I might not get time to update this tonight or for a couple of days. Pat is home tonight and we are off to water some things up the lottie - only had that little shower Monday morning, and no rain forecast until a least Tuesday and that is not certain.

The tomato plant leaves are curling under so emergency water called for!

Son, daughter in law, and baby coming tomorrow for the weekend too! So looks like a busy time.

If I don't fit in a post or two on here - you will have plenty to read on Sunday night.

Have a great weekend.

Best wishes

Allotment Lady

Colourful surprises up the allotment today

I decided to take things a bit easier today, as I spent a lot of time up the allotment yesterday and weather is scorching hot here still with not a glimmer of hope of any rain in the next 5 days (that is as far as they forecast with any sort of accuracy!)

So a little bit of harvesting and a lot of looking was called for.

As usual, the first stop is to let the girls out – and as is usual lately, just the one egg from Adelaide untouched and the shell of a white egg! No point in dwelling on it – I love them dearly and they run to me when I call, talking to me, and following me about – KoKKo, Adelaide and Ginger are really obedient in all ways even going back in their run at lock up time without me having to throw anything in to entice them.

I did a bit of weeding at home yesterday evening – the gravel patio, so I had a large trug of annual weeds for the horse manure compost heap, and another big one of chicken litter – a really good mixture I am creating for next year, with layers of vegetable matter, shredded paper, and all sorts.

So off I went to the fruit cage to pick some more red currants which should have ripened in the last few days – and I was not disappointed.

The bushes were dripping with them, and what a glorious sight. I filled up a big bowl and another container, not expecting so many – I had top stop picking them when they were both full, so there are more to be picked tomorrow.

They reminded me of those long dangly earrings - but the currants look better than those.

It does take ages picking them though – and preparing them – but you don’t see them in the shops these days, so it is worth it.

Whilst on my hands and knees and behind one bush I had another lovely surprise………


And more to come during the course I was picking there.

Look, the blackcurrants are starting to ripen – so I shall be kept busy the next few weeks jam making or preparing them and freezing them, as I think that I might not have enough hours in the day to cope with my harvest – but I am not complaining, I am so very happy as it is my first proper fruit crop.


So the fruit cage harvest turned out to be (after preparation) 5lbs of redcurrants and a full punnet of strawberries – I discovered some more later after the photo was taken.



Talking of currants - the whole length of my plot is littered with the rabbits calling card. Everywhere, I have never seen so many rabbits and it is in broad daylight and not at dawn or dusk! Nightmare!


As I put my fruit harvest in my car, an elderly chap who had 2 plots up near the end with the grown up son stopped to talk. I only usually see him at a distance as he usually is in a pickup truck with his son, so we wave as he either goes past or across the field.

He was telling me that he is 74 bless him. They have tractors and all manner of things. The son does all that sort of work now though, understandably, on the plot. When I was first up there, he told me that a few years previous he had bought a rotorvator which cost over three thousand pounds. They don’t keep it up there, but the son brings it when he wants to use it on the back of his pickup. It is a beautiful machine and I have not seen one like it. It goes through the soil like butter and has so many gadgets and gears, you’d almost need a pilot’s licence I should think, to use it. Something else to put on my list if Pat wins the lottery – and a gardener to drive it! I thought at the time what an enormous expense, as the only time they use it is on their plots, and the only things they grew were broad beans and potatoes.

This year though, they are growing runner beans, onions, shallots, as well as their broad beans and potatoes.

He was telling me that he had 10 rows, 150 feet long of broad beans, and he leaves two of those rows for seed for next year. His son has 8 rows of broad beans – and he said that they eat them themselves and don’t sell them! I have forgotten how many rows of potatoes exactly, but they had the same amount of rows as me, and where as mine are 25 feet long, theirs are 150 feet long – and he reckons that they run out by October, so they buy them when the farmers dig theirs up then!

He doesn’t do much any more he says – except pick the broad beans, and now and again dig up a root of potatoes. He said that he was having some of the broad beans for tea as his wife was doing fish and chips for lunch. Wednesday is her baking day he said, and she makes sausage rolls, jam tarts, cakes, and pies to last the week. She told him that as he was so fat that he shouldn’t eat so much, but he said that he wasn’t going to cut down, he enjoys his food, and that he is 74 so he doesn’t see the point. I jokingly said that he should mention to his wife that if she didn’t make all those sausage rolls, etc it might put temptation out of his way! He toddled off down the track, so I decided to pick some broad beans myself – and ended up with a carrier bag full – another 12 lbs to be shelled. But not tonight, and not by me! I have redcurrant jelly to get started on.

Where there were gaps in my broad bean row where the plants had either been eaten, trampled or did not recover from the frost and snow etc. I stuck in a bean – a bit late, but I had them spare anyway. Imagine my surprise when I saw that not only did they germinate, but they have grown lush and tall and are in flower – with only a couple of showers of rain!

You might have noticed that you have not seen any photos lately of my flower beds down that end after the broad beans. There is a good reason for that – they are looking rather sad. You may remember that the rabbits really tucked into the plants. The irises put on a good show and are now putting on a lot more ‘leaf’, the asparagus patch looks really healthy with the ferns now one big block. I sprinkled 30 packets of annual seeds after I weeded one bed and since then we have had just a couple of light showers of rain. The weeds are appearing and I am in a dilemma as to what to do. At the moment the weeds are manageable – not big yet but getting more plentiful – so do I dig it all over when the weather permits as it is like concrete at the moment – and by doing so it will look neat and tidy with the remaining perennials that survived the onslaughts. Or do I leave it in the vain hope that some of the flower seeds will sprout up quickly if we get some rain, and remove the weeds then when the annuals are recognizable? Don’t know yet.

None of the chrysanthemums grew. There are rows of sticks which I left in, in the vain hope that they would sprout – but they never did, despite the fact that I prepared the sites they were being planted by barrowing in 10 loads of well rotted manure. Dug it over well, and it was wet when I did it and also for a few days so they got well watered in. My friend who had about 50 of them, and is an excellent gardener, did not have any success either. An old farmer friend of hers said that they have to have some green on them when you plant them otherwise they will not grow – seems he was right, but I wish we had know a few months ago.

I noticed that there were some large gooseberries on the bushes, even though I have picked pounds of them. Some of the branches were so weighed down they were resting on the ground – so I used my last carrier bag to pick some of those – not all of them as by now I had been up there almost three hours and I was worn out!

So I called my three little friends and they trotted back home and into the run, packed up and locked up and just as I was getting into the car I got a call from my husband to say that he was home – good timing huh?


One last thing - a spot the difference.............

I took a photo of this struggling Atlantic Giant pumpkin plant the day before yesterday (26th)and got another surprise today - nature is incredible. I think that it is going to survive.


And again - since yesterday - a new variety of courgettes that I am trying out this year.



Melon courgettes - I am looking forward to my first mised courgette meal next week hopefully.

I thought that I might water the climbing beans and squash up the allotment nearest the water tank - but I am too tired - so I prepared all the redcurrants and started the proccess of making redcurrant jelly. More of that tomorrow though.

Sea bass or pigeon pie - now which shall I have today?

I’m feeling a tad bit self conscious now – with so many people visiting my site! I wonder what everyone thinks of me?

Still as I am Allotment Lady in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere – I guess that is doesn’t really matter!

So – what have I been up to today then?

Up the allotment earlier than usual – I wanted to check up on the chickens, and to let them free range earlier – and longer.

So, there I was, walking down my well worn path to the top end by the field and I had to stop and take a second look when I saw this…………………..


I ran back to my car to get my camera – yes, here you see a bird in flight – there were two actually, but I could only capture one as they were so quick.

Nowt unusual about seeing a couple of pigeons flying around the allotment? – (They are often sitting in a row on the electricity wire that goes across our
field, just waiting for me to go, so that they can fly down and eat the seeds or plants that I have been working on.)

But these two pigeons are different – they were both flying in my netted tent area where I am growing the peas and tomatoes. Actually they were both noshing on my pea rows, and only took flight when I walked past.

So after letting out the chooks, and throwing away the empty egg shell that was in the chicken run – I went back to sort out the pigeons.

How they got in is a mystery, but I had to catch them to get them out.

Daft birds do not go out a wide open exit that you make for them – instead they fly down to the ground and head butt the net!

Old Geoff had turned up and was on his plot so I called across to see if he wanted a pigeon pie!

I caught this one first – I gently picked it up and untangled it from the net. I decided to take its photo – a bit difficult getting a camera out of its case with one hand and trying to aim it in the direction of the pigeon in the other – hence the not perfect photos!

I then released it to live another day.

The next one had got wedged in the corner of the net, so I had more of a job to untangle it.


I took its mug shot too, then let if free.

Geoff said he was surprised that I didn’t wring their necks! But I told him that I had their mug shots on file – and two strikes and they are out!

I then set too, repairing the damage they had caused and put into place extra protection around one side of the tent near the bottom – I think that a rabbit might have got itself caught up a bit in the netting where the parsnips are, so I have covered it with wind protector fabric so that it won’t happen again hopefully. I shudder to think what would have happened if I had not visited today. I think that I would have found to very very fat, but dead pigeons tomorrow!

I then got side tracked and spent over and hour in the netted area checking every tomato plant. Pricking off the side shoots that had grown since last week, and tying up each one, as they had all grown a few inches.

"Ground control to Major Tom"

I know that it is absolutley silly, but when I was on my knees tending to each tomato plant (71) and weeding, the silly songs that went through my head were -

'You say tomato and I say tomarto, you say potato, and I say potarto.......' It is way before my time and I only know the chorus. It drove me mad.

Then when I found my first tomatoes on a plant, I thought 'Houston - we have a tomato!' Then David Bowie's - Ground control to Major Tom was the next song that went around my brain. LOL At least I own up to silly thoughts, I bet some of you have them too.

I am really pleased with the tomato plants progress. They have developed thick strong stems and a number of them have flowers on them already. Tough love out in the wide world having to fend for themselves, seems to have worked better than being pampered and watered at home. My ones in the lean-to, and in the garden are real weedy compared to those up the allotment which really surprised me.

Next there were the ones outside to do – then I got side tracked and started inspecting the squash.

Here is my 'Black Beauty' - not very black, but is going to definitely be a beauty, look at all those baby ones on the way. That was a great surprise.

Another - unamed bush variety - I must check that label today - I never noticed it when I was on my knees but just did when I looked at the photo.

I saw the weeds amongst the shallots next to the squash and wondered if the little shower we had had loosened the ground enough for me to dig them out with a trowel – and it had mainly, so I did those rows.

Then wheeling the barrow back with the weeds in, I decided to have a go at weeding between each onion in the rows – which I did on hands and knees. I was only going to do one double row, then go home. But you know how it is, I was at the opposite end to the wheelbarrow, so thought that I might as well do the next double row, then I could tip the trug of weeds into it instead of walking there.

Once there, I was thinking of other things and found myself half way up the next row, then, despite my knees, and back screaming at me, I thought that I might as well go back again – along the next double row to be back at the wheel barrow.

I don't weed to make the plot look pretty - it is an absolute necessity as I have found in the past that you can only grow a good crop - either of weeds or food. The weeds really take all the moisture out of the ground, and as we get so little rain, I need it to nourish my food for the next year. I invest so much time in things like these onions, as they are going to last us through to next spring or even next years crop with a bit of luck.

It was a slow walk down to the bottom with the barrow now full of weeds to be dumped in the compost bin behind the meadow. I called the girls and filled up their hopper and in they ran – happily. I collected Adelaide’s lovely dark brown, and intact egg, locked them up, and headed back to my shed, collecting fork, spade, hoe and trowel en route.

By the time I got home – rather worn out (understatement) it was 2pm! How I found the energy to cook lunch of sea bass cooked in one of last summer’s tomato sauces, steamed mange tout, and newly dug potatoes with mint, I do not know. But it looked good and fresh, went down a treat, and after a shower, and back into feminine lady mode, with blow dried hair, smelling of Chanel and not pig farm, I rewarded myself with a choc ice on a stick.

What a good life I am so lucky to have!

Hi everyone – did I sound like a grumpy old woman when I mentioned the weeds. Apologies if it came across that way – when I was typing it, it wasn’t ‘saying’ it that way.

Since I have been up there before this current season, I have been unlucky inasmuch as the plots either side of me and four of five along from me have been full of weeds, not tiny weeds but over an acre of weeds as tall as me – and even taller. Really mean and tough weeds. So much so that I have had clouds of thistles seeds blow across from all directions like snow – also dock, and other seeds that I don’t even know the name of. My plot was like it too when I took it over, plus it was covered in so much rubbish hidden in the forest of weeds, and about 40 or so full sized carpets, rubber and so much else. So it has been and still is one long battle to keep on top of them (weeds). There must be millions of seeds over the plots and they grow really quickly and if you don’t get them when they are a foot high their roots grow down so deeply that it is a real job to dig them up. Hence my excitement at the news that all those plots were going to be taken over by ‘keen’ gardeners. So I thought all my Christmases had come at once.

I do understand that a couple of them work and of course everyone can’t and wouldn’t even want to spend as much time up the allotment as I do – I’m bonkers!!!!

But I did think that maybe they might spend a couple of hours during the week after work as we have had such lovely weather and so little rain – and that maybe I would see some of them at the weekend now and again. And hopefully learn something from them, exchange tips. That’s all.

My next door plot holder Mike and his wife work and I see them now and again, and they have strimmed all their weeds and it looks great. I have helped out and Pat too, and we always encourage them and praise them on the good job they are doing. Ditto anyone else I see. Mike is just going to cultivate a small patch this year, and strim or mow the rest to keep it under control. Then next year when he is retired, he will cut out beds and grass it the same as me - or just have one great big grassed area.

There will always be plots with tall weeds – that is the nature of our allotments – they are huge, and whilst they can be split into two or three, people who have had them for years are reluctant to share – ‘why should they when they have had them for so long, often passed down from a relative’. They are so cheap too, so naturally they think it is worth it – even if it is only used to store tractors etc.

But this year is the best that I have ever seen them. Maybe the past two years, and now in my third season, that I have been there, and have been getting my plot in order, might have had a bit of an impact on the men up my end? It could be male pride that some ‘up top’ are cultivating theirs more this year, as I now see that some bean supports are up for the first time! If an ‘old’ woman on her own can do it….. LOL

I just had a wander up the track yesterday for a break and noticed the plots – and just wondered why they looked ‘abandoned’ again, after looking great when they were all ploughed. – Just something to write about as well too I guess.

There is lots to write about of my exploits today though - but it might have to be tomorrow now!

Fighting the good fight - but it is a tough battle against all the pests and elements

After sorting out the bantams first thing, I just couldn’t sit still for long and did my usual trip to see the Norfolk lasses and collect the eggs.

Today there was just one – and a half eaten egg.


The picture is a bit blurred I am afraid. I put it outside their area to photo it and it was raining and my hand was shaking - in temper? No!
I just don’t know why this is happening. They free range when I am up there, and you know how many hours I spend up there each day. They have plenty of room in their extended run, have the best layers mash ‘on tap’ every day and I always make sure that they have enough for six rather than three hens. They have oyster shell mixed in with it too, and are on a grassy meadow, so can scratch for more grit in the soil. Not very grateful are they for all the care and attention I lavish on them.

I thought that I would move their run again. It gets moved every other day, but it has never been facing the way it is, so perhaps they do not like the view. (Joke).

As the rain had stopped I decided to take some photos first and walk around my little ‘estate’.

The view that greets me when I open my car door - my neighbours plot - and his dog had left a visiting card on my lawn - even I can tell the difference between rabbit dropping and a dog's LOL

Still it is better than last year at the moment - live and let live hey?

I took a few photos of the track end of the allotment so that you could see my tidy and nettle free shed end. This is after four hours work - if you had see it before!


We have a permanent fight with nettles and allsorts of weeds encroaching our plot, but I just have to get on with it - and cut and chop - it is a never ending battle.

I will no longer get stung when I go to get water from my tank at the side of it. One of the water butts on top of the pallets has water in, and with a tap on the bottom it is just the right height for me to fill up the buckets and watering cans. (I wonder if Pat can be persuaded to refill it for me next time he is up there). No chance I reckon.

The butts will be repositioned over the winter and next spring I will put a couple of cold frames on the pallets so that I have a 'green house' to grow things in.

The rain has certainly freshened up the plot, and it smelt wonderful.



This is my last ditch effort to protect my squashes and climbing beans from rabbits, and pests, and a terrier who will not name and shame as it isn't her fault that she is a tearaway!

Hopefully squashes will be racing away after this.



Here are ones further down the plot.

They have been somewhat distressed in the hot arid weather, and my pathetic watering is not a patch on a good downpour.

The plastic bell is there for protection – the Atlantic Giant, got chewed by the rabbits and now has a lot to do to live up to it’s name.


Within minutes of taking off the bell, a bee appeared and pollinated the single flower – which means that I should at least get one pumpkin – with luck.


After almost three years in the waiting, here is a photo of my first crop of Jostaberries. I have three bushes all from cuttings, and they are just about to ripen by the look of them.

They look like a gooseberry when they are green and like a blackcurrant now they are ripening. I tasted one and it is too early as they are still hard. I would dearly love to make Jostaberry jam!

Another little marvel in the tiny blackberry I bought in the autumn. There was only a couple of inches of stalk on it in spring, so I protected it with a wooden bottomless pot, and it has grown.

It is thornless, but the label does not have the named variety – just says Blackberry £5.

I am taking a chance now that it is bigger and removing the protection so that it can ‘go mad’ if it wishes. I never watered it once, since the initial one when planted, but it had a very good helping of rotted manure around it so that seems to have done the trick.

It too has some flowers on it, so I may get some berries – about 10 – but with all the birds about they might get this years ones before me – but not next year – it will be netted!

Looking into the net tent, I spied some lovely mange tout ready to be picked, and once inside I discovered there were lots.


So I picked 1 ¼lb and we had them steamed for 6 minutes and they were fantastic. You really should grow them if you haven’t done so before. I also gathered up some sorrel and steamed that for two minutes and they looked really pretty on the plate. There were a few new potatoes left from yesterday, so I dry roasted them with a sprinkle of garlic and chives on top, and added some of last years tomatoes that I froze whole. I popped them in the same dish and the potatoes and cooked them from frozen – and it worked a treat. They were not all water and no taste – but were as if I had just picked them and roasted them – a real surprise that! The meal was completed with a breast of chicken baked in a parcel with fresh tarragon and oregano from the garden – a pretty little feast!

But I have leaped forward quite a few hours!

I took a walk up the track to look at the other plots, from afar, not walking on them you understand – it wouldn’t seem right to do that if the person wasn’t there.

The other two new comers whose plots were ploughed, and then later deep cultivated looked a real treat and without a weed in sight a couple of months ago. I had high hopes when a new shed appeared on one of them too – very posh.

The one next to the ‘posh shed’ who was named ‘The Scientist’ not in jest but because the person who called him that thinks that he really is, has been a bit of a let down. I was so looking forward to seeing all the plans that he had come to fruition – but it hasn’t happened yet. His plot and ‘posh shed’s, looked like they had been sown with the ‘clover’ that he mentioned using, that would ‘suppress all the weeds, and you just plant through it’. I really looked forward to seeing it happen, and the beds ‘like mine’ with grassed paths, and different fruits and vegetables.

There was a sea of white, which only I noticed, as no-one else has, they just think it has been left and is full of weeds! Whilst the clover if that what it is, is now going to seed, the usual red seeded stems of dock weed rise above it, so too some parsnip seed heads that appear every year, and others are appearing too. I really and truly hoped it would be wonderful and that I could learn a lot and put it into practice. So I am feeling a bit disappointed.

‘The Scientist’ and his wife, haven’t even cleared out the debris in the shed, nor the brambles and weeds at the track end of the plot. In winter, it was bare, with just a hint of brambles, but now they have gone rampant. They will have a nice crop of berries on them, for the birds though, as they will be the only ones able to reach them without being stung by nettles.

‘Posh Shed’ which is shared by two brothers and their wives. (I have only seen them a couple of times a while ago, and no one knows their names, so I will have to call them ‘Posh Shed’.

They didn’t appear until late spring, and did a lot of looking and talking one day – I waved – but didn’t get a wave back at the time, they were deep in conversation over a roll up. The weeds were starting to appear at the time. They made a start and put down slabs for the shed. Banged in bits of wood and put lines along for the rows of potatoes, which they duly planted. Then no-one saw them again. Someone erected the gorgeous shed – but no-one saw it happen. I did see them putting up some canes for runner beans – and Mike, next to me saw one of the chaps a couple of weeks ago, who said that the rabbits had eaten his runner beans – and they haven’t been back since. And the weeds are growing, and it will soon be hard to find the crops!

I hope that the people are all right – it has a bit of a ‘Marie Celeste’ feeling about it at times. I had visions of people up there at weekends or evenings – all working companionably alongside in their own allotments. Perhaps a cheery wave and a greeting and maybe a bit of a chat and encouragement etc.

If this is the first time you have seem my blog - perhaps at this stage I had better tell you that it is 330 feet long and 33 feet wide - in the middle of nowhere with not facilities!

But I do love it so - even though I sometimes feel that I am the only one on the planet!

What do you do on a wet Monday?

You haven't seen much of my lovely London Ladies lately have you - so for those of you who enjoy my chickens - and bantams in particular - here are some photos that I took today of them - in the rain. Something to do on a wet Monday.


You rarely see all three girls together these days and Dilly on the left and Freckles on the right, spend most of their time sitting indoors being broody and grumpy.

They make really weird growling type noises when they are in this mood and poor old Pumpkin gets the heave ho in no uncertain terms.


She shrieks at the top of her voice - calling me. I shout out "shush", or "quiet", from the conservatory window, but she doesn't be quiet until I go in and sort out the pecking order. Pat often comes to find me to tell me that Pumpkin is shouting for me !
I go out there to shuffle the girls around so that Pumpkin gets a look in - on this occassion it is Freckles that is 'put out' by my unwelcome interference.


Freckles get sorted and Dilly complains



Peace and harmony

Sunday, 25 June 2006

It is the day that England are playing in the world cup – and so many things are going on in the villages around here and one event just on the edge of our village. It is such a shame that they all clash – I hope that it does not affect their attendance.

This morning I decided that I would have a day off. I didn’t sleep too well, and woke up feeling weak and lethargic and the shingles were showing off again for some reason. (To much work and not enough play I guess).

But after breakfast and a bit of a rest for an hour, I figured that I would be tempted to do a bit as I go up to let my girls out anyway and to collect their eggs, change their water, and top up their food if it needs it.

Pat fancied helping me to tidy up some wood and junk accumulated by the side of the shed. It was ‘inherited’ from all the rubbish and junk that was on the plot when I took it over. We cleared so much and made so many trips to the tip and the bonfire that we got a neighbouring plot holder to light and take care of for us (as I was worried as it was taller than all of us, and really huge) burnt for 5 days non stop. There were 40 or so room sized lumps of carpet, wood, cupboards, you name it – it was dumped on it!

