Monday, July 26

Another hot one

Last week was another week where it was too hot to do much on the allotment or in the garden

Ruby even had to forego her weekly visit to Nostell and her walks were restricted to the evening when the sun went in and the temperature dropped. She was not impressed!

Monday, we went to the allotment to do a bit of necessary harvesting and we decided to lift the overwintering onions. Lots of them had sent up flower stems and won't keep but, the whole point of planting onions in autumn is to provide an earlier crop to last us until the main onion harvest is ready and they should do just that.
Onions - Senshyu Yellow and radar

We noticed the first signs of blight on our Casablanca potatoes so decided to start lifting them. The Charlotte potatoes also seemed to be dying back. In this case blight wasn't the culprit rather a lack of water. We don't water our potatoes which means that they can suffer when the conditions are dry.
Left - Casablanca and right - Charlotte
The Charlotte potatoes were very small but are fine for using as salad potatoes. Martyn posted a video here. There's another video of Ruby 'helping' us empty the tubs of potatoes here.
19 July - Potatoes - Casablanca and Charlotte, Onions - Senshyu Yellow and Radar, Blueberries, Blackcurrants, Raspberries, Courgettes - Boldenice, Ambassador and Black Forest and sweet peas.

The Black Forest courgettes are supposed to climb but they seem to prefer to sprawl like the squash plants.

Wednesday evening we made a quick visit to water the greenhouse and pick more sweet peas as we don't want them to set seed.

Friday was cooler, so we paid another visit to the plot to do some more harvesting. The spring planted garlic never really seemed to get going, and the leaves were turning yellow, so I decided to lift it. I wasn't expecting much of a crop and was surprised when I needed to use a border fork to uproot the bulbs. What a surprise! Every plant had produced a good sized bulb which was nicely split into cloves with no sign of rot. Regular readers will have read that I was pleased with the harvest from the autumn planted garlic but this was even better. These are a softneck variety - Solent Wight, so will keep better than the hard necked bulbs harvested earlier.
Another job that couldn't wait was to remove the enviromesh from the second sowing of peas - it is actually the third sowing as the first lot never germinated.  Some swede, beetroot and mooli were also being protected under the mesh and so these needed some protection from the ever vigilant wood pigeons.
A chicken wire tunnel was placed over them and the peas were provided with some supports.
July 23 - Garlic - Solent Wight, Courgettes - Boldenice, Ambassador and Black Firest, Potatoes - Charlotte and Casablanca, Broad beans - de Monica, Gooseberries - Pax, Raspberries, Blueberries, Cabbage - Mozart, Sweet Peas and Dahlias,

We cut the first Mozart cabbage which had a really solid head. We now just need to hope that all the cabbages hang on and don't split before we can use them.

Martyn lifted more potatoes. The Charlottes were still very small but we have enjoyed them as salad potatoes.

Saturday, we harvested a few more things.
24 July - Calabrese - Calbrini, Courgettes - Ambassador, Carrots -  Romance and Blackcurrants

I also took a first picking from our second batch of broad beans. These were Masterpiece Green Longpod. I podded these at the plot whilst, Martyn was busy strimming and generally tidying.  On returning home they were frozen.
I also sowed more mooli. I hope that we like them, that is if they grow. A plot neighbour was intrigued by them, so I gave him the remaining seeds so that he could try them too. What's betting his grow better than ours?

Back in the garden, on Sunday, I sowed some lettuce, radishes, spring onions and spinach in some crates that we had grown early potatoes in. These are the types of crops that it is handy to have closer to hand at home.
As well as harvesting from the allotment, we also harvested one or two things from the garden and garden greenhouse.

We harvested our first ripe tomato - Tumbling Tom but didn't take a photo, as the first I knew about it was when Martyn popped half of it on my plate for lunch.

We also picked a couple of cucumbers - Pepinex from the garden greenhouse.
A pot of basil was about to flower so I cut it back and have frozen the leaves for use later. I did the same thing with the coriander that is also growing in a trough.

A third herb, growing in a large pot, is garden mint. This is picked regularly whenever we need a sprig but, last week, I picked a small bunch to add to a batch of courgette, pea and mint soup.

I made enough for the two of us to have four helpings. This has been frozen. It can be eaten as a cold soup but we prefer our soups warm.



The recipe was a mixture of ideas from these two recipes. Courgette and mint soup and Pea, courgette and mint soup. I didn't add any creme fraiche as this wouldn't freeze well. It could be added when the soup is warmed up but, having had a taste, I don't think it needs this addition.

