A sort of lockdown

Well it’s happened! Here in England we are all being subjected to another lockdown. With the dreary weather, I think that this month is likely to drag. 

Last lockdown we had better weather so we could cheer ourselves by spending lots of time at the allotment. (Just an interesting aside - the predictive text on my iPad picks up on lockdown after I have typed the letter’c’. A sign of the times that we are living through). 

If I’m honest lockdown hasn’t turned out as badly for us as expected. Our bathroom fitter was allowed to work so now at last our bathroom is finished. It’s taken about 15 months due to some very complex shenanigans but finally we managed to end up with an excellent and reliable person to finish the job that was started by his polar opposite!

National Trust and RHS properties are allowed to remain open so weather permitting we can still visit them. 

For some reason the Yorkshire Wildlife Park has had to close despite having set up the same protocols and the fact that not one case of Covid has been traced back to them whereas some Covid hot spots remain open. It doesn’t seem right when they need revenue so they can care for the animals. Whilst it has been closed they welcomed a new polar bear from Scotland but sadly two other polar bears have left for France.

Au revoir Nissan and Pixel

The park is a sort of finishing school for male polar bears. Young bears spend their youth there and then go off to mate when they reach breeding age. It’s all part of an international breeding programme. The park also takes older males that have retired from the programme.

As the previous week, there has not been much allotment activity. We made just one visit to the plot, on a misty Sunday afternoon. It was a quick visit in order to harvest a few vegetables.

8 November  Autumn Giant cauliflower, Flakee carrots, Luz de Otono broad beans and flowers

We use a lot of carrots and their bed is emptying quickly but at least, unlike last year, we have had a carrot harvest. Maybe next year we need to grow more.

You may remember that last August we planted some very late broad beans. We had a complete crop failure of the two batches of broad beans planted earlier and, Martyn spotted an advert for some broad bean plants that it was claimed would produce a harvest in November. When we planted them we weren't very impressed by the plants and didn't expect much from them. The plants rallied and produced some flowers but as yet not many beans have developed. We managed a very small picking on Sunday but don't expect many more. Maybe if late summer and early autumn had been more plant friendly they would have been more successful.

One successful planting has been some Autumn Giant cauliflowers. We planted just four as an experiment. All four have produced good heads and, what’s even better, the four have produced heads at different stages. We cut one the previous week and another last week. The other two look as though they will follow on for the next couple of weeks.

I also harvested a batch of coriander which was in the freezer before I remembered to take a photo.

So how were some of our vegetables enjoyed last week. Two meals that used lots of our vegetables were Cauliflower and Lentil curry which included our cauliflower, carrots, onion and French beans. This was accompanied by, Martyn’s homemade naans.

Our cabbage, onion, carrots and parsley went into a cabbage lasagne which uses layers of cabbage rather than pasta. I used minced turkey as we don’t eat red meat.

Each week, I think I have cut the last bunch of flowers but they were still hanging on last week.

Ruby was ten months old on Sunday and last week she had her first experience of fireworks. For the first couple of days, she wasn't at all happy. It didn't help that the first loud bang occurred when she had popped out for a comfort break - it was still light at the time so should have been safe. She is very aware of sounds and likes to know just where they are coming from and what is making them.

As the week went on she seemed to take the bangs more in her stride and bark at them rather than be frightened by them. She obviously decided to fight back.

Does anyone else remember when fireworks were only allowed on November 5, unless it fell on a Sunday when you could choose to have fireworks on the Saturday or Monday? I also seem to remember that they could only be set off up until a certain time and that was when there were less bangs and more coloured stars. How times change!

As always stay safe and well

As usual, I'm linking to Harvest Monday on Dave's blog

Our Happy Acres,

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