There was just still some remaining bits of wood, that have turned up when clearing the bottom end of the plot, but we just have not had time to sort it – so that is what we did today. We also totally cleared along a corrugated fence line, (that the previous tenant of the plot next door had left for years), so we decided to clear the high stinging nettles the other side of it, as it seemed pointless just doing ‘our’ side. Our neighbour should be pleased next time he visits as he can strim it easily from now on.

The difference it has made is amazing. We still have some oddments of wood that we need to burn – but it is too risky this time of year, and after a drought, it would only take one spark or a piece floating in the wind to set a field alight. So we have put is somewhere safely until it is safe to burn it – probably Autumn after a wet spell.

Where the pumpkins and climbing beans are up the end nearest the track, I have used some of the oddments of wood to make a large ‘raised’ bed. Well at the moment it is and enclosure to keep the rabbits off the beans and courgettes and pumpkins, and will become ‘raised’ when it gets compost and well rotted manure put on it in the coming years.

We just have one more area to ‘attack’ and that is behind the fruit cage, which I tamed and laid plastic down to kill the weeds there, and I laid all the lengths of pipe and metal there out of sight out of mind. Now that I am ‘on top of things’ I can spare some time to completely get rid of the remaining stuff. So that is our next job, when Pat gets some time – to sort out the bits of pipe and iron and load the car up, together with a broken lawn mower, and take it all down the tip – not local unfortunately – but once that is gone it will be shipshape with no odd corners of bits stored ‘just in case they are useful’ any more.

My motto is, if it has not been used in a year then it has to go. (But I don’t usually apply it to my craft things – there have to be some exceptions to the rules).
On my next trip – tomorrow if it is not raining torrentially (as if!), then I will take my camera with me. Just to record for myself how good it looks now all the junk is sorted.

Those of you that are lucky enough to have council run allotments, with car parks, paths, fences and water, and of course a sales shed and a committee, will probably be horror struck to see my ‘tidy’ corner. But if you saw most, if not all of the other plots on my site, you would be quite amazed how tidy mine is in comparison.

It really is fascinating what you see on old ‘traditional’ type allotments in the countryside. I rather like them, with their higgledy piggledy sheds and paths, abandoned tools stuck in the row of potatoes where they owner had dug up a few plants the day before. Chairs plonked in the middle of a plot where the owner stopped to have a drink and admire his work. Each plot is different and has a story to tell, and each tenant is a character – I like that – it makes it interesting.

On the other hand I do like to see the uniformity of other sites when I read other blogs, and have to confess envy at times to those with water on tap, woodchips, manure, and compost delivered by the ton to their sites. And to have an allotment community shed where you can hire out equipment, and buy things cost price almost must be heaven.

But for now I am content in the knowledge that between us Pat and me spent 8 hours on the plot today, and achieved so much – even though it was mainly removing inherited junk.

The chickens laid 2 eggs for me to collect, and had a wonderful time playing and chasing insects, dust bathing and sunbathing today – and happily went into their run when I called them. The like it when I move it to another place too, as they get longer grass to eat and play in – they’d make good lawn mowers if only they could work in a straight line.

There are more redcurrants waiting to be picked, more broad beans, and more gooseberries, so there is always something to do if you get yourself an allotment, you will never be bored that is for sure!

Time for bed…………………….

A little splatter of rain.

Saturday, 24 June 2006

I got all excited when I got up to see a little splatter of rain on the windows, but alas not enough to fill a thimble - but I am off out to sow some beans to replace those that got eaten.

I tried the rhubarb leaves tip - about spreading them around to deter the slugs, but I do not have a definite result to give you. It was so hot that the leaves dried up and shrivelled in a matter of days - but I do use them as mulch on the beds to keep the weeds down.

I am off to try something new. I am going to cut up a rhubarb stalk and drop a piece into each hole that I plant the seeds - and see if that makes any difference - once they show I will then do the rhubarb leaf trick again - a double whammy might deter the slugs - but will it keep the rabbits off - no chance - so it will be back to plastic milk bottles over them for that!

Bovey Belle Left me comment on my frozen fruit photo page regarding making jam in the microwave. Yes please BB as I have halogen rings on my hob too, and would love to make use of my microwave which only gets used to hotting up my bedtime milk in the winter, and lately softening my home made butter. (I hang my head in shame)

So useful ideas of making the most of the microwave would be a good thing!

Back later - off I go to sow.

4.30pm

As usual it was only my intention to let the chickens out up the allotment and to spend a few minutes sowing some beans seeds. In fact I was so confident that I would not be there long, that Pat came with me, so that we could drop of our stash of glass bottles in the recycling bin enroute (well in a circular route around the village.) Luckily I suggested he brought his newspaper so that he could sit and read and top up his tan for the short time I would be up there!

After letting the chickens out and giving them a treat of apple an pear cores and a ‘bolted’ lettuce, I collected their eggs – 2 enormous ones, so big that the lid to the egg box would not close.

The courgette plants that were tiny, at last are starting to grow. The watering once every few days, and the mulch of grass cuttings seem to be working at last.


Another view on the long walk from the chicken meadow - so far so good, it is not a pretty sight, but it is detering the rabbits and the parsnip survivors are growing nicely now, so too the carrots under fleece.


The peas and mange tout in the netted tent are growing without any watering help from me. How they do it on the little rain we have had I do not know.


The tomato plants next to them are faring well too. They are not lush with leaves as they would be if they had rain, but they are surviving and one even has a little tomato on it - a bit early though.


The onions and potatoes are doing fine - one onion was about to go to seed, so I pulled it up and we had it for lunch - let that be a warning to the others who will suffer the same fate it they don't hang on a bit longer to get bigger.


Here are the Colleen potatoes that I dug up yesterday - just two plants and a heavy crop from each. Again in these dry drought conditions it is wonderful - and amazing.

Colleen - No.1.


Colleen - No.2. plant

The usual view over the 'gate'



Walking back to the car I spotted one or two weeds in the raised beds that I had missed yesterday – they were well hidden amongst the rows of salad leaves, so out came the kneeling pads on went the sun hat and old shirt, and off I went with trowel, hoe and box with seeds in.

You would not have thought that we had had rain half an hour earlier – there was not even a smidgeon on a leaf or chair – maybe it was only over our part of the village that the little shower had occurred?

I set about on my hands and knees wheedling out the sneaky weed seedlings that escaped me yesterday.

Have you ever noticed that the weeds growing next to any particular crop tend to look very much like the crop? I notice it a lot. I seem to get bindweed seedlings, growing amongst or next to beans. The bindweed, when in its infancy looks like a dwarf bean, with a single stem and then stems going off it as it gets bigger – on the look out for somewhere to climb up. Fern type weeds grow amongst the carrot seedlings and it is not until they are taller that they are distinguishable from the carrots – and so on.

Once the stray weeds were taken out, I thought that I might as well sow another crop or two in the gaps where the lettuces and salads leaves had been, but were now eaten - by us this time.

So in between the sorrel and the chard I sowed two rows of carrots. On the other side of the chard in the gap, I have sown corn salad – two rows – then spinach – two rows.

And still have room for more sowings of mixed salads at fortnightly intervals to keep us and visitors in salads all through the summer.

I then moved on to the next bed – which looks bare in the photo – and I only include this so that in weeks to come you can see the transformation (fingers crossed of course).

If the forefront you can see some more sorrel, and behind that the dwarf beans that survived, and on the right three different varieties of onions that I have left to go to seed in order to harvest the seeds for next year. (An experiment)


In rows behind I sowed haricot beans and yellow dwarf beans, and green dwarf beans – with a third of the bed still to be sown with another crop. It should look very pretty and colourful over the summer. I have had to net it to keep the birds off, so that the seeds get a chance to germinate and grow on a bit.

It was getting rather hot and past lunchtime by then. Pat had resigned himself to sitting in the car with his newspaper and was doing the crossword puzzle. I asked why he had the windows closed and was not sitting outside – he said that it stank of pig ****. I must be immune to the smell up there as I hadn’t even noticed!!!

He was forced to open the windows a bit and the tilted ‘sunroof’ as he was rather hot, bless him.

I was feeling rather guilty by this time, and decided to just plant up some runner bean seeds, in the gaps where the rabbits had got them. Just for good measure I planted four or five around each cane, having made holes with my dibber, filled them with water, and dropped the bean seeds in the hole. As I was doing it, I, of course, weeded any little seedling that had been daft enough to pop their head through the mulch or set them selves in the soil, so the time went on. When finished – 12 canes, so a minimum of 48 seeds instead of the 2 to a cane, were all planted. I then finished it off with a barrow load of horse manure around the newly planted seeds to deter the rabbits.

We had been up there for two hours!

Home to salmon and a huge salad of home grown lettuces and leaves and herbs – shame it is too early for tomatoes and all my cucumber plants got eaten first time around. Still the new potatoes made up for it though.

It was after lunch, when I went to the garage for some lettuce leaves for the banties, that I noticed a brown paper bag on the worktop in there. I had a feeling of foreboding, and my heart sank.

The reason being that for the first time I bought my broad bean and runner bean Enorma loose from a shop in town. Yes you have guessed it. They were both in plain brown paper bags – and the broad beans I bought last autumn and the runners this year. Yes I do know that they look different, I have been growing them long enough, but the beans this time were coated in pink to deter the mice. I only decided to try them this once after loosing so many to mice, rats, and other rodents. The broad beans were very small, I recall, when I planted them last year – but they have produced a really good crop despite their setbacks which have been well documented here.

So – I have spent an hour carefully planting broad beans next to the runner bean canes – all that effort for nothing.

I now have found a bag of pink runner beans, which look exactly like the pink broad beans and are the same size!

It is not a big problem as I will just pull out the broad beans if they germinate, and will plant the runner beans another day – hopefully tomorrow morning. It is just so annoying.

I have planted other varieties of climbing beans – organic ones – I was just tempted out of desperation to grow some early broad and runner beans that might escape some of the pests.

The moral of this tale is – stick to the organic ones – even if you do lose most of them.

That is why I have a big plot and grow far more than I need – figuring that if I grow three times as much as I need at least a third should survive to feed us, the rest being at the mercy of the weather and pests.

Sometimes I get gluts – which is great!

Off to put my feet up.

Late night musings

Well today up the allotment will be of no interest to you as we spent three hours each weeding. It wasn't like the weeding that you see in television programmes where the presenter sticks a fork or spade in soft brown soil and the weed just comes up (obviously the soil has been brought in for all their programmes and the plot alread dug over save for a weed or two. Cynical I know).

I could have done with sledge hammer to get through my soil up the plot. After weeks without any rain to speak of, the soil is set like concrete. How on earth the potatoes have managed to grow is beyond me. Without any piped water on our field of allotments, the plants have to 'get on with it' and are watered by the gods.

The old tank that collects the winter rain that falls rather haphazardly onto the old pig hut that serves as my shed, manages to hit the bit of old guttering and fill up the first tank, and what misses that hits the second one behind that. With lots of rain I did have a couple of full tanks.

The heat evaporates it of course, but I do have some that I use in emergencies when the tomatoes are flagging. They get a bit of a drink one or twice at week at most, but it is such hard and backbreaking work dipping the watering cans into green sludgy water, heaving them into a wheel barrow - 4 watering cans full a most - and by the time I have walked about 150 feet to where the tomatoes are a good third of what was in the cans is in the wheel barrow. It is quite a task I can tell you - so I am still hoping and praying that we get some rain - but still none is forecast for this area.

