After mixed results during my first year, and a very wet summer, went to the #allotment to clear the mildew & blight and look…

I have a baby pumpkin!

Burger dinner, thanks to some marked down "premium" Hereford burgers from the co-op (they're fairly decent TBF, carnt complain for £2.84 for a pair of hefty patties.).

Slices of Costoluto Genovese and Green Zebra tomatoes in the burger, with caramelized onion, and sliced picked beetroot, and a pickled padron pepper on the side — all allotment fare, as is the garlic and chilli in the aoli.

Home made twice fried chips with #allotment potatoes, of course.

#allotment experiment fail number 1. Put the compost bin in the corner out of the way, then realised it was too out of the way to easily get a wheelbarrow full of stuff to it. Hastily moved after the first load. #AlwaysLearning

Tomatoes, on the other hand, are still welcome.

Cucumbers and zucchinis are getting a little tedious.

And, late to the party, we're finally starting to get some chilli crop.

We could really do with a nice wet thunderstorm today....

#allotment

Nope.

Just NO, beans. No no no. Stop it already.

#allotment

Watering done before the heat of the day, waiting for the butts to refill with tap water (to gas off prior to use tomorrow), then via a very quick hit on the shops a darkened room beckons again.
#allotment

There are now also 2 pots of passata on the stove — one is BBQ roasted/smoked tomatoes, with grilled padrons, and topped up with dark tomatoes and the other is yellow and green tomatoes.

And Kat has cleaned up the current tomatillo harvest. I'm going to try bottling ("canning" per se) some of these and we will freeze the rest.

It's barely a dent in our #allotment harvest, alas some will head the way of the compost (mainly beans and zucchinis) to cycle their nutrients back into future crops.

Unintentionally turned into #allotment produce super-preserving-day (supposed to be working at warehouse day, but a change is as good as a holiday they say… and since I have no holidays, change is the best I got.)

Anyway, we have 4 small and 1 medium jar of bread and butter cucumbers, and using the same vinegar mix 1 medium jar each of white and red beetroot slices, plus a large and a small jar of pickled melenzane in EVOO, & one large jar of lacto-ferment red beetroot.

But wait! There's more!

And so the allotment terrace progresses. After some nasty carpentry using crap materials, I started to backfill against the terrace framework.
My brother helped me and together we filled the entire area with the soil previously piled above it.
I now have a flat terrace full of really good soil.
As a bonus, from moving the spoil heaps to backfill, I also have a mini terrace above it.
And I found some woodchips in an alley to replace the stolen ones (I knew I would).
#gardening #allotment

Why do houseplants wither at the merest hint of bad vibes, but weeds totally thrive on outright abuse?

An afternoon of satisfying weeding on the allotment. Good therapy for body and mind.

#allotment #plants

Proceedings interrupted to knock together a "mystery benefactor corn chowder" brunch.

From the #allotment: potatoes, white beetroot, onion, garlic (but didn't use it!), red capsicum, and Bangalore Whippet Tail chillies.

The corn come from a "mystery benefactor" from our old village, was delivered to us by a friend who didn't know the name of the benefactor and his description could be any one of a half dozen folks.

Store bought celery. Must try a "cut by the stalk" celery next season.

Anyway, the bread and butter pickle — ~1.5kg of ~3mm sliced #allotment "Marketmore" cucumbers with 2 small onions ~2mm sliced, tossed with 50g of salt, and put in a colander under a layer of ice (reportedly helps keep the slices crisp), and that's under a bag of gravel as a weight. Now... waiting...

Meanwhile... fermented beetroot maybe?

I think we will instead reduce to just items marked † and try planting from our own #allotment harvests of Kingsland Wight and Longor shallots. It would be great if we can build up numbers of these to be self sufficient with them. (Much worries about quality and disease?)

We were already planning to switch to onions from seed because all red onions we try from sets bolt - so will experiment with that this season in the hope of replacing the Autumn Champion with a variety (or two!) from seed.

Next up is bread and butter cucumbers.

But pause a moment to admire the beauty of this little #allotment "Autumn Champion" onion.

What a little stunner.

Cannot believe, esp in this heat, I am already planning the autumn allium planting. Started putting a Sutton's order together and baulked at the £55 basket I got to. Need to rethink the strategy on that.

Way too hot to go over the #allotment and do the things I need to do, so made some prickles instead. #growyourown #preserving #lactoferment

Squeezing in a bit of #preserving in today, these #allotment eggplants needed something done to them so I am trying Chunky Chunky Melenzane* — Italian style melanzane sott’olio, similar to: https://memoriediangelina.com/2020/08/08/melanzane-sottolio-eggplant-cured-in-oil/

* To the tune of The Whitlams Chunky Chunky Air Guitar 🎸🍆

Chunky chunky melenzane
Chunky chunky melenzan
He was getting down like a freak show
She was going off like a whale
Chunky chunky melenzane
Chunky chunky melenzan

https://youtu.be/Uc0bAL-oHIA?si=Ttv99ecHNqAzNld2

Under the willow
#allotment #gardening #nature #photography

Under the willow.
#allotment
#nature
#photography

I’m getting to the point of the year where I’m not sure how many more courgettes I can eat. But! Getting some nice cauliflowers (these are DePurple variety) and a range of chillis each week.

The yellow chillis are Trinidad Perfume no-heat chillis, which are essentially like habaneros without the heat and a gorgeous depth of flavour. I’ll dry some to keep stored as crushed flakes and the rest I’ll use fresh to make not-hot sauces / salsas for spice-avoidant loved ones.

#allotment

Little and large bumblebee breakfast gang #allotment #bloomscrolling