This has been our first winter where we have been 90% self sufficient with vegetables over the winter period and it’s been great! Obviously we won’t ever beable to grow the amount of potatoes needed for a family of four to survive on all year round, but the other vegetables have been fantastic. I still have kale, flower sprouts, chard, leeks and carrots left for harvesting on my little plot. We finished the red cabbage off a while ago and everything was harvested before the frosts got them. Over on my Dad’s larger plot he has swede, sprouts, flower sprouts, calabrese, purple sprouting brocolli, cavolo nero, curly kale, cabbages, leeks and parsnips. We are in veggie heaven right now!
I am an avid second season grower, if theres space on the allotment I’ll be sure to fill it with flowers or vegetables! I’ve always liked the idea of overwintering vegetables to fill in those hungry gaps when nothing else is growing and carrots are one of those perfect crops to grow. They actually say that carrots which grow over winter are sweeter in taste, and I have to completely agree. I sowed these ‘Autumn King’ variety of carrots at the end of August, and I am only just starting to harvest them now. They may be dinky in size but they sure are tasty!
To learn more about my second growing season plans and ideas head on over to the ’2015 Plan’ page.
I have a big favour to ask you all and that is to give your honest and much appreciated opinion. Please feel free to drop me a private message to my email address [email protected].
Me and my Dad have been talking about opening up a small business since before Christmas now and for a few months we have been planning and jotting ideas down including setting up a website, blog and designing products. The shop will be called ‘The Allotment Gardener’ and we will be selling handmade and vintage items with gardeners in mind. There will be vintage items such as pots, galvanised tubs, sieves, containers, enamel ware, jugs and tools etc. We would also be crafting wooden dibbers, plant rulers, boot scrapers and tool racks as well as sewing jackets, shirts, aprons, bags and tunics.
We were simply wondering what you guys think, would you buy items like this and how much would you spend for a handmade item? We would always try to keep the cost as low as possible, taking in account the price and quality of fabric, the time it took to make etc. Here’s a few rough prices: Jackets would be £95.00, tunics and dresses £50.00, shirts £55.00, bags £19.00 upwards, Dibbers £15.00, Notebooks £15.00.
We just wanted to do a bit of market research before diving straight into making all the items, because obviously you are who we want to be making these items for and we don’t want to get it all wrong
For now though, at this precise moment I currently have 4 hessian harvesting bags for sale. I made one for myself last year and it’s proved so handy! You can harvest and carry flowers aswell as vegetables, use it as a groundsheet when pruning fruit bushes or weeding and also use it as a small log carrier. I wouldn’t be without mine so I wanted to create some more to share with everyone. They are 75cm square, have a handle on each corner and are made from superior hessian. They are £19.00 each with £3.00 postage to the UK (£4.00 EU and £5.00 Everywhere else)
The bottom three photographs feature my own bag which has been used for the past 7 months. The photograph below is a brand new, freshly made version.
If you are interested in buying one then please comment below and I will send you an email and we can proceed through Paypal. There are 4 currently for sale right now but I can always make up some more
Winter is starting to set in now and the temperatures are dipping ever so slightly (it’s been an ever so mild Winter so far hasn’t it?!) The frosty mornings and cold weather does mean one thing though, and that is soup!
I am a little addicted to making soups and never realised how easy it was to turn vegetables into such a simple and delicious meal. One of my favourite soups is leek and parsnip, it just so happens that me and my Dad are growing both of these vegetables and now is the perfect time of year for harvesting them.
Yet again I must confess that I was never a leek lover before owning my allotment, I had never tasted them before let alone grown them before! However, leeks are one of the easiest vegetables to grow not only when it comes to planting but also when it comes to looking after them. As a matter of fact they don’t need any looking after at all. They are hardy and therefore can be left out all winter, harvesting them when you need them (although this can be a tad hard when the ground has frozen!)
The variety I grew are called Musselburgh and I planted 2 rows out in July, replacing the potatoes that had already been harvested from that bed. They were ready to harvest by October and since then they have been turned into mainly soups and ham and leeks pies and I only have 8 leeks left.
After growing them for the first time ever and falling in love with their taste, I can proudly say that I am in love with leeks. It’s rather lucky I do love them as my Dad planted 6 rows of leeks at the same time as me, and he still has 5 rows left! Now I didn’t really have to grow any leeks at all but I had the spare soil left over from my potatoes and I thought why not?
And anyway, I couldn’t not grow any leeks on my plot could I?
Halloween seems so long ago already and I thought it was high time that I had a go at making some of those yummy pumpkin cakes. When I carved my pumpkin the day before halloween I kept all the pulp to one side and placed it in the fridge, the next day the poor old carved pumpkin was obsolete so I chopped him up, removed the skin and steamed the chunks with the pulp for 45 minutes. Once tender I placed all the pumpkin into a bowl and used a hand blender to create a puree. The great thing about this puree is that you can freeze it for up to 6 months and simply use it when you need it, and last night it was used to make some pumpkin cake!
The cakes are deliciously moist, perfect for having with a cup of tea. There is a very small hint of pumpkin in the taste, but I’m pretty sure they won’t last long in this house!
Ingredients:
175g of pumpkin puree
220g of dark brown soft sugar
110g of butter
135g white bread flour
1/2 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 eggs
Prep Time: 20Mins. Cook Time: 25 Mins.
Preheat oven to 180C and butter chosen loaf tin (or in my case 12 small loaf tins!). In a large bowl combine all the ingredients and mix until smooth. Spread evenly into the loaf tin and bake for around 25 minutes or until golden brown. Frost with either cream cheese or butter cream, I made some butter cream using icing sugar and butter and also mixed in a small amount of left over pumpkin puree.
Since owning my allotment I have ended up trying new foods and finding out that I do in fact like vegetables that I had previously turned my nose up at (I used to be extremely fussy!) Cabbage is one of those vegetables that I have fallen in love with and because my Dad was already set on growing white cabbages I decided to grow some red. I only planted one row of red cabbages at the beginning of the year and all 6 of them produced beautiful heads, although some are rather smaller than others. The only dilemma I have is that we are struggling to eat them and they are on the verge of rotting in all this wet weather we are having. It seems that over winter I need to thoroughly plan my allotment out, decide what to grow and be strict with succession planting.
Now because it has been so miserable and wet lately I thought I would try adding my red cabbage to a soup and I’m pleased to say that it was a great success and surprisingly very yummy! This is a very hearty soup, perfect for warming you up after working up the allotment in the cold, and it is also the perfect way to use up all those cabbages too. Enjoy!
Red Cabbage, Sausage and Haricot Bean Soup
Prep Time: 25 Minutes
Cook Time: 35 Minutes
Ingredients:
1 tin of haricot beans (or a handful of dried borlotti beans which have been soaked!)
2 tablespoons of cornflour
6 cups of vegetable stock
1lb of potatoes
2 leeks
3 garlic cloves
6 pork sausages
1/2 lb of red cabbage (half of a large head)
1/2 a cup of thick double cream
Salt and Pepper to taste
Instructions:
Heat some olive oil in a pan and add the garlic and leeks, cooking for 4 minutes and stirring often.
Fry the sausages until they brown.
In a bowl combine the corn flour with 1/2 a cup of vegetable stock until the cornflour dissolves. Pour the mixture into the pot containing the leeks and garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add the remaining vegetable stock, potatoes and the sausages into the pot. Season with salt and pepper, bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes.
Take off the heat, remove the sausages and use a hand blender to mash up the potatoes and leeks. Cut up the sausages and add back to the pot, adding the shredded red cabbage and haricot beans. Cook for 10 minutes then stir in the cream and cook for a further 5 minutes.
Happy Halloween everyone! I have never really celebrated halloween and I know that us Brits have nothing on the Americans, but this halloween is a little bit special because it’s the first time I’ve ever grown my own pumpkins. I decided to grow two small varieties simply because my allotment doesn’t have the room to accomodate a giant one. The Munchkin pumpkins were from the Sarah Raven catalogue and they climbed up my hazel archway, they were my favourite crop this year and a must for next year. The more average sized pumpkins (although still rather small!) are called Mars from Unwins, I had two plants and harvested five pumpkins. I actually harvested all my pumpkins back in the middle of September, they were incredibly early but thankfully store very well. So off I cycled up the allotment with a trailer packed full with all my homegrown pumpkins for a little halloweeny photo shoot.
To get in the spirit I decided to carve one of the pumpkins, I actually used my lino cutting tools to carve the eyes and used the stalk as the long, almost witch like nose! This also gave me the opportunity to use the pulp and the seeds which were removed from the pumpkin whilst carving. I’ll be making a puree with the pulp so I can make some pumpkin cakes, and I’ll also be roasting the seeds, nothing goes to waste in this house. When halloween is over I’ll also be using the poor carved pumpkin to make soup with!
Last but not least I thought I would share with you all my favourite and possibly the smallest pumpkin I’ve ever seen, this munchkin was the last one clinging onto the plant a few weeks ago. The plant unfortunately died back giving this little one no chance of growing, so I picked him and he’s now sitting on my desk as decoration, I can’t quite bring myself round to eating him! You’ve heard of the biggest pumpkin competition but what about the smallest?
Have a great day everyone, whether you’re trick or treating with the kids, hosting a party or simply sitting in enjoying some scary films. Happy Halloween!