I try and give my courgettes and pumpkins and squashes a drink every couple of days too if I can, just to keep them alive, and they have started to repay my by growing.

I have done my best for my plants - all of them - by digging in lots of manure over the winter and more at planting time - but even well rotted muck dries out before long.

It never ceases to amaze me though, that seeds germinate and grow even though they are not watered. I have rows of peas that are growing, some dwarf beans - O.K. not many - about half a dozen have grown so far. The lettuces and salads never got watered and only a couple have bolted for which the chickens and bantams were very grateful.

The strawberries that survived are trying their best to grow and produce fruit and I have had a few, but sadly some of the fruits on the plants that the moment are lovely and red - and hard!

Luckily Pat, my husband, was with me today, as I had a bit of 'excitement' and needed his help!

He was weeding the end of a raised bed for me, and I was weeding about 100 feet further down. Hoeing was out of the question, although I did try, but with rock hard soil it was hard work and not achieving much. On hands and knees with a trowel, my usual method to save my back, was useless, my 'ladies' spade bounced off and the fork was little better, with me having to jump up and down on it like a pogo stick just to get a couple of inches into the ground.

I don't have many weeds, you understand, but the ones I do have I like to get when they are small or else they manage to grow into thugs even without rain, and if near any crops they take all the moisture out of the ground. So after soldering on for over and hour, and not achieving as much as I hoped, I decided to get out my little mantis tiller and give it a go between the rows of peas that are in the netted 'tent' affair that protect them and the tomato plants from flying pests of the bird variety and four legged ones.

It is quite a task to get inside the 'tent' as extreme measures have to be taken as my four legged pests are exceeding clever. So all the net is weighed down with heavy scaffold boards or heavy lengths of pipe.

Wishing that I had been built with the muscles of Geoff Capes (for those too young to know and those from overseas, he was the strongest man in Britain, and was Great Britain's shot putt champion, who had the strength and muscles of Goliath - was a famous budgerigar breeder!), I have to bend my knees like a weight lifter and inch the end of the heavy plank off so that I can pull up the net and tie it up. So far so good.

That done, I set about with the tiller. It bounced about a bit, but as I have dug in this area so many times it was easier and soon it started to do it's work. As I got to the end of one row, there must have been a bit of netting buried in the soil (as this side I never enter by and it has not been moved since last summer.)

Before I knew it, the little petrol tiller took off vertically and ran up the netting like a cat up a curtain taking the netting as it went. It was such a shock and so quick that it was at eye level when I switched it off. I was then holding with every bit of strength I had, supporting a machine above my shoulders, full of petrol with a hot engine and with no way that I could untangle it or get it to the ground.

I called out to Pat, and he ambled along bless him, until I said, hurry up, this is an emergency. He was asking what was up, and trying to do a running commentary whilst every muscle in my body was screaming with the strain was not easy. I then told him to come into the netted area to help me, but I suppose the panicked a bit as he ran around the outside - and was at the back - even though the place we always enter by was open! The he ran around the front but was outside and opposite me, until I got him to come on my side to take the weight!

I didn't even have the strength left to laugh as I usually do in such situations. He held the machine whilst I went the other side and quickly removed the pin that holds the sharp 'wheels' or 'tines' and I was quickly able to remove these so that he could put the machine down. It then took me a while to untangle the them from the net!

I do get in some pickles up there sometimes! No harm done - I didn't step on one pea or tomato plant!

I gave up trying to do any more rows in there after that. I will just wait for some rain to soften the ground - whenever it decides to rain.

Old Geoff came up to me the other day when I was just packing up to go home, and said to me, 'Do you reckon that you are the best gardener up here?'

'No, of course not' I said.

'Well I do,' he replied. 'Who do you think is best then?'

I said that I thought the ones further down past his, who have all the rotorvators. Their two plots have rows of potatoes and they rotorvate between the rows so it looks neat, and they also grow some cabbages in the same way.

Geoff said, that I was the best gardener as I was the only one who grew such a wide variety of things. The others grow the same every year, usually potatoes and cabbages, and broadbeans all in rows which are either rotorvated between and the actual rows of plants left to grow with a neat row or weeds. Sometimes they grow some marrows and runner beans but that is it.

Geoff grows lots and lots of potatoes, onions, corn usually - which he will again this year as I gave him a big packet of seeds as I didn't want them. He also grows dozens, and dozens of runner bean plants, I counted 100 in just one row last year, and buys leek plants that he grows too. He also has a few other bits here and there that people give him, likes sweet williams. Trouble is his plot and everything on it often gets over run with bindweed over the course of the summer. He uses a rotorvator a lot too, but leaves the weeds to grow around a lot of things - but he is in his 70's, bless him.

He chatted to Pat today, whilst I was doing something and wanted to know what was going into an area of the raised bed that Pat had cleared. He didn't now of course so called me so that I could tell him.

He again said that he was amazed at the range of things that I grow and how much I harvest. He also said that if at this time of year, you do not have something to take home everyday that you have grown, then you are not a good gardener. (After yesterday's harvest along, I reckon I must be doing something right!)

And when I thought back, I have been taking things home for weeks, apart from the chicken eggs that is! I also still have lots more that need picking, some of which I am leaving on purpose.

There have been lots of comments left lately and I really do appreciate them all very much. I do read all your blogs, but can't always leave comments, though I do try too.

To answer some of the comments here............

I pick all the gooseberries green that I intend to use in preserves,and jams etc as you get the best tasting jam that way, and a spectacular colour too, and a higher pectin rate.

I have left one gooseberry bush intact for the berries to ripen and some on all of the others so that when we get rain they will swell and ripen too.

The vacuum packer machine is a Foodsaver 550, and I bought it from Best Direct which I found by using a search engine and checking them out. There was the same maching cheaper with another company, but it came from Europe, the transaction was in Euros, so I was not sure of the actual amount that would be taken, as it would depend on the exchange rate on the day I guess, also they gave you a plug adapter depending on which country in Europe you were.

I have found somewhere where you can get the bags cheaper too, and have just taken delivery of some more - I will need them for the summer harvesting that I will be freezing, as well as all the meals, sauces etc.

I really do use it a lot, and whereas before I used a lot of plastic boxes to store things in the freezer, they took up a lot of room, whereas apart from the obvious benefits of vacuum packing to proctect the contents and keep them at their optimum 'goodness' for longer, they are taking up a lot less room in the freezer.

The redcurrants I am so very pleased with as you just can't seem to buy them in the shops fresh - and I can now appreciate why. They take ages to pick and are so fragile too. The best way to freeze those is to open freezen them on trays then pack lossely. The ones that I have already picked and frozen are destined for preserves etc, so did not need to be frozen individually. Any that will be used for decoration with be though. There are still quite a few on the bushes.

Nature is very thoughtful at times, I was thinking whilst on my knees picking the currants and gooseberries. They do not all ripen at once, nor are they all the same size at once, so they don't all have to be picked at once thank goodness.

The blackcurrant bushes are just about to ripen, just a few are starting to turn from green to a darker colour, another week or two and they will be ready; I so love blackcurrant jam.

The Jostaberries are still green and as I grew them from 4 inch cutting and do not have a clue how they will colour up, I am really exicted about those. I am guess that they will be black.

The loganberry desperately needs some rain to swell the fruits. This is its second year, and it has grown quite quickly - I gave it a good prune overwinter. They are so juicy and look like large dark raspberries but elongated in shape.

I planted a blackberry - thornless - and it is very small, but has a few flowers on it, this its first year. I also planted in a pot at home a blueberry bush and it has 12 berries on it - again this is its first year.

I never got around to taking any photos today - but will try tomorrow. When we finally came home at 3pm, there was lunch to cook, and later I remembered the buttermilk in the fridge which I extracted when I made butter a couple of days ago, so I made a batch of scones with it - and they turned out great. Some plain and some with sultanas and caster sugar. Some will be heading for the freezer, or else we won't stop eating them!

A question for those of you who grow sweet potatoes.

I have two little sweet potato slips that I am growing in large pots as I wish to nurture them rather than put them up the allotment to fend for themselves.

One was broken, so it is not as tall as the other, but is growing nicely. The biggest one is getting tall and I wondered, does it grown vertically like a climbing bean and need support, or does it like to trail?

Time for bed methinks. Another day up the lottie tomorrow - well part of a day.

Have a good weekend all, and thanks for popping by to my blog

Frozen Fruit so far

16 pounds of gooseberries, 5 pounds of red currants, 12 pounds of rhubarb plus 10%


Here is some of the fruit that I have frozen so far over the last few days.

Each bag is weighed so that I have the right amount of fruit to make jams, chutneys, marmalades, etc. Or else I can use it in pies, crumbles, sponges, sauces, jellies - the list is endless.

If you use frozen fruit to make preserves you have to add on 10% therefore each bag has at least 1lb 2oz in it - more in some cases.

It doesn't look much for hours of work does it?

Anyone who tells you that it is a piece of cake to be self sufficient in fruit and vegetables are not telling the truth. It is hard work no matter how many time saving tricks you know.

But when I am feeling worn out, my fingers stinging from being pricked from gooseberry bush thorns, my finger and thumb sore from 'topping and tailing', my back and legs aching from standing and bending. I remind myself how wonderful it is in the midst of a long cold miserable winter - to open the freezer and have a wealth of summer foods - or to open the cupboard and see a 'treasure' of brightly jewel coloured jams and preserves, which remind me of long hot summer days - and for some reason I forget the sore hands and back and bones!

I Love Thursdays

Thursday, 22 June 2006

Yesterday I spent a great deal of time at home – I have a garden to look after here, my willow arch needed pruning too, I made bread and lots of other goodies, and in the evening went up the allotment, with the help of under gardener, watered the tomatoes and pumpkins, cucumber and courgettes. I also disbudded the tomato plants and tied them higher up the stakes as they had grown – all of which took an hour and a half.

Today I spent four hours up there – harvesting mainly. Redcurrants, rhubarb, gooseberries, and a few strawberries for tea.

Tonight I have been cutting them up, or topping and tailing those that needed doing and spending hours picking of each little red currant, weighing and vacuum packing them, and I have just got another pound or two to do, and to pop into the freezer.

I am whacked! I also rotorvated an area of Mikes allotment to cheer him up and give him a bit of encouragement. He has some onions and leeks he wants to plant.

Tomorrow I will take some photos and put on here so you can see why I am so busy.

Must dash and finish off the last of the goosegogs – then a wonderful shower, feet up, and rest before bed.....

Oh I forgot to mention why I love Thursdays - its our wicked 'junk food' day or our equivalent.

Home made oven wedges with our own potatoes, two wonderful eggs from the chooks, and rare breed bacon and my home made sausages (Firecrackers today) made from rare breed pork.

And 'the golfer' had his absolutely best round of golf he has ever played in his life today.

Perfick

Weeds, weeds, weeds,

Tuesday, 20 June 2006

Today I spent three and a half hours up my allotment in the hot sunny weather. But I am covered from top to toe, my face is always plastered with factor 50 sun lotion and I wear a floppy white sun hat, gloves, and sun glasses!

I was tempted to get one of the farm hands to take a photo of me – as I looked like a scarecrow – but had second thoughts!!!

It looks ever more likely that we are going to have another dry summer this year with very little rainfall in these parts. We are one of the driest counties in the UK in the East of England, but the past few years have been drier than ever. The little rain that is forecast this week is going to miss us yet again, so my crops will have to fend for themselves.

With that in mind, my task today was to weed the runner bean frame, and to mulch it to help preserve any rainfall that we do get.

