Monday, November 30

A sting in the tail?

We had a one or two bright sunny days last week. The photo below could almost fool you into believing it was summer.
Appearances are, however, deceptive as bright cloudless skies coupled with a complete lack of wind have a sting in the tail. They are followed by very cold nights and we were hit by night time frosts.

No more dahlias to cut as the plants have blackened.
On the other hand, the frost should have changed some of the starch to sugars and improved the flavour of our parsnips. We will now be able to discover whether we have any decent roots.
Despite the wintry weather, some plants are optimistically preparing for the next growing season.

The bright days are being offset by days of murk and drizzle and so we haven't been encouraged to do any work on the allotment or in the garden. We made a harvesting visit to the plot but otherwise have stayed away.
23 November - Chrysanthemums, Autumn Giant cauliflower, Flakee carrots, Sabrosa savoy cabbage and mixed leeks.
We cut the last of our four Autumn Giant cauliflowers. This time we enjoyed it 'neat' as an accompaniment to some tuna fishcakes which were made with some of our potato, onion and parsley. I forgot to take a photo.

Some of the leeks went into a chicken and leek crumble pie which was accompanied by sauteed potatoes and some of the savoy cabbage.
I made a vegetable stir fry based on this recipe.
My version used our carrots, peas, sweetcorn and French beans from the freezer and some baby spinach. Instead of serving with rice I served on a bed of egg noodles.

Although we didn't spend time outdoors gardening, we did spend some time outdoors enjoying the periods of bright weather. One afternoon was again spent at Nostell Priory.

This time there were no bright autumn colours reflected in the lake.

Most of the trees had shed their leaves
As usual Ruby enjoyed sniffing everything and ended up with a very soggy chin.
Just in case you are wondering none of the photos in the car were taken whilst we were traveling.

Next week sees England come out of the general lockdown but our area will be then placed in tier three restrictions so to be honest this will mean that we are still in lockdown mode. 

We decided to do a bit of decorating but being in the throes of a pandemic means that things are not as straightforward as normal. 
Fortunately we had the paint that we needed but, as we are still very wary of going into any shops, we have had to order some wallpaper online. This means that there will be about a fortnight's wait until the paper is delivered and I can find out whether I actually like the design that I have chosen. The room we are decorating is a small upstairs room that has generally been used to store things that we have not got around to throwing away. This has posed another problem as there is restricted access to, what is now euphemistically called, the recycling centre - previously known as the tip. This means that we can't get rid of the aforementioned rubbish. Then we need a carpet which I don't fancy ordering online as you need to feel the quality don't you? Isn't life full of frustration at the moment? Although we are lucky that all we are experiencing is some inconvenience whilst many are losing their livelihoods or worse.


As always stay safe and well

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

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. 

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

12 comments:

  1. Gosh, how much more will Ruby grow? She'll be driving the car soon.
    Yes, a few of us are finding out of season things growing in our gardens, and in the wild too.
    Your lighting in the photos of Nostell Priory grounds seem to perfectly capture the ambience of the season.
    Good luck decorating. I've had a couple of wobblies lately ordering online, things not as they appeared to be in the pictures or descriptions. So, hoping the tin of Roses coming today will be of a size to take an 8" two layer iced cake, as it's being bought for the tin, which is tin not plastic, and not for the chocolates, but they won't waste!

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    1. Ruby is now fully grown. She’s like the tardis sometimes she looks tiny ant at other times much bigger.
      Roses tins do make good cake tins so hope yours is a good size. Fingers crossed for our wallpaper!
      I’m still trying to choose a photo to have made into an acrylic print

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  2. Aah, that top photo - blue sky is so beautiful, especially as we've been living in a cloud for about a week now...
    I hope you like your wallpaper when it arrives! Your comment about the 'tip' made me laugh and we too wish they were open again as we're finding more clutter as we're both here all the time at the moment!

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    1. Our tip is open, Belinda but you have to book an appointment and you have to list everything you are taking. You are not allowed to take anything that can be stores at home which is like the term ‘essential items’ highly subjective. The seem to be encouraging fly tipping.

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  3. The roses against a blue sky and the water photos are gorgeous. Oh, rhubarb up already? Your recipes look delicious, as always, I'm enjoying experimenting with them. Ruby has me smiling, she's such a big girl now. How marvellous that you are decorating, I wish I was. Yes, it's frustrating, but as you say many have it worse, especially in third world and war torn countries.xxx

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    1. I doubt that we will bee pulling rhubarb any time soon, Dina. Ruby ha grown quickly. They don’t stay puppies long do they? You’ll have to let me now how you tweak the recipes. I always tweak.

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  4. You are keeping busy despite not being able to go around where you would like be. Love seeing those blue skies. We had our first snow yesterday. The ground was warm enough that it didn't stick. Cheers.

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    1. Snow is a possibility for us at the end of this week, Lisa which will be unusually early for us.

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  5. Despite our freezing temps lately, one of my rhubarb plants has a leaf showing, and the Brown Eyed Susans are still blooming. I always hate to see cold weather arrive but I don't mind the break from gardening.

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    1. I do like that we have seasons, Dave. I don’t mind relatively cold if it is combined with bright and sunny rather than damp and dreary.

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  6. I hope those parsnips live up to expectations Sue. I will certainly be trying that chicken and leek crumble recipe. You certainly have had colder weather than us. My dahlia leaves only blackened last night. We were in tier 3 before the lockdown but emerged to tier 2. It's not made any difference to us as like you we're keeping a low profile. As you suggest though it's more inconvenience and frustration that we are living with. At least we do not have to worry about whether we will still have a job, paying a mortgage/rent or feed and clothe growing children.

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    1. Hopefully we will find out how the parsnips have done this week, Anna. I think until we have the vaccination we will keep a low profile. So many people are really suffering at the moment, it's something you can't plan for isn't it?

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