Long time no post

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.

Weeding Heaven

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.

Hissing Sid

Well here he is and growing bigger day by day.

Raindrops Are Falling On My Bed

What a difference some rain makes. I was even scraping mud from the bottom of my boots,something that I had not had to do for months.

Today I bought home four pounds of Kestrel potatoes, some parsley,mint and lemon thyme to go with the shoulder of lamb from our Greek supermarket. I also picked almost a pound of blackberries and our plums are beginning to turn, well plum colour, and getting plumper.

We are growing a Snake Gourd from a plant that our friend from Malaysia gave us. It measures about two foot long at the moment and we hope to put it in our local show as .Novelty Class 93. A fruit or vegetable which is unusual in shape. Entry must have a suitable or humorous caption.

At the moment I can only think of rude captions but do not think that they will be suitable, so back to "Hissing Sid" variations.

It Worked

At long last it is raining. It looks like Barbara's dancing had the desired effect , or maybe the rain Gods did not wish to witness a repeat perfomance.

It is quite heavy here in Beckenham but I think we needs days of the stuff to make any real difference. Anyway must not grumble as it may stop just to spite me.

The combined sigh of all my poor shriveled plants was quite deafening when I arrived this morning and everything was looking loads better already. I have the coming week off work so am really looking forward to spending as much time as possible on the plot. Am going to put my mobile in a drawer and forget about it as I have yet to have a whole week off without someone from work trying to contact me, well this week they WILL NOT SUCCEED.

PLEASE RAIN

Visited the plot today and saw tumbleweed blowing gently across it and where we had foxes they have been replaced by camel's and the odd palm tree can be seen.

Barbara had a go at performing a rain dance without any luck, but she is now down to a size 8.

We are quite lucky as we have a water tank on our plot so not to much carrying but you can't beat proper rain for getting everything growing. Our annual allotment show is looming but at the moment we do not have anything worth showing,still three weeks to go so PLEASE RAIN.

When is a Marrow really a Courgette

Being quite new to growing veg and still wet behind the ears I was under the impression that a courgette was just a baby marrow.

How is it then that you can buy both marrow and courgette seeds? I have three courgette plants and one marrow . The small marrow has stripes but the baby courgettes are all dark green. Can I eat baby marrows as I would courgettes or do I have to let them grow big .

My head hurts, need to go and lay down.