Mid-harvest catch up

It has been all quiet from me on the blog front for a while - Hiya! - but you'll no doubt be relieved to know that things on the allotment have been trucking along in spite of their not being electronically documented. Plenty of rain along with some sporadic blasts of heat and light have seen things growing at full throttle. Kasia's mum lent a much appreciated hand which rid large sections of the plot of all weeds. We've been off work this week and although some serious downpours have kept us away most days, we squeezed in a few hours worth of graft yesterday in some lovely weather.

It's all going so bloody well...

The track up to our bit

The pessimist in me is waiting for something to go badly wrong with the plot; an outbreak of blight, bindweed or some other grim pestilence to befall us. But nothing has yet. In fact, since we've taken on this former pigeon loft, everything we've put into the ground has done perfectly well. Considering this was basically a rubbish dump only a few short months ago, I'm impressed. Impressed, surprised and delighted.

Green amongst the brown

With Kasia away for the weekend, I spent a thoroughly enjoyable Saturday afternoon by myself at the plot. The weather was mostly gorgeous, with just the odd shower punctuating the azure ether, which helped, but I also realised a couple of things about this plot which just make it a more pleasant thing to garden than where we've been previously.

Recipe: Bigos (Polish Hunter's Stew)

With some foods, a little context and a bit of understanding can go a long way to aid enjoyment. The first time I ate Bigos, I'd not long been going out with Kasia, and we were in a Polish restaurant. Noting from the menu that it is a hunter's stew, and not realising that two different types of cabbage go into the stuff, I ordered a side portion of pickled cabbage. I decided there and then that Polish food was just irredeemably cabbagey, and not for me. Since then I've had my fair share of Bigos at countless meals at Kasia's parent's and on a trip to Poland, not to mention chez nous, and I've gotten to love it. It's a hearty one-pot wonder of a stew, a sweet/sour umami-bomb of autumnal satisfaction. We used our own cabbage and carrots, only hours out of the ground, which probably did no harm. But fret thee not if yours aren't quite as fresh, for the key ingredient in this dish is time. Lots and lots of time.

New folk, roaring flames and some late-season optimism

This and last weekends have seen the customary autumnal tidy-up work proceed in earnest. Except, there hasn't been a great deal of work going on, which is the bit I like about this time of year. Weeds are only growing at a shuffling pace and the veg being harvested is hardy enough that if you don't get it today it'll be fine in a week. The weather has been fine too, sporting that fine combo of warm sun and cool air, making the plot a nice spot to just sit and be.

Alas Poor Polytunnel...

...I knew him, Horatio. Although thinking about it, people usually give inanimate things the female gender, don't they? And you're almost certainly not called Horatio, so what the hell am I on about? Oh well, at least I didn't get the quote wrong like everyone always does. Never mind Shakey Bill, the big news I'm trying to communicate here is that our polytunnel is shafted. Again.

Lazy Harvest Time

Fresh back from brief holidays in Dublin, we had just time to do a swift bit of harvesting and surveying of the plot this morning, after having escorted my sister down to the Great North Run.

Mutant Veg = Jealousy/ Bemusement

So last Sunday, with a head that felt like it was filled with aching fur, I trotted with Kasia down to Newcastle Civic Centre to have a look at the Allotment and Garden Show.

Harvest (in the nick of) Time

When, in the depths of winter, we're plodging around in freezing mud like idiots in order to try and get a patch on the allotment sorted, it'll help to have a record of a day like today. A day when, after work we popped down to the allotment and dug up the remainder of our spuds (Marfona 2nd earlies- no main crop for us), three cabbages, 4 massive courgettes, some rhubarb and a few berries. Good frigging times.

Autopilot Plot, And A Polytunnel Out Of The Blue

We've been a bit rubbish lately, not having been down the allotment as often as we might have done.  My excuse is having had a turbo-powered dose of man flu.  Happily enough, a lot of things are quite content to grow in your absence.

Things looking nice in the sunshine

Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb...

Some things seem to just want to grow despite you.  We got given a crown of rhubarb when we got the allotment last May and buried it in one of the first patches we cleared of weeds.  After a few months there didn't seem to be any growth on it, so we dug it up to make room for a couple of blackcurrant bushes and lobbed it on the weed-heap.  A couple of months later and Kasia noticed it had, phoenix-like, managed to spring to life.  It was re-dug into a new patch and, hey presto, we've just harvested our first rhubarb from this  unlikely specimen.