A Corny week

Last week we decided to risk a visit to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park. As regular readers will know, this was one of our frequent haunts before Covid 19 disrupted our lives. We were aware of all the protocols that the park had in place, but decided that if we felt we unsafe when we arrived at our designated arrival time, we would just come straight back home. In the event, we stayed for the afternoon, after having eaten some sandwiches in the car as we still didn't feel able to brave the restaurant. YWP were in the process of major extension work before having to close to visitors so much had changed since our last visit and we managed to see some of the less elusive newcomers. Martyn has posted a video of some of the animals we saw.

I had another less welcome visit last week, as my dentist rang to ask me to attend a long overdue appointment. On arrival it was like breaking into a high security establishment. I had to wear a mask and telephone to ask to be let in. At the door I had to sanitise my hands and was then asked, again, all the questions that I had preciously been asked over the phone. My temperature was then taken and I was escorted to the treatment room where the staff wore full PPE complete with visors. Before leaving, I had to replace my mask and sanitise my hands again before being escorted out of the premises via the back door. Once I was out all the door handles were disinfected. What a strange world we all live in at the moment.

At the allotment, other than continuing to gather in harvests and carry out pre-winter clearing and tidying, I planted out the last of our over wintering brassicas. In one bed I planted cabbage - Tundra, cauliflower - Amsterdam and broccoli - Rudolph.

I filled up another brassica bed with a batch of kale - Reflex.    

Before heading home we were kept busy collecting our harvest, the most important task of all!

31 August  - apples, raspberries, plums, carrots, cabbage, peas. lettuce, dahlias, sweet corn

With lots of apples falling, we decided to pick those that were ready. Martyn, picked a bucketful, of what we think are Discovery, from the apple hedge.

Meanwhile, I picked a bucketful of Bramley apples. The Bramley 'tree' is quite tiny and so I was pleased with the amount of fruit it had produced.

A major harvest, last week, was that of one of our sweetcorn beds. The variety,  Earlibird, had produced 30 cobs from 18 plants. As last year we didn't manage to produce a single cob, we were delighted with this haul. What's more, we have a second later bed still to harvest. The sweet corn was brought straight back home where we stripped off the kernels, bagged them and popped them straight into the freezer.

Some of the cabbage and carrots that we harvested were used in an Ethiopian Cabbage dish. I can't find the link to the original recipe that I based the dish on but there are many variations on the Internet. It's basically a spicy mix of cabbage, carrots, potato, sweet pepper and tomato.

More of the cabbage went into what should have been a Chicken Stir Fry with Pineapple and Cabbage but when I looked in the pantry, I hadn't any pineapple so I used some apples instead which seemed to work out OK. No photo I'm afraid.

3 September - blackberries, raspberries, pears, courgettes,peas, climbing French and runner beans, carrots, tomatoes

We have a Red Williams pear tree. To be more accurate it's more of a branch than a tree. It rarely puts on any growth and usually only manages to produce a few leaves, however, it still produces a few pears. As these were also beginning to fall off the tree we picked them. They were not quite ready to eat, but a couple of days later were perfect. As with most pears they complete their ripening off the tree.

Some of the carrots picked last week, went into a Penne Pasta and Tomato Bake dish. Although the recipe doesn't call for it, I also added a small yellow courgette, as I often do at this time of year. I used vegetable stock instead of water as was specified  in the recipe and didn't blitz the sauce as we prefer it more chunky.

Finally, Ruby had a visit from her hairdresser.

Stay safe and healthy

This week I am linking to harvest Monday hosted on 

Dave's blog Our Happy Acres

You don't have to have your own blog in order to join in conversations. It may seem that everyone who comments knows one another but bloggers always welcome new commenters, after all that is how we all started. 

PS: It's not just our gardens that suffer from blight. Martyn and I are currently suffering from an influx of blog blight. It seems that it is the season of the spammer. One in particular is persistently targeting our and what appears to be lots of other people's blogs. Most are sent to the spam or moderation folders as we moderate comments on posts over five days old. These spam comments are deleted and never see the light of day but unfortunately some do sneak through. I apologise for any that sneak through and end up being emailed to those who subscribe to comments, Please do not click on any links in spam comments which gives these nuisances satisfaction and encouragement. They can track where click throughs originate from and will target a blog even more if they think that this is causing more people to visit their site.

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett