A little a-lotting Part 1

Reckon this is a fab look for me

Bit clunky I know, but it's the best I can do today... I've been doing a little on the allotment which means I usually have just about enough time to get covered in mud before being summoned back home to feed baby lula. Hence the quick-change overalls. Sexy, I know.

Last year Jude and I dug over this whole patch, cleared it of weeds and then covered it up for 6 months or so. This year I uncovered, dug it over again (and abandoned it again so that more weeds have snuck back in - doh!) and then broadcast wildflower seed in the section behind me, just beyond the little clump of forget-me-nots. Now the idea is to transplant as many seedlings as possible from there into the remaining ground so that the smaller ones have a chance to grow before becoming swamped by the more vigorous.

More wildflowers waiting 

Pretty little things, but I don't know what they are!

How I wish the allotment looked (complete with help)*

How it actually looks. Wild, basically.

Bronze fennel, sweet william and crazy brassicas gone to seed

More wasteland wild meadow

As you can see the chicken wire isn't deterring the chickens much!

All I am managing to do in the rest of the allotment is get some long-suffering seedlings into the ground and yank out the odd weed here and there. The three main villains in our ground are docks, creeping buttercup and an as-yet unidentified thistle which gows from the titchiest scraps and then spreads underground in lines. There are also plenty of nettles which I'm not quite so irritated by, being fairly easy to pull up as they're so shallow-rooting. As well as providing a highly nutritious liquid feed when rotted in water, they're also very important to a large number of insects and butterflies so I'm happy to leave a few big clumps of it as long as I have the space. The young leaves can also be steamed and eaten like spinach, and the roots can be used to make a yellow dye.


The others are devils though! Creeping buttercup looks completely wonderful for about a month in early spring when it becomes a carpet of yellow blooms, so it's just a case of preventing it from taking over the whole space as it can very quickly smother huge areas of ground. Once it's got a hold it's a nightmare to pull up.


Meanwhile, in the greenhouse,

My dream greenhouse (complete with help - or hubs, as he prefers to be known as)*

No, dammit, that's not mine!

Here's what's on my bench, quietly waiting for me to do more than just chuck some water on here and then:

I had intended to not do anything this year, what with baby an' all, but sowing seeds is so damn addictive it's really hard to stop... it's always such a thrill to see those first little tender shoots poking up, knowing they have the potential to become a plant that could be taller than me! Sometimes it's not such a thrill as quite often the odd weed comes up instead (one of the downsides of using home-made compost and not sterilising it!)

Time to go make some omelettes!

Have a cracking weekend!

(*pictures of allotmenting on a grand scale were taken at Buckfast Abbey a couple of months ago)

Giant Carrots

These are the carrots I pulled from the allotment yesterday. As you can see they're enormous! There's something a little wrong with the one on the right: I'm tempted to assume it's club-root as it looks so apt, but I'll have to look it up. If it is, it means I have to be really consistent with crop rotation. I've no idea what kind they are - possibly Autumn King, but really not sure - the allotment is almost impossible to navigate with overgrown squashes sprawling everywhere, and the debris of all the summer-flowering stuff that's come to an end, and as result I didn't even realise I was standing on top of some of these until I parted the greenery.... I originally had every intention of keeping the veg area nice and tidy, everything in pretty rows, but what with having knee surgery in May and then getting pregnant in June, followed by 3 months of nausea, everything has fallen into chaos.

Any day now I intend to get back to work up there and get clearing and sowing.

Green Tomatoes

This is the last but one crop of tomatoes from the greenhouse. They seem to be taking forever to ripen up (I'm guessing that's due to lack of sunshine) so I've had enough and plan to turn them into Green Tomato Marmalade, which can be found here. I have to leave it all overnight to 'macerate' apparently, so I'll let you know how it goes. This year I grew plum tomatoes, two kinds of cherry toms, marmandes (the lumpy-looking one middle left in the basket) and tigerellas (stripey). Next year I'm not sure I'll do as many if I grow any at all. As nice as fresh toms are, they're very hungry and time-consuming to grow, so with baby no. 3 due in March I don't think I'll have time.


macerate |ˈmasəˌrāt|
verb [ trans. ]1 soften or break up (something, esp. food) by soaking in a liquid.• [ intrans. ] become softened or broken up by soaking.2 archaic cause to grow thinner or waste away, esp. by fasting.

Last night I started composing the third piece of the white quilt, but it hasn't come together as easily as the first two, so I'm wondering if it's a sign I need to be getting on with something else for a bit instead. Sometimes I think it's a good idea to just let a project sit for a while so that you can come back to it with a fresh brain. I do have plenty of other things I keep meaning to finish, and of course there is still the allotment which needs to be dealt with before winter sets in for good. There is one last window for sowing seeds in the Autumn before the big wait until Spring (which will be a busy time anyway) and I've already run out of time for a few things I had wanted to do, so I have to get going with peas and beans for a nice early Spring crop.

This morning I sorted out all the girls clothes into boxes to put into the cupboard in Jess's room, which Jude has built new shelves for at last, which was very satisfying. I always collect stacks of clothes for when they're older (as well as keeping everything no. 1 has worn to pass down) and every now and then it just needs a good sort out so I can actually get to them when they're needed. My lovely friend passes on anything she can't use as well so it all usually ends up just piled up any old how, so it's a real relief to have some order to it all. At the end of the day there is WAY too much - more than they could ever wear - but I can't bear to donate it Just In Case. Left to my own devices I'm a terrible hoarder anyway, so it's even worse with a family.

So - on with the curtains! Gosh, my life's exciting ;)