Monday, September 21

When twenty really means sixty

As there was an improvement in the weather, we decided to have a couple of days out last week. We are sticking to wide open-air spaces. We are members of the National Trust and so far they seem to have protocols in place to ensure visits are as safe as possible. It does mean that booking an arrival date and time is required but, as members, entry to NT locations is free of charge so if the weather turns out to be poor we can just stay at home.

Fortunately, Ruby loves riding in the car spending most of the time eagerly looking out of the window but she does settle down on longer journeys.
Monday's visit was to Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Gardens.
On Tuesday we paid another visit to Clumber Park. This time we explored the far side of the lake. Despite our numerous previous visits, it's a new part of the park for us.

We all had plenty of exercise and some of us were  very tired when we arrived home.
The week before last, we planted some over wintering onion sets and cloves of garlic. I bemoaned the fact that garlic doesn't do well for us but at least it is off to a good start and has already started to shoot.
The question is will decent bulbs form underground? Only time will give us an answer to that question but it seems a good start.

Earlier in the year, Martyn saw an advert for overwintering onion plantlets. We've always grown our onions from sets so we decided to give this way of starting onions a go and compare the results to those grown from sets. The plantlets arrived last week. We ordered twenty onions of a variety called Element.  The onions arrived in a clump. Immediately it was apparent that there were far more than twenty onions.
I carefully teased the plantlets apart counting them as I did so. I counted over sixty so we planted four rows each containing fifteen plants.
In order to give them a good start, the onions were planted on shallow trenches of multipurpose compost.
Having already carried out major harvests of apples, potatoes and sweet corn, all of which are now in storage for use until we have new supplies next year, our latest harvests have been more modest.
17 September - raspberries, tomatoes, cranberries
We planted some San Marzano tomatoes specially to cook with and make tomato sauce but unfortunately many of the plants, along with other varieties succumbed to blight. This year blight even affected tomatoes growing in the garden which is usually a blight free zone.
We have two cranberry plants in tubs outside our plot greenhouse. Strangely, one always seems to fruit better than the other. Berries were starting to fall off so I picked those that seemed ripe enough. It's a bit like picking apples as the berries that are ready want to easily drop into my hand.
With the weather due to change we spent the weekend, weeding and tidying any empty beds that, Martyn then cultivated.
It was very satisfying to get this work done as last year we didn't manage any winter preparations. The weather turned very wet transforming, in a matter of days, what had been soil too dry to dig into too wet to dig. It made for a rather frantic spring.
19 September - blackberries, raspberries, runner beans, flowers, an overlooked onion. some green tomatoes
Of course we made sure that we left some time for a little harvesting.
20 September - carrots, cabbage, courgettes, rhubarb chard, French beans, raspberries, flowers

The rhubarb chard, French beans, some of the courgettes and some carrots were used in a turkey stir fry
Some other dishes the vegetables that we picked last week were used in were:

This dish was based on this recipe

I based this dish on this recipe.

Some of the runner beans were also used in a chicken and green bean curry.

Finally - will this be the last vase of flowers we pick from the allotment this year?


As always 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

22 comments:

  1. Your industry is phenomenal. Were they sold as bunching onions? Last time we were at Fountains there were Easter egg hunts organised for youngsters. Did you walk the water garden circuit of Studley Royal? Your San Marzano tomatoes look great. There are a few at the school garden but they are not at all ripe. Looks like green tomato chutney is on the menu.

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    1. They were sold as large Japanese onions, Mal. We did complete the circuit of the lake and up the wooded loop to the monuments. We’ll be growing San Marzano again next year to see how it fares in, hopefully, a better summer. Are you still able to garden with the children?

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  2. How lovely to see Ruby, she's absolutely adorable. I wouldn't be surprised if you have lots more flowers, they are still going strong here. You've reminded me that I want to give growing cranberries a go, your harvest looks really good. Have you ever tried Ferline tomatoes? I grow them every year because they have some blight resistance.

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    1. No we haven’t grown Ferline, CJ. I really wanted a plum variety for cooking with. Ruby isn’t as adorable when play biting ot stealing socks 🤨

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  3. I think our winters are too cold to overwinter onions outside, but I have sown some seed for scallions to grow in the winter greenhouse. I've never tried this in winter so it's another experiment for me. I will say those onion plants look better than those I used to order which usually arrived half dried out.

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    1. The onion plants were very wet I’d anything, Dave. We gardeners like to experiment don’t we?

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  4. Makes such a change to get so many more than you bought! Here's to all of them being a successful 2021 crop. Ruby is certainly quite the little traveller now.

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  5. It does, Deborah. Let’s hope 2021 is a good year all round. Ruby is always so interested in everything, she gets so excited.

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  6. Your Ruby is a pretty dog, Sue. Of course she was tied.
    Love your vase of flowers!

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    1. She does attract a lot of attention, Nadezda

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  7. Miss Ruby is going to be a well traveled dog. All of those new scents and scenes, I can imagine how tired she was. Fun times.

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    1. She is indeed, Lisa. Outings are being restricted to dog friendly locations

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  8. Yes, gardening is about experimentation. Keeps us interested and challenged. Oh that lovely bouquet at the close.

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    1. It does, Sue repetition can become boring

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  9. Oh that must have made for a couple of grand days out Sue. I would really love to visit Fountains Abbey. Your garlic seems to have come through in the blink of an eyelid. If that should be your last vase of flowers this year it is a fabulous note to go out on.

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    1. I was surprised to see the garlic shooting so quickly Anna. There were no signs of shoots on the cloves that I planted.

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  10. Ruby is gorgeous! What lovely days out, I'm trying to stick to ope air only outings. Shame about the blight, my tomatoes haven't been great this year, I've pulled them all now, I'll be interested seeing how the onions fare. Your harvests are wonderful as usual and I love those recipes.xxx

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    1. We ell (Martyn, my sister and I) had our hair cut yesterday wearing masks. The hairdresser comes to the house so no sitting in salons. She also only visits one house during the day and only does s few people now.

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  11. Such beautiful produce! I used to have a large backyard garden, but we retired it about 8 years ago. Then I joined a CSA- now I just buy organic on the weekends at the farmer's market. There is nothing like locally grown!

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    1. Hi Judee - good to 'meet' you, I popped over to look at your blog and will be back for a better browse especially for the quinoa recipes and tips.

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  12. Ah great to see you getting out, Sue. As yet we haven't ventured into gardens here. We had one trip out to a woodland/beach on a quiet Monday recently. Despite cars in the car park, we met very few people. It was a gloriously warm day too. We've enjoyed a few visits to Studley Royal & Fountains Abbey over the years. Ruby would have really enjoyed the open space there.

    I so admire your produce Sue, I know I've said this many times. I do hope that's not the last bunch of fresh flowers from your 2020 crop. What vibrant colours they are. Haha to your onion purchase, that's a bonus right enough. Good job you have space for it. Yes, it must be nice having the time to get your plot as you want it at this time of year, without the rush of unexpected weather etc.

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    1. If all the onions grow it will be a good job that we use lots, Shirley, Ruby had to be kept on a short lead so couldn't tale full advantage of the open spaces but she was happy sniffing new scents and listening to new sounds. She's a very curious/nosy dog.

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