I pulled up the last of the carrots at the weekend and I couldn’t contain my excitement when I noticed that two of the carrots were tangled together, I had always wanted some ‘cuddling’ carrots! Along with the cuddling carrots there were short ones, fat ones, knobbly and wonky ones, but isn’t that what growing your own carrots is all about? If I wanted ruler straight carrots then I could easily pick up a packet for 50p in a supermarket right? You just can’t beat homegrown carrots for the taste, what shop brought carrots gain in looks they certainly lack in taste thats for sure!
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to grow a super straight and perfectly looking carrot and maybe next year I will try a little harder. This year I simply sowed the seed, thinned and let them grow but I’ve heard about thoroughly digging the soil to remove any stones or rocks, and I’ve even heard about adding sand! But the one and only thing I hate most about commercial carrots is the waste. We seem to live in a society where people will only eat perfect looking veg which means all the slightly wonky and disfigured crops simply go in the bin. I for one can say how delicious my odd bunch of carrots were, looks are certainly not everything.
I’ve recently being trying out a few recipes for a little Youtube series I’ll be filming soon called ‘The Allotment Kitchen’. I love cooking and now that I’m growing my own food I’m being more adventurous with recipes and ideas and it would be great to share it with everyone. I’ve also found that theres a lack of recipes out there for allotmenteers who want to enjoy the crops that they have so lovingly looked after and cared for. I for one, love the idea of growing a something for months, taking care of it and making sure it doesn’t get eaten by slugs, to later turn it into a meal and be able to say ‘I grew that and it was delicious!’
Now I have never hidden my obssession with swiss chard from you simply because I am so in love with it and I want to spread the word! I first grew this amazing leafy vegetable last year when I first got my plot back in July 2013. It was going to be one of those crops that I could plant later in the year to fill in some empty spaces. I had never heard of it before then and I am so glad that I decided to grow it, it’s delicious and so easy to grow. For instance, last winter I left the chard alone with no cover and it kept on producing and never faltered. It is my super crop that just keeps on coming! The only down side is that it doesn’t have a long shelf life, which explains why you don’t see it in the supermarkets. You have to basically pick it when you want to eat it before it goes limp and lifeless.
One of the main recipes I use chard for is a yummy quiche, but it’s also great in omelettes and can be eaten just like spinach. Today however, I cycled off to the allotment at lunchtime to harvest some chard leaves and treated myself to a special lunchtime treat (one of the perks of working from home!)
A simple recipe but boy was it delicious, definately one for the new Youtube series! Simply boil 500g of swiss chard in some salted water for 4 minutes. Drain the water away and place on the bottom of a pie dish which has been rubbed with butter. Add a few slices of chorizo, crack 4 eggs onto the mixture and season with salt and pepper. Last but not least drizzle in 2 tablespoons of double cream and cook in a oven heated to 180C for 15 minutes.
It was officially the first day of Autumn yesterday and boy don’t we know it! I’m one of those people that get cold easily anyway, or maybe I’m just being a big wimp but it’s starting to get very cold, as a matter of fact I woke up to a thick layer of fog this morning and left the house wearing a coat and a scarf! Oh Summer I miss you already!
The allotment is also showing signs of Autumn with a few plants starting to die back. The pumpkins for instance have already been harvested and the munchkin pumpkins look a little sorry for themselves with their large wilted, brown leaves trying to cling onto my archway but failing miserably. I’ll be alittle sad to see my archway all empty and naked, maybe I’ll have to decorate it with bunting and fake flowers once the pumpkins and borlotto bean plants have all gone! The climbing french beans have also come to an end and I will have to take down the supports later this week. The tomatoes came down with blight and were removed a few weeks ago and the strawberries, gooseberries and blackcurrents have started their hibernation.
On the other hand, I am a little pleased with how my allotment looks so far. I look around at the site and see that quite a few neighbours have dug over their plots and left nothing but a blank canvas of soil. My plot on the other hand is still full to the brim with crops and flowers and I’m managing to use nearly every inch of it, if you’ve got the space then you might as well use it right? The dwarf purple french beans which I sowed back In August are starting to crop like crazy, I’ve already had 2 large harvests from them and they keep producing more perfectly shaped, purple pods by the minute. I have 4 rows of swiss chard in the old root bed and 3 rows in the fruit cage (I’m realising now I sowed too many!) and they all goot lovely and bright on these cold Autumn days. There’s also the carrots that are either still growing or being stored in the ground waiting to be eaten, and the leeks are starting to bulk up now. The brassica bed is a little weedy but very productive, the kale is ready for harvesting, the flower sprouts are growing bigger every day and I’ve already eaten one red cabbage (which was delicious!)
Fingers crossed there will be plenty more harvests to come, I’m just trying to hang onto the gardening season for a little while longer. I’m not sure what to do with myself otherwise!
