Honestly the only good thing that can be said about last week was that no-one died. It’s been a week full of petty annoyance. I got knocked off my feet by a guy not looking were he was going, a guy was rude to me because I didn’t get off the pavement to make way for his kid on a bike, there was a power cut at home on Friday morning. Petty annoyance made worse by me, I was tired, it was the beginning of migraine fortnight and I still have the cough that will not die and I’m a bit worried about this being a repeat of 2014’s horror where I essentially had a cold with coughing for three months. Anyway, aside from that, it was busy, not the week, apart from usual stuff you know the full time job and having to be there all day, the work week was pretty normal, the weekend was busy. Knowing it was going to be non-stop, I took Wednesday off to sort things out. Which was partially successful.
Ma came to stay on Friday night so we could get to grip with the weeds on the plot although I think she just wanted to eat pizza! However, it didn’t quite work like that, Saturday was a busy, there was cake drop off, a meeting at Pathways to look at the development proposal, and much chatting. We did get some general allotment work and devising a way to deter the foxes that are intent on digging up my garlic but not quite as much as planned.
Sunday morning dawned stupidly early so I could go and hand out water to runners in the Ealing Half Marathon.
I did less handing out and more cleaning up but it was good fun and all finished around 12-ish. In the afternoon, there was a special general meeting of the allotment society to discuss a response to the Pathways plans. The room was packed and it was busy, productive but busy!
My response to the weekend was pretty much this….
I also get produce and the lesson I’ve learnt about produce is that courgette plants just keep going. We are in the middle of September and the plants just keep producing, last time I looked we had 15 tiny courgettes, seems like the only thing that will stop them will be winter! So I saw 
It’s going to be one of those useful sauces when the produce dries up. I’ve already used some stirred through rice and roasted tomatoes.
I made it again but this time, I cooked the onions and carrots together, then the courgettes and stuck them with drained tinned tomatoes into the slow cooker and I cooked it on high for 2 days. It looked and tasted the same as the first batch and I’ll probably do it again this week to use up the monster courgette that we somehow missed until the weekend (it’s more of a marrow than a courgette and it doesn’t even fit in the fridge!)
It makes a huge difference to the plot which doesn’t feel so cut up now, there still isn’t a clear barrier between my half and Joe’s but we’ve managed so far and we are going to put raised beds there so it shouldn’t be a problem.
Ma did valiant work on the raspberries and they got another layer of compost. The bind weed and couch grass are perennial and the only way to win will be constant weeding, although I am considering planting mexican marigold down the middle as their roots apparently kill the bindweek and couch roots. In fact I’m considering planting it everywhere to help get the weeds under control!
Look at how tiny those sage and rosemary plants were in May
