Monday, December 9

At least we got something done

It didn't rain on Saturday and it wasn't really cold so we decided on an afternoon at the allotment to try and get a couple of jobs done.

Almost two months ago, Martyn chopped back a couple of cobnut bushes and was left with a pile of debris to sort out.
The pile was still sitting there waiting for a day when, both the weather and the pile were dry enough to make the task possible.
On Saturday, the two required elements at last aligned, so, Martyn sorted the pile into twiggy bits for pea sticks and long straight poles for bean or sweet peas supports. 
The leaves had all dropped from the branches so when the twigs were removed we were left with quite a large pile of leaves which will compost nicely.
Gales were forecast for Sunday and so the pile of leaves were covered to stop them from being scattered across the plot.
Jan, one of our plot neighbours had acquired lots of bags of leaves and he offered us some, so these too will be composted in due course.

Whilst, Martyn was busy trimming and sorting, I decided to tidy up the pear bed. Regular readers may remember that we let various plants self seed under the pear trees. The annual plants had now died down and any seeds shed so I could now  pull out all the dead plants. 
Once I had done this I found that one side of the bed was covered with moss. It was an indicator of how wet and dull the conditions have been. I scraped away the moss and removed a few weeds taking care not to disturb small plants that were already emerging.
It doesn't exactly look tidy but it's an improvement.
We also cut out a branch of one of the pear trees that was obstructing one of the paths. This tree produces more than enough pears for us so we won't miss one branch.

We didn't need lots of fresh vegetables but we gathered a small harvest.
We picked a small helping of purple sprouting broccoli which is always a treat.
We pulled a few leeks as I wanted to make a batch of Wensleydale patties which are basically a mixture of leeks, Wensleydale cheese, breadcrumbs and egg formed into a patty and coated with breadcrumbs. It's an adaptation of a Glamorgan sausage recipe.
We also needed some carrots, although were not expecting to dig up a monster, like the one pictured above. It's like four large carrots fused into one.

By the time we had finished, it was  almost four o' clock and already becoming dark, however we both felt better for having actually got some work done. It looks like this week's weather is going to prevent any more allotment activity.

We also put together a video of our afternoon which can be viewed here


12 comments:

  1. Brilliant carrot. The Wensleydale patties sound good, no leeks here at the moment but I'm making a note to give them a go.

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    1. That carrot wouldn't feature in the wonky veg display in the supermarket CJ

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  2. Cool carrots! I hope the winds didn't do any damage and your covered leaves stayed put. It was 75mph or thereabouts here for a windy while! I love Glamorgan sausages.

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    1. I don't think the winds were strong enough to cause damage other than blow things around, Deborah

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  3. Those carrots and broccoli are gorgeous. Just seeing them make my mouth water.

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  4. Those carrots look delicious! You always manage to keep busy. Sorry to hear the weather is so drab. I am surprised that you have seedlings. You asked about the cream in my lefse and it was single cream.

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    1. Thanks for the answer, Bonnie. The carrots taste much better than they look.

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  5. You certainly had a productive session Sue and what excellent use of the cobnut prunings. The Wensleydale patties sound most delicious.

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    1. The patties are tasty, Anna - we 'discovered' them at Rievaulx Abbey and so I had a go at recreating them at home. That was our last productive session!

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  6. Good that you got some jobs done, it's never really stopped raining here. I can't believe you have tulips coming through already! Goodness, that carrot!!!xxx

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    1. The carrot made a vegetable pie and a vegetable stew each for three people, Dina which was excellent to say there was quite a lot of waste and it tasted good too.

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