Edible Art !

For weeks now my art work has consisted of harvesting borlotti, cherokee, climbing, dwarf, haricot and lots of other varieties of beans.  Added to which I have been pulling up onions, garlic, golf ball carrots, orange beetroot, potatoes, courgettes, squash and adding peppers, and tomatoes and anything I else I can pick from my garden or allotment....

Cutting them up, adding a tad bit of oil, and roasting them in my big oven, weighing them, and vacuum packing, and popping them in my freezer.  Each pack holds at least 700gr 1lb 8oz.  Can you imagine how long it takes to create the packs I did just one day last week?

But in the middle of winter, when I'm feeling 'blue' and can't decide what to cook - I pop out to the freezer and grab a bag of instant sunshine - and boy oh boy what a joy - and all the aches and pains and hard work of digging, weeding, growing, harvesting, washing, etc are forgotten.

Fast food?

I think I must have about 30 bags of sunshine in my freezer - so far!

Allotment Diary - Me 74hrs. He 71hrs.

Well, it has been quite a time since I have posted - thank you for all your requests for an update.

I haven't been able to spend much time up my allotment this year - the absolute bare minimum to maintain it - but I have been growing veggies at home - where it has been easier for me to garden late evenings when the sun has gone down and it has been cooler

Just as well really as the heat and drought over the summer, has played havoc with the crops on the plots - especially the beans, broadbeans, sweetcorn, and root veggies.

Here is a quick up date with some photos taken during the visits that I did make. 

These photos were taken at the end of July

The main crop of potatoes were almost in full leaf

All the potatoes were looking really  well at this point, but my neighbour had blight

I popped in a couple of late pumpkins as we were forecast rain in  August

July was also the month of high egg yield - and playing the 'hunt the egg' game with the bantams to see who could outwit us the most.

Giant muffins were made and frozen by the dozens

These are chunky chocolate - but there were so many varieties.....Date and walnut, black cherries, to name a few.

Then along came August

The pumpkins grew and grew

And burst out of the compost bins

The main crop potatoes flowered

And I started digging up the rows of early potatoes

And each time I dug up a row, they were bigger and bigger and bigger.

These are the smaller ones.

The grass was short and looked lush, and the dark clouds gathered

The lovely farmer next door decided it was time to retire

The fields have been sold off to local farms, and barns are being demolished to make way for some new houses

And I fell in love with some babies

Meanwhile my little treasures were still playing hide and seek with the eggs

And I kept finding them - albeit 16 at a time covered in mud, but they passed the float test, and the taste test, and I have lots of lovely slices of cake in the freezer for cold winter nights.

And here we are in September - more of that later in the week!

Well, it has been quite a time since I have posted - thank you for all your requests for an update.

I haven't been able to spend much time up my allotment this year - the absolute bare minimum to maintain it - but I have been growing veggies at home - where it has been easier for me to garden late evenings when the sun has gone down and it has been cooler

Just as well really as the heat and drought over the summer, has played havoc with the crops on the plots - especially the beans, broadbeans, sweetcorn, and root veggies.

Here is a quick up date with some photos taken during the visits that I did make. 

These photos were taken at the end of July

The main crop of potatoes were almost in full leaf

All the potatoes were looking really  well at this point, but my neighbour had blight

I popped in a couple of late pumpkins as we were forecast rain in  August

July was also the month of high egg yield - and playing the 'hunt the egg' game with the bantams to see who could outwit us the most.

Giant muffins were made and frozen by the dozens

These are chunky chocolate - but there were so many varieties.....Date and walnut, black cherries, to name a few.

Then along came August

The pumpkins grew and grew

And burst out of the compost bins

The main crop potatoes flowered

And I started digging up the rows of early potatoes

And each time I dug up a row, they were bigger and bigger and bigger.

These are the smaller ones.

The grass was short and looked lush, and the dark clouds gathered

The lovely farmer next door decided it was time to retire

The fields have been sold off to local farms, and barns are being demolished to make way for some new houses

And I fell in love with some babies

Meanwhile my little treasures were still playing hide and seek with the eggs

And I kept finding them - albeit 16 at a time covered in mud, but they passed the float test, and the taste test, and I have lots of lovely slices of cake in the freezer for cold winter nights.

And here we are in September - more of that later in the week!

To make my life easier, I am going to put my allotment blog posts on my main blog which you can find here

Thank you so much to all of you who have been enquiring about my lack of posting - I just haven't been able to - but I have posted an update which you can see if you click the link above

Allotment Diary - Me 44hrs. He 43hrs.

We have been up the allotment twice in the last ten days - we still have none stop sunshine and no rain, so it's been just a case of harvesting, watering and weeding.

All the potatoes are doing fantastically well despite the drought.

The grass is getting brown though

The birds got all the redcurrants but we have got  more fruit.

More thriving potatoes, but the plot next to us has rather a bad case of blight developing

I have been spending quite a bit of time here - picking gooseberries

This years' harvest was 17lb - all go which I have topped and tailed and they are now weighed, bagged and in the freezer

The raspberries were the size of small peas, but really juicy and tasty - almost 2lb are now in the freezer - a poor crop this year

We picked half a bag if broad beans - they too were smallish, but perfectly formed and I couldn't resist eating a few raw.  2lb of those in the freezer now - of course more to pick over the coming weeks

We dug up 6 early potato plants and got 12lb.   We had some today and they were delicious and taste of butter.  Old Geoff was up there and came over for a chat, and was amazed that we could dig out potatoes up - the other plots can't as the ground is like concrete.  I guess all the hard work putting well rotted manure down, is finally paying off after all these years

We dug a couple of deep holes and filled them with manure, poured in two cans of water for each pumpkin - that should get them off to a good start.

The pumpkins growing on the compost bins are mainly self sown - how they survived the winter I do not know - but these have grown from the rotted pumpkins from last year - they got a good soaking too.

I got stung by a wasp - there is a wasp nest at the end of out shed - outside! 

Do I live and let live - or do I do something about it.  I will see.

If they leave me alone and I will leave them alone!

Time to make my weary way home