It doesn’t look like a lot of work – but bear in mind the row is 30 feet long, and I have to do it all on my hands and knees with a trowel. The ground in like concrete, and it was really hard work getting out the deep rooted weeds that have sprung up.

This is what it looked like before. All the fencing has to come down first.

This is when I was part way through mulching it.



The inevitable ‘after’ photo.

You will see that there are lots of gaps which I will have to fill. The rabbits and birds and mice all have their share of the seeds and the baby plants, -oh and the slugs too. Some of them are making a remarkable recovery; some of them are stunted and destined to be dwarf beans by the look of it. It does look a bit ‘Heath Robinson’ I know, but I just have to put up temporary fencing to keep all the pests off to give the plants a fighting chance to reach maturity.

The next job I did was to weed the salad raised bed – and I picked salads for us and for my neighbour who has just come out of hospital having had a hip replacement. I made up an organic veggie box as a welcome home surprise and dug up some potatoes and picked some broad beans – his wife was very surprised and delighted.

Now that we have cleared the fruit cage, I can get to the red currants that are ripening, and further along are black, and white currants, strawberries, loganberry, raspberries, and another gooseberry bush.


I am looking forward to my fruit harvests this year. I also have jostaberries, blackberry (its first year so probably no berries), and a cross between a blackberry and a boysenberry plant (again its first year too). More currants and more raspberries, autumn and summer fruiting. I think that I will have to designate a freezer just for the fruits.

Now that I have the vacuum packing machine, everything will take up much less space, thank goodness, and you can clearly see what is inside the bags – so no more boxes or labelling.

Remember the devastated carrot and parsnip crops that I had to re-sow and cover to keep the rabbits off. Some of the original seedling that were just stalks have re-grown.

Parsnips

Carrots




Just to finish – this is what over 6lb of broad beans look like in a huge washing bowl. We had some for lunch today, boiled with mint until they were very soft, newly dug up potatoes, and bunny burgers that I made in the winter, seasoned with a game herbs.

Now you know why my dearest has to wait for me to come home – I have to dip up or pick our lunch!

I have also made a nice rhubarb crumble – but didn’t have time to make the loaf of bread – must do it tomorrow!

My total time up the allotment this season so far are 174 ¾ hours, and other half has spent 50 hours. There is still lots to do though!

Back to work today........

Monday, 19 June 2006

It is 6.45pm and I have just sat down for some tea – after a really busy day.

We spent two and a half hours up the allotment this morning. Undergardener kindly watered the tomatoes and squashes, whilst I mowed all the lawns.

Naturally my job was harder work and took longer as I have to start with the blades at their highest point because of the weeds that grow through along the fences from the other side, and then I gradually lower and lower them.

I like to give it a shortish cut so that it will last a least a week, and we are actually forecast some rain tomorrow night or Wednesday, so I just had to get it done.

KoKKo, Adelaide and Ginger laid a nice big egg each – so no egg eating has been going on – yippee. I had gone from a glut of eggs to none – everyone seemed to want them at once over the weekend, even the bantam eggs went. The bantams are laying one a day – I think that it is Pumpkin as the other two are broody and Dilly looks like she is moulting as there are lavender coloured feathers in the nesting box and elsewhere.

So back to the allotment talk. The soil is like concrete up there, but somehow the weeds manage to thrive, but I am being sensible and not attempting to dig out the deep rooted ones and hurt myself, so I have given them a hair cut. I use all the grass cuttings – of which there is a lot up there, to mulch as much as I can which helps, and by now I would have mulched a lot more with the horse manure too – but again, I have not been up to it, even with the weeds that I do have (not an enormous amount) it still have far less weeds than all the others.

My next task is to weed around the climbing beans and plant some more, which have failed for one reason or another. I need to sow some more salads and cucumber and other crops – brassicas - that got eaten by the rabbits.

Before I came home I picked some broad beans. It is amazing how they have ‘bounced’ back after their near death experience, being snowed under, hit by perma frost which made them die back, then they got nibbled by rabbits and deer and pecked by pheasants and pigeons. But I picked 18 ½ lbs of lovely big bean pods – which we will be podding most of the evening!

There was one more task before I left and that was to dig up another potato plant. I just love doing that, as you never know how many potatoes will be lurking underneath. I dug up one early Colleen, and harvested 2.5lbs of lovely sized potatoes. I have had big crops from late varieties, but with such little rain, I was really surprised to get the amount I did from Colleen. We have enough for meals for 2 days, and the seed potato was still big and perfect so I have cooked that for the chickens, the leaves went into the compost bin – how’s that for waste not want not?

We had lunch – at 3pm – not a good idea – then had a rest for an hour. The boss mowed the lawns at home which didn’t take long and they are at least flat and almost weed free – just daisies and I like those. Whilst he was doing that I top and tailed the 8 lbs of rhubarb I had pulled – 6lb from up the allotment this morning and another 2lb from a plant I had here behind my shed. So it is now washed and vacuum packed in the freezer, so that I can use it for jam, chutneys, etc during the winter when I have more time. I made some rhubarb crumbles and we have just had some for tea.

My son and daughter in law bought some double cream last weekend when they came, and I forgot to use it. It would expire on 22nd June so I used it to make butter and now have 9oz of unsalted butter and over half a pint of buttermilk. The buttermilk I will use tomorrow either in the bread or I will make scones. I froze half a pound of butter in and the rest I will use.

A while ago I made some cream – face and body cream, and bought the little plastic pots and lids with a view to put the cream in them, but they were too big. I used one though, and put it at the back of the fridge and forgot about it. A couple of weeks later husband made some toast and got a pot of butter out of the fridge – luckily I walked in just in time – he was about to spread my cream onto my toast! I have learnt an important lesson, needless to say.

No photos today, you all know what vacuum packed rhubarb and a large carrier bag of broad beans look like – and my home made butter too!

Off to continue shelling the beans!

Sunday - A day of rest.

After my mammoth allotment and gardening sessions yesterday, I am taking a well earned rest – well almost.

I went up to see the chickens first thing and collected two eggs with no sign of any shell or yolk.

Next stop was the village bee keeper to buy some more beeswax.

Home to prepare Sunday lunch with all the trimmings.

I have just made Banana Bread – which is not a bread loaf, but a wonderful, moist cake.

This recipe came from book that I bought my Grand daughter for her birthday last month.

Banana Bread – River Cottage Family Cookbook

75g Ready to eat dried apricots
75g Sultanas
1 Lemon
100g Unsalted butter (soft)
125g Caster sugar
2 Large eggs or 3 bantam eggs – free range of course
3 Large very ripe bananas
200g Self raising flour.

Loaf tin 2lb size 12x23x7cm
Lined with baking parchment of loaf tin liner

Preheat oven to 160c or Gas mark 3

Chop up apricots roughly same size as the sultanas, and grate lemon

Cream the butter and sugar and add eggs one at a time beating each one before adding the next.

Add the lemon zest and dried fruits.

Mash the bananas and add to mixture

Sift flour into the bowl and fold in carefully

Pour mixture into the lined loaf tin and gently level top

Bake for 1hour – checking after 50 minutes.

Cool in tin on wire rack for 15 minutes before turning out.

Mine took one hour exactly.


It tastes delicious still warm, and makes a wonderful dessert if you add a dollop of double cream or a couple of scoops of icecream!

My next task is to go to my studio and make my youngest grand daughter a birthday card for Tuesday.

Then later on the watering pots and allotment chores if rain is not forecast.

I won't let the rabbits get me down - had a good day today

Saturday, 17 June 2006

Today was another hot day, so I decided to just go up the allotment and let the girls out and collect the eggs………and maybe start on the fruit cage.

Under gardener said that he would come with me, just for a look see.

So we went in my little old banger which is always loaded up with my ‘junk’ that is needed up the allotment.

First disappointment was that there were the remains of an egg shell in the run. It must be today’s as I moved their run yesterday. There were two eggs in the nest untouched thank goodness.

As I couldn’t reach the eggshell in the run, and didn’t fancy dismantling it all to do so, I shook a strong mixture of mustard, pepper, and horseradish, seed mixture (which is powerful stuff which I use in cooking) through the bars and covered the eggshell. Did it put them off? Not in the slightest, when I let them back in their run a few hours later, they tucked into the seeds and then the eggshell!

I saw Tim as I was going home and he said that he had some chickens that did that, and nothing he did would stop them, so he had to pull their necks! Hmm – I don’t think I will go down that route.

Under gardener was chatting to our neighbour Mike who was strimming some of his plot. He is a bit overwhelmed and fed up at the moment, but in all fairness, you can’t have allotments as big as ours and only spend a few hours, (if that) on it each week. You have to keep things under control especially the dock, thistle, and bind weeds – I spend more time digging up weeds than anything else.

The 'newbies' look at my plot and don't realise that I work up there for at least 23 hours a week minimum.

So whilst they were chatting, and talking football, I got on with the fruit cage. In the winter I cut down the summer raspberries leaving just 5 stems per plant, lifted up the black membrane, dug it all over, and dug in barrow loads of muck and replaced the membrane.

Left to its own devices it had gone crazy! The raspberries had shot up and there were more than double the amount of canes, plus runners too. There were rogue dock weeds here and there 5ft tall in places which were difficult to reach amongst the fruit bushes. It was like fighting my way through a thick forest – so there was nothing for it, but to cut all the raspberries down except a few on the perimeter. It sounds awful waste and a shame as they had little fruit on a lot of last years canes, but I do have some elsewhere further down the plot and with just those I had plenty to give away and freeze. So I cut them down and UG dug out the roots. We had at least six wheel barrows full – heaped high – to take down to the huge compost bin next to the hedge where we put things that will take a while to rot down. We have pulled up the membrane and left it up, so that I can dig it over and add more muck. Getting rid of a lot of the raspberries has revealed the strawberry plants with fruits on which should now get some light to ripen them.

On the left hand side of the fruit cage, the currant bushes have doubled their size this year which was a bit of a shock as they are all touching like a hedge, despite planting them spaced according to the instructions. The good news is that for the first time, and at last, they are bearing fruit. Some of the branches are so loaded that they are touching the ground. I am not sure what to do about them, and I will have to read up to see how to prune them, as they fruit on old wood, but there will be so much of it, it will need cutting back.

My original solitary gooseberry bush in the corner, from which I took cuttings is now ‘fenced in’ by the currants so I will have to carefully get to it, to pick the berries.

There are some lovely strawberry plants, so I am hoping for a nice little harvest from them, especially as the ones outside were such a disappointment.

I am also fighting back against the rabbits. I have cut down the weeds that have sprouted up along the fence and have put heavy wood all the way along the side that I think they are getting in – it will be interesting to see what happens over the next week. They have now eaten right down all my wonderful Oriental poppies, the smaller Delphinium plants, more of the Achilleas and the Rudbeckia. They do not eat the rhubarb, gooseberries, roses, and the asparagus ferns, and now that the broad beans are ready to harvest they have left them alone too. They have dug so many holes though and had a go at lots of flower roots.

My task for next week is to replace the climbing, French and Runner bean plants that the rabbits ate – with seeds – or maybe I will grow them at home and plant them out again later. I need to grow on some more cucumber plants too as they have all been eaten, and I might put in some more butternut squash seeds.

I am really pleased with how the fruit cage is looking now after all our hard work and we have dug out the dock weeds. We will no doubt get more, it is inevitable with all the seeds that have been blowing over the past few years.

My last task – a nice one to end on – was to dig up a potato plant to see if there were any new potatoes. I actually didn’t even need to dig them.

