A homemade bee hotel has been on my to-do list for quite a while now, I was originally going to make one out of bamboo canes and then create a little wooden frame to put them inside. However, the inspirational world of social media has given me a much better idea and I just couldn’t wait to go out and pick some… Common Hogweed! Now I must confess I never knew anything about this plant before apart from that it lines countryside roads and looks a little like a large cow parsley. Infact the stems are hollow and make great homes for leaf cutter bees! So off I went on my bicycle to forage some large common hogweed stems and I managed to find the mother load down a little country lane in my village (and I made a note to go back and forage the elderberries too!)
I’m going to cut them down to around 6 inches in length and leave them in the shed to dry out. Alternatively you can wait until later in the year when the whole plant has dried before foraging the stems, I decided to let them dry off inside incase the plants rotted in the rain (and we are forecast a lot of that during the next week!) The first stage of my bee hotel is in process, now all I need to do is make a little wooden frame to hold the stems, add a pretty slate roof, and give it a lick of paint and then all those leaf cutter bees whizzing around the allotment should be happy.
Now whilst I was out collecting the common hogweed stems I decided to go and look at a tree which my Dad had told me about. He brought a little fruit home one day after walking the dog and after lots of research we came to the conclusion is was a cherry plum, I was so excited! We loaded up the common hogweed stems onto our bikes and cycled down to a set of garage lock ups in the village where the cherry plum tree was. I just so happened to have brought a little egg basket with me and we managed to fill it up to the brim with those juicy little plums. I noticed there were loads more higher up out of our reach so I made a note to come back with a ladder (and I managed to get another basket full!) I’ll be making some cherry plum jam and a tarte very soon so stayed tuned for recipes!
I have come to the conclusion that foraging is one the most fun things to do! It’s food… for free! I have never felt happier then returning home with a basket full of cherry plums and a bag full of common hogweed stems. It’s amazing that I’ve been living in this village all my life and never noticed all the elderflowers, plums, sloe berries and black berries that are dotted around. I’ll be off foraging next weekend for elderberries and blackberries, everything seems to be so early this year due to all the sunny weather we’ve been having. Not that I’m complaining, it just means more jam for the store cupboard and more yummy desserts
To celebrate the harvesting season I’ve decided to give one of my handmade harvesting bags away! It’s ever so handy, you can use it to harvest your crops, for picking flowers or even carrying fire wood.
All you have to do is simply comment below with your name (and surname to avoid confusion!) and I will draw the lucky person from a hat. The results will be posted on the 1st of September so remember to keep updated by checking the blog, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to find out if you are the winner!
The deadline date is the 31st of August 2014. - NOW ENDED!
The harvesting season has started nice and early this year, infact I have already harvested all my peas and all the broad beans! The potatoes are dissapearing rather quickly too and the strawberry season is officially over. Everything else on the other hand is growing really well, theres a few baby borlotto beans, baby pumpkins, green tomatoes and the cabbages are extremely large. I also just sow more seeds and planted out some leeks so I am ready for the year ahead. Which brings me onto my new sewing project to make the perfect harvesting bag. Now I saw a photograph of this bag online and fell in love but I certainly didn’t fall in love with the price tag of £38.00. So I raided my fabric stash and grabbed the scissors determined to make my very own version, after 30 minutes my bag was complete and I couldn’t wait to go up the allotment to try it. It just so happened that I was going to be harvesting the last row of my potatoes the next day so it was perfect timing, and it worked a treat. It is simply a square of hessian with matching bias binding around the edge and a handle at each corner. So simple yet unbeliavably handy and beautiful at the same time.
I am already the lucky owner of a large vintage trug and a mini vintage trug and I adore them, however I often find that when I take a harvest home I forget to take the trug back to the allotment with me. The great thing about this bag is that it folds up small and it can be stored easily away and because it’s made out of hessian it’s very hard wearing. It looks suitably rustic and it doesn’t matter if it gets dirty at all, infact the more used it looks the better I think. I am planning on making a few more to have as spares in the allotment shed (and maybe make a few for my Dad too!) But the best thing about this bag has to be the price, it cost me a mere £3.25 for the metre of hessian fabric and thats it!
