Fantastic Sunday Dinner

Tonight we had the best meal so far from our allotment, pink fir potatoes and corn on the cob. It was the sweetest corn and the freshest I have ever tasted. We picked the corn today in the drizzle. Owen was so excited when we picked the ears - as corn on the cob is one of his favourites, and was one of the plants on his list that we must grow on the allotment.

Even Huw couldn't get enough of the kernals I picked off to give him. He was slightly grumpy when the supply ran out!

We have got enough for another meal so a reasonable harvest from so few plants. Next year I think we will be expected to grow many more sweetcorn plants if the kids have a say.

I bought some winter onions today from the allotment shop, so I hope to get some space ready to plant them out in october. October, thinking about it already it makes you shudder.

Our potatoes

Am I the only person who wishes that our weather forecasts weren't so scaremongering? Not to mention inaccurate? If I had listened I would not dare to poke my nose out of the front door. When I did, I found that it was dry. Yes, we had a couple of light showers but I managed to wash our campervan (a whole family event), then go into town for a spot of lunch and to buy new school shoes with the rest of the tardy mothers. There is nothing quite like being last minute tomorrow I better check that the trousers etc fit although if its warm I might get away with sending him in shorts on Wednesday. The new school year signals more change for us, my plan is to get very organised.

When I got back from town the severe weather warning storms that the bbc had expressed such concern about had yet to materialise. So I shot down to the allotment alone to dig up our pink fir potatoes. I dug up a whole row and have to say were pleasantly surprised with my haul. These potatoes went in exceedingly late, they had chitted for months, once planted they had been ignored I planted them deep and then intended to earth them up further but this got slightly forgotten. I must of planted them deep enough as only a couple are green. So all in all this is much better than I had hoped for.
Just as I had finished the digging up the row there was the most almighty crash of thunder, my feet separated from the ground as I jumped in fright. I hate thunderstorms so I legged it rapidly from the site, we have had a little heavy rain this evening but it didn't develop into a proper storm.

Every day the bbc forecasters warn of weather problems it seems to me they are scared that if they don't say its severe people might complain of not being warned but in fact all they are saying is that we will be having some typical British weather. What will we do if it really is severe and we are all become immune to their warnings.

Gran's Plot

There was little doing down at the patch today. I did make a 'mad' visit to water the plants. I know that it is stormy and since half past four it has been trying to rain. The little sprinkles that have fallen have dried up immediately so I couldn't rely on nature for the water. Now that I have been down to give my little green ones a drink this evening it will probably pour down.

Owen and I got the brussel plants in on tuesday but it was such a stressful visit I think I will avoid going with both kids on my own for a little while, I was shattered and we were barely there for an hour. I have surrounded the plants (not kids) with a mix of bran and slug pellets and it seems to be OK when I looked this evening. They have been planted in the major danger zone where the butternut squash and celeriac were devoured. Good luck to them I say.

I had promised a little post on our visit to grans allotment in Wales. So here goes. Despite her woes about this being a poor year due to the cool and wet welsh weather, I thought it looked great. There was a carpet of small windfall apples under the tree. Gran cut flowers for the house while we were there and it made me think I must grow more flowers on the patch next year. I am definitely going to try for more sunflowers as I recently passed a florist where they were charging three pound a stem.

Grans weeds were definitely well in control compared to our patch and I could feel allotment jealousy setting in.

The main task we had been roped in to help with was to harvest some potatoes. Owen absolutely loved this, it was probably a great thing to do as he can now see why we want to grow things, the yield from their plants was good. about a bucket full from a short row. (Grandad couldn't tell me what variety we were harvesting as apparently there was some sort of labelling cock up at the chitting stage).


We returned for lunch after our harvesting and Owen was amazed that he was eating the potatoes he had just collected. He also had the one and only welsh strawberry on gran's plot.


Even better we got given a bucket full of spuds to bring back home, maybe we don't need to grow our own we just need to visit gran weekly. Getting a bucket in to the boot with all the baby stuff and toys was challenging but we weren't going to leave them behind as I suspect that our harvest won't be so good.

Another thing I noticed is that Huw's allotment phobia is not just reserved for the green patch but any allotment he finds himself to be parked in especially upon waking. I'm sure he will be talking to a shrink about my effect on his ability to stand in vegetable gardens in years to come, " I just feel I need to scream when close to a courgette plant, why do you think this is doctor?"

Trug buggy

I mentally braced myself and we all went down to the patch yesterday evening after tea. With the heat of the day I thought it best to disregard the kids normal bedtimes, a family walk would do us all good.

Well things were not so bad.

Positives

• sweetcorn and leeks are doing well
  
• courgettes are flowering
• recently sown chard and beetroot are now little seedlings
• I have a little green tomato on some flowers on my plant (although it does not appear to be living up to its big boy name)

Negatives:

• kale and khol rabi seeds don't seem to be doing much germination
• my foot tall sunflower seedling (the last one standing from the intrafamily competition) has been taken out. So do we have lumberjack slugs? It appeared to have been felled then eaten. If its rabbits there is little other evidence of their activity
  
• Cabbage are still their but do look a little ropey. So are down for some TLC this week.
• a notice has appeared on the site about security and recent thefts of produce

We also managed to harvest some chard, some beetroot and few more broad bean pods. As I was expecting little from the visit I hadn't thought to bring anything to collect things in. So I balenced them on the buggy roof until I remembered Owen had a sand bucket in the storage box which I could use to walk them home.

What needs doing this week ( I don't know if I should post a list again but hear goes)

• plant out purple spouting brocoli and brussel sprout plants. I had to buy these yesterday to replace the ones I had grown from seed that I then killed through neglect, this last hot weekend amounted to the final nail in their coffin
• dig up the potatoes
• clear the onions
• sow another row of pak choi
• strim the weeds

With Owen for some holiday fun, another job that needs doing is to repair Scott the scarecrow and make a friend for him. We can then enter the site scarecrow competition, as we did not manage to do the marrow growing for the marrowthon.

Harvest

As you may have guessed we have been away for a few days. With the start of the school holidays a visit to the grandparents in Wales was in order. We had a great time and visited their allotment (more of that in a later post I think). Before we went I managed to collect a bumper harvest from our plot, yes we got three broad bean pods. We podded them and got about seven good broadbeans. I took the fruits of my toil to my mums in a sort of proud yet in a kind of sad way. Owen had fun opening the pods and of course there weren't enough of them to get bored with doing it. The only thing I can say is they tasted very good, they were a red variety (red epicure) I will grow them again next year. I also plan to put in a different over winter variety as well to try to get a good harvest.

Now that we are back I need to go to the plot today but I don't know if I can bear to go, the lovely hot weather has probably toasted the little greenary that the slugs haven't munched.