Where I had earthed the plants up and kept the rows weeded and clean, I only had to rub away the soil and it revealed lovely and clean new potatoes.

My hard work over the autumn and winter preparing the soil was worth all the effort. I barrowed over so many barrow loads of well rotted manure and dug it in, and it has really paid off. From one plant we had enough potatoes for two large meals for 2.

Last year I planted the potatoes on virgin soil where we had cleared and weeded a plot for them. We were very happy with the yield and had so many that we shared them around family, and friends and neighbours – but I grew twice as many as I have this year, and am getting double the yield per plant this year than I did last.

All of which reinforced my reason for growing my own food despite the disappointments and crop failures! And when we had some for lunch I was reminded of how wonderful home grown potatoes taste – from plot to plate within one hour.

My spirits have now lifted, my enthusiasm has now returned. So much so that after spending three and a half hours up the allotment this morning, after lunch and a rest, I spent another couple of hours transplanting chillies, asters, and tomatoes.

I have even potted up the Brussels sprout stalks that the rabbits had left after their feast. There is only about 1 inch of stalk, but I rescued them all, and put them in compost and watered them, and today I noticed that each one had the signs of a tiny weeny new leaf, so I have now put them in their own individual pots, with the hope that they will re-grow. You never know do you, they might.

My lean-to has never looked so tidy, with all the pots neatly stacked and trays of potted up plants. The chillies I have put in a plastic mini green house, so I hope that they like it there and I get chillies for the first time.

I should really take it easier tomorrow as I am being ‘paid back’ for doing so much today, but it is such a nice feeling to have achieved so much.

If possible, I will harvest the broad beans, and some more gooseberries from the bush in the fruit cage, and some redcurrants if there are some ripe. They looked very pink today, so there might be some.

The weather is still scorching hot with no rain for many days – apart from a shower one evening when we were away – Tuesday night – but the next day there was no sign of having had any rain at all.

Thanks for all your wonderful messages, I do read them and take your advice on board.

Have a good weekend

A few photos taken today

This pure white clematis with flowers the size of dinner plates has flowered for the first time this year in my garden in the raised be just outside my patio door.

Now that did really did cheer me up after today's trip to the allotment


Atlantic pumpkin protected by a Wallowater.


Courgettes and shallots so far intact.


Safe, so far, from the predators - peas at the end and some of my tomato plants in the cage



The rabbits did not eat the squash plants but ate the cucumber plants



The few remainging parsnips that the rabbits missed and I have sowed yet another packet, and netted it.


The two rows of carrot seeds that I did yesterday, covered by my attempt to keep out the rabbits.

Ecky thump - hot weather - shame about the pests

Friday, 16 June 2006

We all get ‘one of those days’ don’t we? Well I am having a run of them and I wish they would go away and pick on someone else as I really think that I have had my share lately.

I slip, slap, slopped on the factor 50 sun lotion, wore long sleeved shirt over tee shirt, long trousers, big floppy hat and sun glasses – if that isn’t enough to put you off going up the allotment – I don’t know what will…………………….

Except perhaps………..rabbits.

Today’s devastation consisted of Brussels sprouts, psb, and a chewed and felled tomato plant (surely we don’t have beavers in this neck of the woods, we are a bit short on water and dams). Obviously the rabbit did not like the taste of tomato plants.

8 mini cauliflower plants – rabbits or slugs – hard to tell.

Dwarf beans – ditto above.

Climbing beans – signs of a mouse hole burrowed underneath the rows – well a few, or maybe a rat hole? The beans that have survived are a bit slug damaged on the lower leaves but are climbing now and looking healthy, but I have lost 80% of my bean crop. It rained the day we were away, so the slugs must have had a field day and the rabbits too – as they ate all my next two neighbours climbing bean plants too – they had bought theirs and they were lovely.

Three dead birds – for no apparent reason and not showing any sign of injury. Old Geoff found a few the other day on his plot. Maybe it is the farm cats, but it is a bit odd.

Only one egg and the remains of an eaten one!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel downhearted, defeated, and down in the dumps.

I can’t find where the rabbit is getting in. Surely someone is not opening the gate at dusk and then closing it (joke). My gates are pieces of corrugated iron and fixed with posts.

I just had to give myself the proverbial kick up the rear and get down to work.

Today’s task was to tie up all the tomato plants to their canes, and pinch off all the bits growing at the leaf joints. I started with the ones in the cage, and weeded whilst I was in there. Then I did the ones outside and found the tomato plant ‘felled’ and it was a big one too.

Doing all that took me almost three hours in the boiling hot weather in the sun. I was going to go back tonight and water the tomatoes and courgettes and pumpkin plants but the shingles has decided to play up just to remind me it is still there. So I am doing my blog instead.

I don’t know what got into the chickens this morning, and they have never broken an egg and eaten it before. They free range at least 3 hours a day, and their run in on the meadow, so plenty of opportunity to scratch up any extra grit they need, but their food contains all that they are supposed to need anyway. Maybe it was a thin shelled egg and one of the stood on it and it cracked. I will give them the benefit of the doubt this time!

So ladies and gentlemen – forgive me for not being my usual happy chirpy self.

I did cheer myself up picking some gooseberries – glad the rabbits don’t like those, and pulled some rhubarb stalks – and just to ‘make my day’ when I stepped over a chicken wire fence to go and put the girls back in, I found myself flat on my back a few seconds later – having whacked my arm and feeling rather uncomfortable with a big sharp stone poking in my back. It took me a few moments to work out where I was and what I was doing!! I rolled over on my side then gingerly got up on my hands and knees. Just another few bruises to add to the rest! Still my dearly beloved won’t mind – he can’t even give me a cuddle to make me feel better as the shingles are like electric shocks! He He He.

Off for a shower and to top and tail the goosegogs.

Things will look better in the morning, so the saying goes, and my beloved said he will help me water the plants in the morning. (he is out bowling tonight).

I am fed up - fed, fed, fed, fed, UP!

It takes quite a bit to make me feel fed up - and it was quite a bit that finally did it!

You will remember when I first got shingles and was in such a lot of pain, that it took me an hour to sow each row of carrot, and parsnip seeds.

All four rows I have lovingly tended and hand weeded, for weeks now. Only to discover that today a rabbit/s have somehow managed to breach my 'inner sanctum'.

I thought that it was the one safe place that they could not enter. -It has been for the past two years - but no longer.

Today I discovered to my horror, that the little blighters have eaten all my carrots and parsnips. Four 30 feet rows, and I was only away one full day!

It must have been the tiny baby rabbits that can squeeze in anywhere - but for the life of me I can not find a gap or hole in the middle area, and we dug down a foot and sank the wire in so they are not tunnelling under it.

I was so fed up that if I wasn't a grown up I would have cried - or yelled. But I didn't!

I picked myself after being on my hands and knees, brushed myself off, and started all over again.

It took me almost four hours.

I had to hand weed all the rows and between the rows, dig it over - again with the hand trowel, rake it, pull out trenches with the hoe, and sow two more rows of carrots - then devise a way of proctecting them.

I took the plastic off all my cloches, so that I just had the skeleton metal frames, then luckily I had some fleece in the shed. So my mission was to make a 30ft tunnel over two rows of carrot seeds, and try and make it rabbit proof, wind proof, - lets hope that it is successful.

I rescued about half a dozen parsnip seedlings, and had to repeat the process above.
The frame to this tunnel I covered with some plastic netting that I found rolled up at the back of the shed and had to untangle it, which took an age.

I have to admit that whilst doing this in the heat of the day, I wondered if all this effort was worth it! That I must be mad, and why don't I do like most people do and simply go to a supermarket and buy them! I wish I knew the answer to that.

In between all this work, and walking backwards and forwards to my shed umpteen times, I found a bird caught up in some netting. I heard some chirping, but I thought it was a bird just sitting in the long grass so never took any notice. But as it was there for a while I decided to have a look in case it was a deserted baby.
The poor thing was an adult black bird that had somehow flown into some black netting and had it on its body and one leg. I ran to get some scissors and picked it up, whilst it pecked my hands frantically, and carefully cut it off bit by bit, all while being pecked by the poor bird. I had to gently fluff up its feathers to find the various bits and cut through them, and untangle its foot.

When I had done so, it gave me one last peck as I put it gently down in the shade, and it flew off and hid.

The time really flew by today and I achieved none of the things that I had intended too.

I wanted to harvest the broad beans, the gooseberries, rhubarb, and some red currants that are ripe. All of which will have to wait another day - tomorrow weather permitting.

The chickens litter tray will need emptying too, and the meadow needs mowing yet again, so too some of the paths.

The little bit of rain that fell Tuesday evening whilst we were away, was enough to get the weeds going, but not enough for the courgettes, pumpkins and tomatoes.

I also wanted to tie up the tomato plants and pinch out any side shoots, sow some more salads and celeriac, and some climbing and French beans.

There are just not enough hours in the day!

On a brighter note, the delphiniums are looking wonderful and I think that I might pick some from up the allotment for indoors. The damage the rabbits did to the rudbeckia, whilst making them look a funny 'clump' seems to be tailing off now, as in inner stems of the clump are now getting tall and the rabbits can't reach any leaves, so they are surrounded by short stems that reach as high as a rabbit can! The remainder should now grow their full height and flower in a month and keep flowering all the rest of the summer. Same too with the achillea - that has been pruned by the rabbits but now that it is getting taller, I think that the leaves and stems must be tougher or not so palatable, and there are flower buds forming.

On the downside, all those chrysanthemums that I planted so carefully, seem to have failed. There is one or two that might make it, but I am not optimistic. Those that I gave my friend have not grown either - so it is not my skills - or lack of them. A friend of hers that knows about chrysanthemums in particular, said that they needed to have some green growing when planted, to grow - but our didn't. So all that time and effort and muck shifting was a total waste of time too.

But nature is like that isn't it - that is what makes it so fascinating and challenging - trying to work with the elements and get results. Some are good, some are not.

My lettuces and rocket have been and are fabulous, and the lettuces huge. I took one to my son and wife, and there was so much there that it fed us all for the evening meal and the rest we had with the bbq the next day. I picked another couple today, a red frilly one with a green centre and a big crinkley one. They were from a mixed packet that it why I do not know their individual names.

I was too worn out to take photos and the 'boss' was back from golf and waiting for lunch - which we did not have until 3 o'clock!

Guess who needed to rest up for an hour this afternoon?

No.2 son arrived safely in Barcelona early this morning, the temperature was 23c and he was spending the day sightseeing and wearing shorts. The hotel that he and his friends are staying is just three minutes walk from the daytime venue of the festival they are going to see, and 8 minutes walk from the night time marquees, where the concerts are being held. So that is good.

I got a phone call tonight and when I answered it I heard a chuckle. I said, 'Hello' and I heard my baby grandson 'talking' to me. My son has it on speaker phone so that he can hear me, and the little one always wrestles the phone away. He is not yet six months old, but he repeated all the noises I made. For some reason he started doing little coughing noises yesterday. He hasn't got a cough, but just did it, I laughed then he did it again when he wanted to get my attention. So I made the same noise of the phone and he copied, as well as other ones. It was so cute.

It is gone 11pm so I had better sign off for tonight and get some rest.

Hopefully there will be some photos tomorrow

A day off for good behaviour - no allotment news

Thanks for all your lovely messages. I have just got back home having been to Bedfordshire to see my sons, daughter in law and grandson.

I was going to spend today spraying my studio, but did the sensible thing and had a day off. We travelled last night and had a whole day with the family. Gary did a great BBQ and Haruko did a wonderful lunch, and all the preparations of course!