Broccoli and some of our frozen green beans went into a stir fry loosely based on this recipe. As I didn't have any snow peas so I used frozen garden peas instead.

As you can imagine courgettes featured in last week's meals. Firstly I made a pasta dish with a vegetable ragu which was based on this recipe.
Another meal was chicken and courgette curry loosely based on this recipe. I used tikka masala paste, tinned tomato and chicken stock rather than the korma sauce. I also added lime juice and zest to the curry and not to the rice which was just cooked in chicken stock.

By the way, do you remember the battered sweet corn that we very nearly pulled up? Well here it is now.

Who would have guessed that a few weeks ago it looked dead? It is now starting to produce male and female flowers.

I had a, much overdue, hospital appointment at the eye clinic last week. Despite, the so called, Freedom Day they still had all the Covid protocols in place and I was glad about that!

As always wherever you are keep safe and well.

This week I   am once again joining in with Dave’s Harvest Monday collection of posts over at Our Happy Acres.

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

22 comments:

  1. Lovely to see you back in harvest abundance again Sue!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mmmm, you have some delicious looking dishes there, Sue and more amazing harvests including A LOT of courgettes! You’re so good at storing your harvests to make the most of them. We need a bigger freezer, but for that we’d need a bigger kitchen 😆 so will have to continue growing more directly to the table for most things. I may try freezing some soup again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have freezers in the garage, Belinda as our kitchen is very small

      Delete
  3. I liked your recipe of Courgette and mint soup Sue. Will cook it and eat cool because of hot weather.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are quite a lot of soup recipes that use courgettes, Nadezdam I may try a different one too.

      Delete
  4. Tidy little harvest there. The Broad Beans are making my mouth water. Isn't it grand when something {your garlic} turns out better than expected? Nice and cool here today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It certainly is, Deborah - It's another hot one here,

      Delete
  5. The harvesting looks to be going well. Hasn't it been hot! It seems that Ruby has found her sea legs, a lovely way for her to cool down. We're forecast rain tomorrow, it'll be the first we've seen for a long time if it materialises.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ruby is very different to Tivvy in that respect, Jo. Tivvy would walk around puddles. I hope the rain arrives we need it,

      Delete
  6. Look at your corn! Hope it yields well for you. Somehow I don't think about the UK having heat waves but so much is changing with climate everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We usually have a few hot days in summer, Sue. I think our most extended ‘heatwave’ was in 1977 so it’s nothing new. What we call a heatwave is probably cool for you. We only occasionally reach over 30C. I think our weathermen call anything over 25C for a few days a heatwave.

      Delete
  7. OOps my comment was sent before I was finished... as I was saying... I am happy that you shared the recipes. I always wonder where you get your ideas for meals. You have such fresh tasty looking produce to use.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm always browsing the internet for new recipes, Lisa which I screen grab and add the images to a database so I can find something quickly.

      Delete
  8. That's a lovely haul of root crops there, and the head of cabbage looks near perfect. It looks like a lot of courgettes too! We are supposedly used to summer heat here but I still do my work early or late in the day. I'm headed out in a minute to work at 6am while it's still a bit cooler.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The brassicas have done well this year, Dave. Much better than last year. It's cooled down here now.

      Delete
  9. Oh, the heat is relentless here too, how we need rain! Wonderful harvests! Like you I've had two fantastic garlic harvests this year, they must be enjoying the strange weather. Your tomatoes are way ahead of mine which are only just beginning to flower after such a slow start. I love that soup, must give that a whirl this week. Wonderful to see the corn thriving and to know the hospitals are being sensible.xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess by now you have got what you wished for, Dina

      Delete
  10. My Charlotte potatoes in pots are disappointing this year, like you I don’t think they have had enough water. They are an excellent potato though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Charlotte are tasty even when the crop is poor, Brian

      Delete
  11. What a comprehensive post. I love comparing notes. Spring planted garlic I will try (after disappointment with my autumn planted crop)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was a bit sceptical about planting the garlic so late, Mal but it worked so I will do this again next year.

      Delete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment - it is great to hear from you and know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted)
I am getting quite a lot of spam. It is not published and is just deleted. I have stopped sifting through it and just delete any that ends up in my spam folder in one go so I am sorry if one of your messages is deleted accidentally.
Comments to posts over five days old are all moderated.