A week of beginnings and endings

It seems that the allotment is no sooner fully planted than beds start to become empty again.  Other than some essential maintenance, which would make for very boring photographs, we are spending most of our time, on the plot, harvesting. It's good to head home with a boot full of goodies. Not as welcome are the bites suffered when picking crops. Despite being well covered up, unfriendly creatures find their way into even the most difficult to reach places and leave itchy bumps that drive us to distraction. 

The blueberries and summer raspberries are almost coming to an end but on each visit there still are a few ripe berries to pick.

2 August - Blueberries, Raspberries, Courgettes - Ambassador, Boldenice & Black Forest, Broad beans - Masterpiece Green Longpod, Cabbage - Mozart and Peas - Onward,

We pulled our first lot of peas which are swelling nicely. Thanks to the recent rains, I haven't needed to water which I thought was on the cards earlier.

The last lot of our second batch of broad beans were also pulled. I podded these at the allotment so on arriving home they were popped straight into the freezer. That bed is now ready to be cleared.

The broad beans have done well this year. Last year we had a broad bean crop failure.

5 August - Cauliflower - Zaragosa, Climbing French Beans  - Cobra & Golden Gate, Calabrese - Calabrini, Cabbage - Cabbice, Blackberries - Loch Ness - Tomatoes - Sungold, Carrots - Romance, Courgettes - Ambassador, Boldenice & Black Forest, Peas - Onward, Potatoes - Apache and Sweet Peas

As well as picking tomatoes from the allotment, we are also picking a few from the garden.

2 August - Tomatoes - Tumbler, Watercress from the garden pond and garden Mint

Years ago, we planted a row of cordon apples and pears along one of the boundaries in our garden. Eventually these grew out of control so we cut them down. Sneakily, hidden behind our greenhouse, a couple of the apples and a Conference pear regrew.  Now they have assumed tree-like proportions and provide us, and some of our neighbours, with fruit. We're not sure which variety of apples survived but, Martyn started picking some last week ,which we think are Bramleys, although this variety usually needs two other apple varieties to pollinate it. We do have a couple of crab apple trees. I wonder whether these would act as pollinators?

We picked the first ripe berries from the Loch Ness blackberry. Being thornless, it's a gardener friendly variety.

The climbing French beans are just beginning to crop. They are ahead of the runner beans which are now starting to set pods. We are usually overwhelmed by our bean harvest so have planted fewer plants this year.

Last year, we grew the carrot variety Romance for the first time and were impressed by them so we have grown the variety again this year. So far they haven't disappointed. Despite not having been thinned out the seedlings, the roots are a decent size and not very wonky.  What's more important is the taste is very carrotty.

7 August - Potatoes - Apache & Osprey, Raspberries, Blueberries, Climbing French Beans - Cobra & Golden Gate,  Courgettes - Ambassador, Boldenice and Black Forest, Cauliflower - Zaragosa, Peas - Onward, Tomatoes - Sungold, Sweet Peas and Dahlias,

After having lifted a root earlier in the week, Martyn decided to lift a row of our Apache potatoes. He posted a video here. They share a bed with another variety, Osprey and as this bed is earmarked for overwintering onions, it was ready for clearing.

A few Osprey tubers had strayed into Apache territory. The colouring on the Apaches is very distinctive so it was easy to spot the intruders. Hopefully when the rows of Osprey are uncovered there will be plenty more.

I usually like to plan our week's menu in advance but, with vegetable readiness being unpredictable, I now have to prepare for a few different options in order to cater for whatever vegetables we have ready to use.

Last week, I included our onions, carrots, courgettes and parsley in a pasta dish based on this recipe.

Some of our potatoes, cabbage, onion and garlic went into a spicy cabbage stir fry based on this recipe.

Another meal, that used our cauliflower, garlic, onion, potato, peas, green beans and coriander, was a quinoa biryani based on this recipe. I always use stock in recipes that call for water. I also sneaked a courgette in. The name of the dish is deceptive as you would expect a type of curry but it was much less spicy.

I used some of our blueberries in a batch of blueberry muffins.

I also made some rustic looking tarts using some of our onion and courgette to which I added a few mushrooms before coating with a cheese, egg and yoghurt custard.

Finally, it's not all about the vegetables on our allotment. As well as growing flowers for cutting, we grow flowers for the insects. We enjoy looking at them as well.

We have a bed of annual flowers which is just starting to look pretty, It includes, calendulas, cornflowers, poppies, godetias, scabious, cosmos and nigella.

Elsewhere we have dwarf sunflowers. These manage to keep their heads down when the winds blow so they hang on to their smiley faces.

Along one edge of our plot we have a row of buddleias which are a bit late to flower this year. 

At the moment they smell lovely and the bees have homed in on them. 

They are usually a magnet to butterflies but, so far, I've only spotted one tortoiseshell butterfly showing any interest and I wasn't quick enough to capture it on camera.  Maybe, if the rain and wind ceases they will come flocking in. I hope so - what's the use of calling something a butterfly bush if there are no butterflies to enjoy it.

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