OH and myself had a lovely walk into town with baby in the pushchair - more sights and sounds to amaze and delight him. Whilst it does make a pleasant change to walk around an old town, I much prefer spending my twilight years in the country with hardly any traffic.

Younger son is off to Barcelona tomorrow for the weekend - what a wonderful city that is. How much he and his friends will actually see of the city I do not know, as they are going to a music festival. What type of music I do not know either, my son said that he doesn't know himself as it was all in Spanish!

So long as the sun shines they are bound to have a great time.

I am putting my feet up today and depending on the weather - depends what I do tomorrow - but if it is of any interest I will share it with you.

Errrrrm..............your words came back to haunt me

Having spent most of the day yesterday clearing out my office, then putting everything back in its place, then taking lots of things to my studio and getting sidetracked and sorting things out there - then spending over two hours up the allotment last night - all of the above carried out in 30c heat, I have to admit that I think I over did it.

I thought I was stronger than I am, as the painkillers are working a bit on the shingles at last, but not well enough to give me total pain relief, just a short spell now and again LOL

When I woke up and got up I was really faint, so went back to bed - like a sensible old woman for once - well it at last tipping it down with rain so there was nothing I could do anyway.

It is now 11.30am and still raining. Silly me is still weak and wobbly, so a sensible and sitting down day it is for me today.

I might just potter a bit at home, some plants need potting up into bigger pots, but I will see if I get a surge of strength back to do that first.

Methinks it was the heat wave that did it really - not me overworking otherwise you can say, 'We told you so'. He he

Egg news

I was just adding yesterday's egg totals and realised I hadn't posted them on here lately if anyone is interested.

I have had KoKKo, Adelaide and Ginger for 222 days and in that time up to yesterday they have laid a total of 537 eggs

My adopted bantams Dilly, Pumpkin and Freckles I have now had for 89days and they have laid a total of 131 eggs.

It is strange because Dilly was the first one to lay any eggs and but she has now laid the least with only 28 eggs. Freckles has laid 42. and Pumpkin the last and reluctant layer has been laying consistently ever day since the other two went broody and she has laid 61 eggs.

It reminded me of the Hare and the Tortoise story. Dilly was off straight away, and Pumpkin was the slow one. Dilly ran out of eggs quickly, Freckles was going great guns and ran out of 'steam' too. But good old Pumpkin, got off to a slow start but came out the winner in the end!

I can see in my 'minds eye' quite vividly, all three bantams lining up at the start line dressed in running shorts, wearing vests the colour of their feathers - Dilly in lavender, Freckles, in a black vest with ginger spots, and Pumpkin in a bright orange vest!

Hmm I am having a funnier turn today than I thought!

Just off to the Starter's dias with my starting pistol!

A peculiar occurance up the allotment this evening

Feeling rather drained in the hot weather - the temperature was 98f when OH came off the golf course!

I have been doing indoor things for most of the day - with the curtains closed in the rooms where the sun was shining, and all the ceiling fans on.

I sorted out my little 'office' and filled a huge cardboard box of paper back books for the charity shop. I also decided to go through all my file of recipes cut from magazines or off the web, and if I hadn't made them in the past year they were shredded and went up my allotment this evening. After sorting out the filing, etc I ended up with a sack full of shredded paper.

The garden is looking stunning in the heat and sunshine, and all the flowers are in bloom at the same time, rather than being staggered as usual. It is almost as if they are rushing to flower and set seed, as without any water they might die. I hope that it does not look sad in July and August. Even the lilies seem to be rushing.

It is a kaleidoscope of colours and the perfume is fantastic. Even my son remarked on it yesterday afternoon when he walked through it. He in not one to comment on things like that usually!

I went up the allotment this evening when the sun had weakened with the intention to just change the water and food for the chickens, and maybe do a bit of watering if I felt up to it. I should know better than to make 'plans'.

As I walked down the length of my plot to the chicken's meadow, I saw a very big rabbit in my flower bed area - in the third quarter of the plot.

I did my scissor jump over the fence and the rabbit ran away but could not get out at the bottom. It tried to jump the fence and bounced off. It then ran up and down the grass paths when I walked towards it and made a running jump from one side to try and leap the side fencing, but even bounced off that. It was so funny to watch.

It then kept repeating the same thing but running headlong into the fence at regular intervals all away along the fence until it disappeared through it!

I looked closely at the fence to find a perfectly round hole in the chicken fencing a few inches above ground level. It looked as though it had been cut out especially for a rabbit entrance! I am not suggesting any ill doing - but it does rather look suspicious. It is close chicken wire, and not rusty, and there were no ragged edges. A mystery to me.

So after that bit of excitement I continued on to let the girls out and set about moving their run, as they had eaten all the grass in it, in just over 2 days.

I like them to have lush fresh grass. The metal tent pegs that hold the mesh to the ground were set like concrete, and I had a real job to get them out, it can only be because of the dry weather and the soft ground contracting as it dried out.

I could not shift the fencing posts of the moveable mesh fencing so it had to stay put until it rains.

When I am up there, I leave a big gap in it so the girls have free range whilst I am working. They are never in any hurry to 'escape' the enclosed area. They always rummage around for insects etc and I have to call them before they come running outside.

There seemed plenty of insects for them tonight to keep them amused. It was really a hard job to move the run tonight - I must be getting weak!

As 'the boss' was expecting me home within half an hour, I had to phone him to expect me a bit later - over 2 hours later it turned out to be. I never wear a watch so have no idea of time when I am up the lottie.

The 330 feet back to the shed seemed a long way tonight especially as I made quite a few visits. I had to drag some chain link fencing out which was entangled in some bindweed that had crept over from the other plot.

It was too heavy for me to carry so I did the sensible thing and got the wheel barrow, which I loaed up with all the tools that I would need - but I always end up going back for something else.

It took longer than I thought to repair the fence by putting the length of chain link along the side of the original chicken wire fence. I really needed a bit just a few feet long, instead of the long length I had. Banging supports in to the ground was tough, and it took me a while to attach the fencing to them and then to the chicken wire to double the protection. - If they get through that I will give up the fight and let them eat the flowers and try and grow ones that they do not like - cactus might be a good idea in this weather.

It was just getting dark by the time I had finished.

The chickens happily rushed back into their run when I called them and ate some of the fresh food as if they hadn't been fed for weeks!

Pheasants were calling to mark their territory.

On the telephone wire that spans the field a flock of birds flew in and settled on the wires so many - and they were all facing my way and looking at me.

It felt like a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds!

I soon locked up and headed for home - in a bit of a rush, as I forgot to put the tools in the shed, so have them in my car.

No way was I going to unlock all the padlocks just to put the things away with dozens and dozens of black birds watching me.

Not that I was bothered though!!!!

Trying to keep cool on a sweltering Sunday

Just popped on line to tell you not to expect much of a posting today.

Sweltering here, so just chilling out with family and baby - who is sound asleep on a blanket on the lounge carpet with the ceiling fan gently whirring above him. He looks wonderfully peaceful and cool.

Early I took him out into the garden and put his tiny baby feet on flowers and leaves so that they could feel the different textures. He chuckled with delight and put his feet together to pull the flower head of leaves up to his chubby little hands and stroked them. He moved his feet over the different textures and was fascinated.

I let him feel the great big thick hosta leaves and tapped his hand on their rough ridges and he patted them and they made a papery sound when they rubbed together. I put his face near the perfumed roses and I know that he could smell them a he stopped cooing and stayed motionless each time I did it.

I pulled leaves from lemon verbena, chocolate mint, apple mint. spearmint, rosemary, lavender and lots of herbs as we walked around and each one I crushed and put to his nose to smell and he was and cooed and chuckled each time.

I hovered him over my aromatherapy bed, which you see in yesterday's post if you page down, and you should have heard him as I gently put his bare feet onto the different flower heads and showed him how to move his feet so that they tickled him. He was so entranced that he would have stayed there all day, but my back was giving out so after a while we sat on a chair next to a raised bed and he watched the bumble bees to-ing and fro-ing on the blue geranium that tumbles down over the side of the bed absolutely mesmerised.

He chuckled when a pigeon flew up from the lawn in front of us and he nearly twisted his head off to follow it's path. As it flew close over our heads you could hear and feel the draught of its wings flapping - baby just was amazed and seemed puzzled as to where it had gone.

We spent about ten minutes in the chicken pen - Dilly, Pumpkin, and Freckles were all out and busying themselves scratching in the grass that is in there and pecking for insects. His head twizzled as he looked from one to the other and their happy little contented clucks really caught his attention. He was spell bound. Each bird was busying doing different things - like taking a drink, having a feed, scratching about, playing hide and seek under the big day lily, and behind the logs, dustbathing in the shade - it would have kept him transfixed for hours.

Baby almost shrieked with chuckles when I opened the door and gently moved Freckles to reveal a nice little egg - which was perfectly clean, and I gently stroked it on his chubby cheek so that he could feel how smooth and warm it was.

It was with great reluctance that I had to take him in - in my younger days I could have stayed out there as long as I wanted.

He was well protected with a sun hat on, and long sleeves and trousers - it was just his little feet and hands that were bare.

Perhaps he is now dreaming of sunshine and smells and clucking bantams - who knows - he is certainly having a long sleep for a day time nap!

Off to prepare lunch - couscous coated salmon fillets, new potatoes, aspargus that son and dil have just gone to get from the farm, cherry tomatoes drizzled in virgin olive oil and fresh oregano from the garden.

Dessert - a meringue I made last night, filled with cold, but cooked gooseberries from the allotment, and summer pudding mixture of strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, cooked in their own juice.

With double cream or ice cream.

Dilly, Freckles and Pumpkin - in the hot sunshine

It is too hot to do anything today, and no way will I venture up the allotment. Apart from a bit of hoeing or weeding, there is nothing that can be done in this heat, especially with the ground solid like concrete.

This morning we went to the fisherman's farm and stocked up on salmon, sea bream, sea bass, rainbow trout and smoked mackerel.

My family are here this weekend, so I think I will make salmon baked in a cous cous crust, and have it with salads and new potatoes.

I am going up the allotment later to water my neighbour's runner beans, and to let the chooks out into the meadow - at the moment their extended run which is covered at one end with a shade for about 6 feet or so, and at the other end of the run it is covered with clear plastic, and I have moved the run so that they get dappled shade that end from the trees.

I might pull up the salad things tonight or else in the morning. When picking food from an allotment or even flowers for that matter, it is best to pick first think in the morning or late evening when the plants are more turgid.

I just went out into the garden to see what the bantams are up too - they seem a bit quieter than usual.


There are lots of shady places in their pen to shelter including a big covered dustbath that is big enough for 12 bantams to lay out in.


They seem to be enjoying sunbathing!


Dilly likes playing hide and seek -


- but the others don't want to play, no matter how inventive she gets!

Have a great weekend everyone.

A few photos of my garden

My garden is looking great and is transforming from it's blues era through to purples, pinks through to burgundy.

Just a few pictures to give you an idea.



I love to leave the pot of chives to flower. The bees literally make a bee-line for it and I could watch them for hours. I have chives dotted around my garden, particularly in 'Nell's' Sensory Garden which is full of plants for all one's senses.




One of my favourite geraniums. Once it has flowered I cut it back harshly and it grow and flowers its little heart out again later.


There were even more flowers on this stem of clematis but I couldn't get them all in.


Angelica standing proud with green balls just about to turn white and huge!


