Little splashes of colour

My blog posts are becoming rather repetitive so I thought that I would start with something a bit different, On Sunday it was bitterly cold at the allotment and, as I can't see them hanging on for much longer, I thought that I would take some photos of the flowers that are still braving the wintry conditions.

The roses were still producing flowers and even had new buds.

The statice were also producing clusters of papery flowers.

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The calendula and cosmos are occupying a bed that I should be clearing but I really didn’t want to discard the plants whilst they were still trying their best to deliver a shot of colour into what is otherwise dull scene.

Strawberry flowers are still setting fruit but the berries go mouldy before they manage to ripen. Taking the strawberries indoors to finish ripening no longer works as the fruit still goes mouldy before it ripens.

Now for the repetitive stuff! We had three afternoons at the allotment and did more clearing and tidying. We are really quite pleased with how much we have managed to complete. We are much further ahead than we were at this time last year. However, there's still lots to keep us busy if the weather allows.

The sweetcorn has been dug up consigned to the compost heap.

We had planted potatoes in an old strawberry bed. After having housed strawberry plants for a few years the ground was fairly compacted and the potatoes were planted to break down the soil. We have already lots of potatoes in storage and didn't expect a crop from that bed but we did harvest a bucketful of decent Apache tubers. As Martyn lifted the potatoes, I cleared as much bindweed and couch grass as I could. We ended up with a wheelbarrow full but I am sure there will be lots of new growth shooting up next year. Bindweed and couch grass are horrendously difficult to eradicate. The potatoes have done their job and the soil is now really workable.

The overwintering onion and garlic will have perhaps stopped growing now until the weather warms up next spring. There were a few weeds springing up amongst the young plants so these were pulled out.

Martyn, trimmed the apple hedge to restrict its height and spread. We actually treat it like a hedge rather than pruning in the recommended fashion but it doesn't seem to affect fruiting.

As well as the unexpected bucket of potatoes we also harvested a bunch of leeks. This time the variety was Porbello.

We brought home a couple of cabbages too.

Cabbage - Cabbice and Savoy - Cordessa

Last week, we cut into the first of our Crown Prince squashes. Maybe hacked into it would be a better description as they have really tough skins.

Some of the squash was used in a curry, along with one of our onions. It was based on this recipe. The rest of the squash was frozen for use later. I find once the squash is frozen the flesh becomes softer and takes less time to cook.

I used some of the leeks to make Wensleydale patties. These are really a Yorkshire version of Glamorgan sausages. I use Wensleydale cheese and shape them like fishcakes instead of using Caerphilly cheese and forming into sausage shapes. They were served with some of our potatoes sautéed and a mix of our frozen peas, sweetcorn and French beans. Some patties were frozen to provide a quick meal at a later date.

More leeks were used in a chicken pilaf. I also used some of our carrots in this along with some bought mushrooms. I alter the proportion of rice to the other ingredients as we prefer the rice to be less dominant.

In other news, Ruby was taken on her usual walks but wasn't too keen on the shower that she had to suffer after her walk around Nostell. Her feet were filthy and she would have got away with a footbath but she was due to be groomed the day after so the full works was required.

Martyn and I had our flu jabs which I am pleased to say were a lot less hassle than the Covid boosters.  We were back home before the time that out appointments were due.

That's all for this week, I hope everyone is still keeping safe and well. Take care!

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