to time over the last couple of weeks, to water, to hoe, to pick yet more blackcurrants and gooseberries, the first courgettes, lettuces beetroots and some potatoes.  I haven't been since about Tuesday, when I brought our youngest son; back from uni, to see how it's getting on. But today, after our week of blazing sun, the odd shower, and then last nights downpour, a transformation astounded us. The sunflowers have grown giant sized and have golden flowers.

But everything else has started to produce fabulous goodies too. Our harvest was enormous. 

 Kilos more blackcurrants, some raspberries, the last gooseberries, onions, beans, cucumbers, beetroots, lettuce, chard and a little squash.

We are going away for a couple of weeks on Thursday, you can be sure I'll be down on the plot, tending and harvesting then too. We wont be able to shut our freezer. Yum. yum.

watering very early in the morning...

As it has been boiling hot with our mini heatwave; 3 hot days constitutes a heatwave after all the grey  sky and rain. I went to the plot very early this morning.

So I fed, watered, weeded and picked.
Yet another  kilo of strawberries; I'm sure the bindweed is acting as a natural net cus the birds haven't gorged the lot.
More blackcurrants and there are hundreds more to harvest...  (blackcurrant-sorbet.)
and... the first gooseberries.

gorgeous green globes. I searched for a gooseberry sorbet recipe and found one to try. http://www.cookyourdream.com/2011/07/gooseberry-sorbet.html

From the tasting as I make it, it should be as good as the strawberry one. Mmmmm.

Strawberry sorbet

I went to the allotment yesterday with Maya; my oldest friends lovely daughter who has been visiting us. We picked two and a half kilos of strawberries... yum, yum!

 and some black currents. So, what to do with them?
We planed to make some blackcurrant cordial, http://www.britishlarder.co.uk/home-made-blackcurrant-cordial/#axzz2YANRjAjL  (I made some lovely elderflower cordial last week. http://britishfood.about.com/od/recipeindex/r/efowercordial.htm - but without the citric acid, because everywhere had run out.) But, first the strawberry's.

 So, freeze some of them, you put them individually on a baking tray in the freezer for a bit, then put the frozen berry's into a bag and store them in the freezer.
Then the strawberry sorbet. I found a recipie at  http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/6550/strawberry-sorbet

500 grams strawberries
250 grams sugar
250 mls water
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 egg white.
It worked perfectly... yum yum

Thank goodness we went again today to picked some more and do some weeding of course.

blimey, can't stop popping there.

Yesterday, I just had to water the new plants, and do a bit of weeding.  Ken the lawnmower man was there and showed me the mower I could use for the back bit by the shed, so I had a little mow. Picked some radishes, some rhubarb, a couple of the little cauliflowers, some onions and some lettuce, for Alex...(oldest son, who has no dosh, so I thought a food parcel was in order.) Got home and the heavens opened. But it was sort of dry rain, so that was OK. 
The french beans are being a little slow in showing themselves... or I am being impatient? But the seeds are old. So, this afternoon, I bought a row to supplement them. Went to the plot to plant them and notice a bean just sprouting... hooray! Well, there will be lots to put in for Alex's future food parcels, that's all I can say.

Yesterday was too hot to plant,

So I went very early today and planted the butternut squash plants Paul had given me.. and the tomatoes and sweet peppers that I have been growing in the greenhouse, plus two ridge cucumbers I bought yesterday to go with the one"burpless" one that had actually grown from the whole packet of seeds I sowed.

I've been getting on with the weeding, little and often, I am now a dab hand with that onion hoe!

After planting, although the sky looked grey, I thought I'd give everything a good water anyway. We had our hot day of summer yesterday. But the hose attachment that goes on the tap was missing, and the bit on the end of the hose had snapped off too... or been sabotaged by a competitive, secret assailant...so I had to use my very tiny watering can.
The other plots looked lovely with their flowers to attract the bees; that wild flower mix we sowed earlier just hadn't taken, or we had pulled them all up in our weeding frenzy the other day.
So, this afternoon I checked out my favourite nursery's and bought some perennials, (Salvia x sylvestris Blue queen and rose queen, and Campanula ) and some marigolds. ( Picking up the hose attatchment as well.) I dug up some geraniums, catmint, lavender and speedwell from the garden and put them in the plot. Now it looks much better.

 

I also found some Scorzoneras and Salsify seeds to plant. It says on the packets, sow in May but everything has been delayed so I put them in any way. They were both long, thin seeds like bit of straw. Well, we will see.

I thought you might like to see how the little cherry tree is getting on... not bad eh! The apricot isn't so good, so I haven't taken a pic of that.

so heres an update

I went in the week, the weather was hot. I weeded the strawberries, grrrrr lots of bind weed amongst other nasties, I pulled it, then hoed it.

 

Till it looked much better, then weeded and earthed up the potatoes

 

and generally hoed. I met the lovely old guy from next door. He comes very early so we hadn't met before. He had brought his wife to see the plot. (I think she is very ill, ) she enjoyed looking at his beautiful spot. He had lots of good tips.

 

Sunday afternoon we went again for hours, the weather was a bit chilly but the hard work soon had the jumpers off. 

I had bought some seedlings from a local nursery. I have got some tomatoes and peppers growing in the green house to plant out later. (I did sow some cucumber but only one has grown so i might go and get some of those.
Hudge planted the leeks in deep round holes which he filled with water, a la instructions.

and a couple of rows of parsnips.  We planted climbing french beans around the poles, and sugar snap peas one side and french beans the other, sowed some more carrots, radish, lettuce and chard. we will have a feast. 

The allotments are looking lush now. next year I plan to make a little film of the walk over the year t see the seasons change and the plants come and go. Should be fun.

how the weeds have grown

Haven't been to the plot for a couple of weeks as I have been away.
The asparagus crowns have grown... hurrah!

But the weeds had almost hidden the emerging potatoes.

 until Hudge set to work and soon...

 The strawberry patch is overrun with bindweed so I have the laborious job of going there every evening this week to try to eradicate it. You don't want daily updates I'm sure, I'll do a before and after for the record... I put 'I have bindweed in my strawberry plot' into google for some help and got....'the battle against bindweed begins' so I'm gonna try out the advice. I'll report how I get on.
Right, I'm off to the fray.