It seems that the strawberry season is slowly coming to an end here on plot 15c and I am a little relieved. Don’t get me wrong, I love strawberries but there was a massive glut of them and after making lots of jam already I was a little bemused about what I could make with the rest. I came across a recipe for some strawberry cordial and it sounded delicious! I had already made lots of elderflower cordial and amongst it being really yummy I found that you can use it as an ingredient in so many things such as jelly (there will be another post all about my elderflower jelly very soon!) I used half of my strawberry harvest to make some more strawberry and elderflower jam because I love it so much, and then I used the other half to make the cordial.
Recipe: (to make roughly 2 litres or cordial)
1kg crushed strawberries
2 unwaxed lemon, thinly sliced
1.8kg caster sugar
1litre of water
- Place the strawberries and lemon in a large glass bowl with the sugar and citric acid.
- Bring the water to the boil and once boiled, pour it into the bowl and stir until all the sugar has dissolved.
- Leave to cool, cover and place in a fridge for 4 days.
- Strain through a muslin and decant into sterilised bottles. Keeps in the fridge for up to 6 months.
It tastes delicious with water, lemonade and it can be mixed with wine for that perfect summer drink (adults only!). If I don’t drink it all over the next week then I might try and make some jelly with it, or maybe even some ice lollies if the sun keeps shining 
It is officially summer time and the harvests are starting to come in thick and fast, as a matter of fact I can’t keep up with all the crops! It doesn’t seem like long ago that I was planting the seeds and now I have peas, broad beans, potatoes and peas coming out my ears. I shouldn’t really be complaining because they are all delicious but it’s a full time job trying to freeze them, make jams, cordials or think of new recipes to try with the gluts. At least the potatoes tend to look after themselves and store rather well in the ground until I am ready to use them, they are the most delicious jersey royals I have ever tasted, I just wish I had planted more!
As for the rest of the allotment it is all starting to look lovely and green. The legume bed is by far the busiest with the broad beans and peas in full swing. The french beans and second double row of peas are growing nicely and I have yet to put in another row of peas for my succession planting. The borlotto beans are climbing rather high up my hazel archway and I just can’t wait until they have reached the top and produce lots of yummy beans to store away for winter. The fruit bed is also showing signs of a small harvest soon with a few very large gooseberries and some blackcurrants too, theres even 4 raspberries growing too! I even managed to squeeze some swiss chard into the fruit cage and over the past couple of days its doubled in size, it must be all this nice weather we are having.
The strawberries are going crazy and so are the tomatoes, I have to check daily and remove side shoots before they get out of hand and the poor basil is being overshadowed! The root bed is left to go it’s own thing, all the potatoes are ready so they are just waiting to be eaten. The only thing that hasn’t grown well in this bed is the carrots, which reminds me that I need to sow some more. Last but not least is the brassica bed which is slowly filling up. Now originally there was going to be one row of red cabbage, one row of purple sprouting broccoli, two rows of flower sprouts and 2 pumpkins in that bed. There has been a slight change in this plan and the broccoli is now moving over to my Dad’s new large plot so I have a spare area of soil where I can grow some cut flowers. I know I keep moaning about it but my plot is so tiny, there isn’t enough room to grow eveything I want to grow so this extra bit of space is most welcomed. Now all I need to do is decide on which flowers to put there while there is still time to grow them. On the other hand the pumpkins and red cabbage are growing great and the flower sprouts will be moving in this week once I get the netting and structure up and running to keep those pesky cabbage whites at bay.
I seriously can not get over how quickly things are growing, everytime I go up the allotment everything seems to be greener and bigger and the crops just keep coming. It makes all that hard work and blood, sweat and tears worth it thats for sure