Have not been to well of late so have not visited the plot as often as usual. Barbara and I did go early this morning though and it was perishing. We were able to take home some potatoes, swede, parsnips and a cabbage and also some rosemary and thyme to go with the shoulder of lamb that we bought from our favorite Greek shop. This shop is wonderful and opens at 7am on a Sunday morning, rest of the week it is 6am so they do get a bit of a lay in. Barb was a bit put off as next to the shoulders they had sheeps heads complete with eyes ( apologies to all veggies reading this )Last Saturday we visited Borough Market near London Bridge. If you have never been it is really well worth a visit. Lots of stalls selling fresh vegetables, meat, fish, cheese,oils, herbs, wines, bread. I could go on and on. These are a few pictures we took today.
Spent loads of time on the plot yesterday planting my Garlic and Onions. I left the lines of string as I was going to put name tags in today. It seems that during the night the local foxes had a get together and danced the night away on my plot. Grrrrrrrrr. On River Cottage yesterday Hugh F.W. went to his local barbers and collected the cut hair and hung it in bags, old tights etc. around his sheep and hen pens to deter the foxes. Anyone know if this works? I would not mind so much ( he says through gritted teeth ) if they ate the garlic and onion bulbs but the just throw them around. They seem to like chewing string for some reason, the next time I shall impregnate the string with mustard, that should make there eyes water.Harvested some swede and chard and raspberries yesterday so was not a complete waste of time, will try to replant tomorrow if it is dry enough.
It was my turn to man the trading shed today, 10.30 till 12.00 but because it was such a perfect day to be on the plot, sunshine, cool, no wind, I was chomping at the bit to get started.Barb reorganized her herb plot and dug up the mint and replanted it in a pot into the ground to limit the root growth but the fennel roots had grown much more and so she did the same with that.When I finally shut the shed { two customers all morning } I was able to prepare the bit where my garlic and broad beans will be planted next weekend. It was really wonderful on the plot today and made us realize how lucky we are to be able to do something we both enjoy and have a shared interest, we are also having for lunch homegrown pumpkin, parsnips, potatoes, and I am making a tomato and basil sauce, and later in the week, sage and leek stuffing all from our plot.Pure Bliss
I managed to get to the plot yesterday for the first time in a week. The weather really had a feel of autumn about it and made me realize just how much I love our seasons. Cleared all the runner bean canes but felt like I was being attacked by Triffids trying to compost all the foliage wrapped around them. Nothing much growing at present, Swede,Parsnips, Cabbage and Chard ,which we tried for the first time last night and found it to be really tasty, prefer it to Spinach.Will spend this weekend preparing the beds to plant my Garlic and Broad Beans the following weekend, also planting some Sweet Peas.Tried and failed to find anyone who sells muslin bags as we are going to make chutney from all our surplus tomatoes, perhaps a piece of cotton will do the same job?It is quite encouraging that this is only our second season growing but we have done so much better than last year, still plenty of errors but we are learning fast.
I really can't believe that we are nearing Autumn already. We have had a fairly good summer, loads of tomatoes, runner beans, carrot's, beetroot, potatoes, and for the first time really good cauliflowers but the courgettes and marrows were a real disaster when last year we had loads.We won first prize for our herbs at our local show and second for Barbaras shortbread biscuits and first prize for one of my photographs, but being a professional photographer I would have been a bit embarrassed if I had lost. We decided not to show any of our veg as we thought that it was not up to standard but looking at some of the exhibits that won we may have stood a good chance, I think that sometimes we are a bit to critical and anyway we are only doing it for a bit of fun, no way do I want to be Medwyn Williams with his giant veg at Chelsea.We bought a breadmaking machine last week and it is brilliant, as long as you measure everything correctly you just load it all in and hey presto a delicious loaf of bread with very little effort. We also made Pizza dough in it and made pizza with a topping of our own tomatoes, herbs and peppers, how good is that ? it tasted better than any Pizza Hut or Express and at a fraction of the cost and did not have to wait for some scruffy biker to deliver it two hours after phoning our order. Just making a malted granary loaf and the smell is out of this world.Must go to uncork the Barolo.
After all the recent rain yesterday and today the weeds had no chance. Awhile back I bought a small hand held rake from Lidl for £1.50 and it is the best value piece of kit that I have bought for weeding. I never buy anything else from Lidl but there gardening bits and pieces are a bargain.I really want to be on the plot tomorrow but have to work at a wedding at Oxford a place that I can get into with out any problems ,but with all the oneway streets I take forever finding my way out.Am in charge of opening our trading shed on Sunday so Barbara is on Blackberry picking duties with my grandson, so full metal jackets are called for.This is how the plot looked this morning.