This garden bed in two tiers I call my Aromatherapy Garden. Every single plant is aromatic, either the leaves, or flowers. If only you could smell it. I love nothing better than sitting on the raised bed and breathing in the wonderful perfumes and also every time I go past I just have to pull off a leaf of something and rub it in my hands to release the aroma. I have lots of plants around the garden that are there not just for their flower, but for their perfume.


I bought some white foxgloves last year - and they are just about to bloom and are all pink!



This little baby Rogisera (sp?) that I bought last year has grown into a lovely structural big plant this year.


I do not water my garden - and look what happens - I have a wonderful spike for the first time and do not have a clue what it will look like when it opens.


The grape vine has finally gone into leaf - it doesn't like the dry weather we have been having, but it is just managing to cast a shadow on the pation.

But the wonderful burgundy flowers of this clematis still show up against the pale green leaves of the vine

We’re having a heatwave…………………………..

Have you missed me? Did you notice my absence? Nothing major – just a couple of health hiccups.

For those of you visiting from overseas, we have been and still are having a heatwave. Really hot and dry – and me being a typical English Rose, wilts a bit in the hot weather, and despite wearing factor 50 and covering myself up from top to bottom and wearing a hat – the sun still makes me go red and wilting.

But I have managed to work late in the evening and therefore have not been blogging!

I have spent 10 hours up the allotment this week so far – we are off to water the plants in a minute when the football has finished!

So what have I been up………..

The boring stuff has been mowing all my paths and the big bit of lawn where my shed is and where we park and where the climbing bean frame is. I had to have the mower on the highest setting and gradually lower it, so it involved going over the area several times.

I also rotorvated in what was the broccoli netted ‘tent’ last year, and under gardener barrowed down 8 lots which I dug in. I needed to do so to help retain any rainfall if and when we get some. I also planted up my tomato plants in there.

For each one I dug a big hole, and filled it with rotted manure which was nice and damp, and added the tomato plant and a support. I bought 30 canes which I thought would be enough – only to find that I needed to buy another 30! I filled the netted area with 60 and had some left over so planted more outside the cage – I have 70+ tomatoes plants – all of which I have grown from seed in a cold frame. I am very proud of those, as everyone I know has greenhouses to grow theirs in and started ages before me.

I have some that I am going to grow at home under the lean-to in pots with the bottoms cut off and sat on a tray of gravel – (permaculture fashion) so that the roots get the water from the tray and I feed them when they need it into the pots.

Of course my chickens get my top priority and they have been out every day in the meadow, mainly lying on their sides and dozing in the sunshine or scratching about in the flower beds.


They are still churning out three eggs a day, but Adelaide has been laying funny patterned rippled ones – but they are huge and taste great.

Dilly and Freckles are still broody but they come out more during the day, especially if they hear Pumpkin clucking with delight as I give her some unexpected goodies – as they did just now when I took her some lettuce and some corn mix for the evening meal.

Here is a ‘normal’ sort of day for me – today.

No golf, so I collared the boss to help me in the kitchen. We had a delivery late last night of pork and chicken from Paula’s rare breed farm - see link on the right

So last night I mixed spices into the pork ready to make sausages. I have bought a new machine so it was a trial run – and it really did turn out to be a trial as the instructions were brief and basic! They only mentioned the meat grinding side that the machine does and never mentioned the sausage stuffing side of things!

We were working from 10 – 12pm, and someone near and dear to me was not amused! In the end, after making three sorts of sausages, and packing up the chicken mince into bags and freezing it, we called it a ‘day’ and put the rest of the mixtures in the fridge over night.

I posted on a sausage making forum for help – and they all rallied to my plea. So following an early morning read of their suggestions, all of which I took on board and implemented, it took us just 30 minutes to make around 2kg. Apple and Pork, a spicy sausage with a mixture of dried chillies and peppers which I bought the from same site on line and were a success last time – called Fire Cracker, and I also did some traditional ones and a batch of dried mixed herbs and garlic.

If the weather had been cooler I would have been more adventurous and made lots more with fresh herbs and spices etc. but it takes quite a time and you have to get the sausages made and frozen within 24 hours!

The other half took a ride into town to get some things he needed and some petrol for our mowers and rotorvators, and I whizzed up to let the chickens out for an hour or so whilst I moved their run and put another 4 pints of fresh water in their water containers. The don’t drink that much each day, but I like them to have plenty of fresh and clean water just in case I can’t get up there for any reason. They also have a full hopper of layers mash for the same reason.

I was reward with four eggs today – that has happened about once a week lately for some reason perhaps that might account for Adelaide’s rippled looking eggs, if she has been doing overtime.

Whilst they were ‘doing their thing’ and dozing and scratching etc., I took a look around and noticed that the gooseberries were ready for picking. This is only the third season with the allotment, and I am particularly pleased with the soft fruits this year. Last year I only had a few gooseberries – about 4lb in total from the 6 bushes. But I was pleased with that for their size. I pruned them in the autumn and cut out any branches that were facing in the centre to make the bushes nice an open in the middle to try and prevent any diseases they are prone too. I also mulched them with horse manure last year to keep the weeds down and dug it in in the autumn, and I have been well rewarded for all my effort.

I started on the first bush – gently lifted up a prickly stem – and underneath it was full of berries. This pattern was repeated on every stem – they fruit on old wood – and I spent almost an hour picking fruit of just one bush! (a) because it was so prickly and fiddly to do, and my fingers are sore from the pricking of the thorns and (b) because there were so many gooseberries on the plant. I had to stop and get back home to make lunch and when I weighed them there were 6lb 2oz from just the one bush!


I also grabbed a couple of lettuces – a red Lollo Rosso with crinkly curly red leaves’ a green tight Webbs lettuce and a handful of lovely peppery wild rocket and when you mix them all together in a salad with oregano and tarragon – herbs from my garden – it really gets the taste buds going.


We had fresh salmon with a pesto topping, and alas not home grown cherry tomatoes yet, but nice and sweet all the same, with red and orange peppers, cucumber, beetroot, and gherkins.

I spent a lot of time this afternoon topping and tailing the gooseberries – it took ages, but spouse was watching sport on the television and I am not a fan of watching much TV as you will have guessed. I have now washed the berries and vacuum packed them in 1lb bags, so that I can get them out of the freezer and use them in all sorts of recipes as and when I wish. A lot of them will be destined for all sorts of combination jams and chutneys, and I have some on the go for a gooseberry pie with puff pastry I think. What I shall do with the other five bushes full, I do not know yet. We have to do some serious re-arranging in the freezers to make room!

Well I am just off to water the tomatoes, pumpkins, courgettes, and beans – the rest of the allotment has to fend for itself!

Back soon – but I do have relatives staying over the weekend so you may have to wait until Monday.

My first effort at making chutney

I had a go at making chutney for the first time. I bet you can guess what sort it was considering the things I have been preserving recently.

Yup – Correct

Orange and Rhubarb Chutney.

It takes a few months to mature, so I will not know what it tastes like until September at the earliest, but this is the recipe I followed (almost) which came from another forum called creative living, and was one that ‘sandybeth’ had made – but I do not know where it came from originally. Oh and one thing it did not tell you, which is very important - you must not make chutneys or anything containing vinegar in an aluminium pan - which my preserving pan is!

So I used my Le Crueset pan and it just about fitted in.


Rhubarb and Orange Chutney

2lb Rhubarb, chopped
Grated rind and juice 2 oranges
1lb onions chopped
1 ½ pints malt vinegar
2lb Demerara sugar
1lb raisins
1tsp allspice berries
1tsp mustard seeds
1tsp peppercorns

I didn’t have allspice berries and couldn’t get any in the village so……….. I looked up on the web to find out exactly what they were, and found the tree that they came from, and other names for it, one of which was Myrtle. I looked in my store cupboard and found some Myrtle amongst some Oz Tukka spices that my youngest son brought me back from his ‘walkabout’ in Australia. So I took pot luck and used that. The mustard seeds were from a selection that my oldest son and daughter in law bought me on their travels too, and the peppercorns I actually had bought myself!

So here is what you do!

Tie spices in muslin and add to pan with all the ingredients. (I used one of OH’s washed oldish which handkerchief’s cut it into four and used one piece. Don’t tell him).



Heat gently until the mixture comes to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for about 1½ hours until thick and pulpy and no excess liquid remains.

Remove spices and spoon into jars, cover and seal.

Another thing it did not mention to say, was that you must not seal the jars with metal lids. (But you can if you cover the jar with clingfilm first then do it).

Makes about 6lb

Mature for 2-3 months

Mine took about 2 hours, and I did have a bit of liquid which I was concerned about, but once bottled and cooled, the next day it was set - I will take a photo of it.

It smells wonderful, so should taste O.K.

Friday the 2nd June's work up the allotment

I don’t really know where to start after having the weekend away, it seems ages since I spent over four hours last Friday up the allotment!

Well the best thing to do is to just add the photos and type up what I can remember doing.

I spent hours on here yesterday (Monday) but the blogger kept giving me a message that it was busy and to try later! I gave up in the end. I tried at different times late afternoon and evening.

You might think that allotment has shrunk as it looks a lot smaller - that is because my camera case, hanging down, obliterated a lot of the photos. But I did rescue some and cropped them. But if you see a bit of grey, that is the remaining bit of camera case!

The strawberries that I rescued needed some TLC, so here they are in their new bed, which I re-made.

It is not posh like the ones you men have made on your plots – but it is posh for the likes of us country bumpkins up the field.

The white you can see is shredded paper – an experiment to see if it is better or worse than straw.


I did quite a bit of rotorvating, as it was easier than digging as the silly shingles is still playing up, and bending is quite frankly excruciating, whereas with the rotorvator it still was, but was quicker!

So after digging up any dock weeds that had grown over the winter, I set too and rotorvated it all with my big machine. I then went over it with my little Mantis, and finally I raked the area that is to be the grass path.


I sowed the grass seeds, and hopefully before long, I will have a wide path beside the beds to make it easier to mow, and I shall add one the other end of this bed big bed too.

Since being poorly, it has made me realise that I am not the strong fit 18 year old I was, so I am going to be sensible (just for once) and divide the whole plot up into manageable sized beds with wide grass paths. That way, not only will crop rotation be simpler, I can also cover up one complete bed if things get too much for me to cope with and the plot will still look good.

-Well that is the cunning plan!

Here are a few shots of how it is looking now, having hoed and weeded everywhere!


This is the view the chickens have from their meadow


I hoed and weeded between the potatoes and they are really getting big now and the white flowers are in full bloom. Might dig some up this weekend and see what is there


On my hands and knees I weeded between the onions - but they look good so it was worth it.


I am especially proud of my new double width (but seperated inside) compost bin - you can't see it all, there is more to the left of it! I am hoping that it will be big enough to last through the summer - but I have my doubts.

By Request – My attempt at Bonsai tree growing.

Well here it is…………………..


I have been growing this for a number of years.



It gets a bit neglected, inasmuch as it gets left out in the elements all winter and summer.

I have just given it a hair cut which I do this time each year. I also tell myself that I must water it twice a day, and feed it special food as my son recommended – but invariably I forget, and it seem to thrive on neglect.

I don't know which is it's best profile so you have got it from all angles.

I thought that it had finally been killed for sure this year, as someone near and dear to me, put it in the plastic cold frame together with some empty pots when he decided to tidy up a corner.

So it was not until late March when I got the cold frame out to put plants in, that I discovered the poor little thing, which hadn't had a drink of water since last year!

But it survived yet again.

On the other hand, my son had a few rather nice specimens – and you can guess what’s coming next…….he fed and watered them and they have all died. Maybe it is because his lived indoors all the time.

Been away for a few days - so will catch up Monday evening