We’ve not spend a lot of time on the plot for the past couple of weeks. The weather has been weird, I’ve been busy, Ma’s knee has been playing up.
The allotment feels like it’s been more productive in the last four weeks, than it’s been all summer.
September haul
We are still getting a couple of strawberries, the raspberries are producing, the summer squash and courgettes had a resurgence. The autumn crops are also starting (and finishing) cauliflowers grew and are done (next year, I’ll probably end up freezing some, this year they went into soup!), the cabbages, kale, chard and broccoli are producing. And we are getting turnips, which are much nicer than we expected!
October haul
Last week I also called time for the winter squash, back in June I was thinking that I might not get any winter squash, there were nine, and two little ones I’ve left and will pick up this week. It’s not a patch on last year’s haul but I’ll take it!
Winter Squash
There is always work to do and we won’t get to any of it until the week after next but the main things to get done in October are:
Build a polytunnel
Repot the blueberries
Sow garlic
Sow onions
Sow broad beans
Weeding and tidying up
October is the time when lots of allotmenteers stop for the winter. That has never been how we do it and why we have always tried to have food plants to overwinter. Winter is time to get the structure of the plot sorted, we do less work but we still work. I’m hoping that this is the last year we’ll need to work too much on the structure, there’s the poly, replacing some of the beds and hopefully the last year of moving fruit bushes and roses. Then I would like at least a couple of years of calm and just gardening (famous last words!)
People, last week was wildly busy. In fact the last couple of weeks have been pretty busy and I have a case of Autumn coming on. Which is why posting has been scanty this for the last couple of weeks!
I worked from home on Monday and that was pretty intense but gave me a chance to do some stuff at home, which was great because then it felt that all I did at home from then was eat, wash and sleep. I did a couple of 12 hour work days and I don’t enjoy leaving the house in the dark and coming home in the dark!
Tube at 7am
However, I think the planning day went well, the highlight of my day was buying 20 sandwiches from Pret! Then on Friday, the whole team spent a day on Black Down helping preserve the heath. Which was lovely and we got really lucky with the weather.
View
From there I went to see Christelle and Mike (and the dogs!), it was a most unusual night for us because I couldn’t drink (too much drinking at the team dinner the night before, not enough sleep all week and menopause = a Nic that could not drink!) but it was another late night.
Cute puppy
On Saturday, I went home and stayed there because the weather was filthy. I was also in bed by 9pm because I was done.
On Sunday, I went to the plot, to do not much work but to collect vegetables.
Winter squash
Followed by a long bus journey to see Ma and offload some veg!
This week (ok it’s late Tuesday, two days are gone already!), I have loads of work and a trip to Southampton tomorrow. I also need to pack for holiday. That (and as much sleep as I can manage) is the plan for this week.
There was no miscellany last week because the week before wasn’t a great week, I had a migraine on Monday night, Tuesday morning, Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday late evening. They’ve been getting worse and are the reason that I finally decided to get HRT. But you can’t start the HRT until you have a period. Look I’m aware that all of this stuff might be difficult to read, but talking about menopause needs to be normal. I knew about it, but no one really talked about it, even Ma just carried on through it and we need to talk about it because it’s horrible and it shouldn’t be secret. Women can’t be prepared if no one ever talks about it!
All that to say that said period arrived last weekend and I’ve now started HRT, which can take up to three months to kick in and thank goodness, I’m going to save you the gory details but I had to change the bed four times last week (I’ve only just caught up with the laundry). I cancelled going to Christelle’s because it’s hard enough to deal with this in my own house without the fear of destroying someone else’s bedding.
So this week was quite and I was a space cadet. One of the godchildren came to see me on Tuesday and had a positive COVID test on Wednesday. So I’ve mostly been at home. I’ve been testing negative and it had better stay that way because I a really busy week next week and have to be in the office for a lot of it.
In happier news, I have three weeks until my holiday. Yes, we’re going to Amble again, no I don’t get bored of it, it’s sea and sky and castles and space and it’s beautiful, even when the weather is terrible and it’s raining.
There had better be enough petrol!
This week is going to go fast, so I’m just going to try and keep up..
The classic recipe I can never get right. This used to be me, the secret is to show it no fear and I get it right 90% of the time nowadays. I did find that changing to whole milk helped a lot in my hit rate. For the thing I really have never mastered, step up Key Lime Pie, Jo has mercifully stopped sending me recipes for it but maybe it’s time to try again.
This time of year is tricky. Summer isn’t precisely over yet, if you have tomatoes unblighted, they are probably producing, the summer squash isn’t over quite yet and there is kale, chard and raspberries starting to ramp up production.
Last week we had amazing summer like weather and the cucumbers and squash rewarded us with production (seven cukes, six straightnecks and two round courgettes). There were a handful of beans and the last of one carrot bed. I had a tidy up of the kale bed, so we had about 800 grams of that.
The jasmine is settling nicely
After some produce collection, Ma and I got the nets on the cauliflower and kale raised as they were in danger of being cramped!
more breathing room
Then we spent some time on tidy up. Weeding and clearing some of the self seeded area. As I said September is tricky, things are slowing down, having done an entire summer of gardening, there are new ideas about how to change the garden for next year. We always do the major changes in winter but we can’t start quite yet.
Our working plan is that sometime after our holiday, my lovely friends will come and help me sort out building a polytunnel. After that, we’ll start moving some plants and building six new beds plus another in the poly.
We’ll also need to harvest sweet potatoes and winter squash, and plant onions and garlic and sow broad beans and maybe winter peas. There is always something to do. But we can’t do any of it yet.
So I guess it’s just time to enjoy the garden and weed!
Last week was extremely social for me, I’m for sure going to spend some time this week alone and not talking to anyone because I’m feeling slightly crazed…
Part of that is because of the ongoing new neighbours shenanigans, on Friday I had to go next door and point out that they really can’t be knocking a fire place out on a party wall without a party wall agreement and then frantically contacting my landlord and the landlord for downstairs (they used to be my neighbours so they are friends too) so we could get it sorted out. The roof and chimney next door are not in a great state so knocking out a load bearing wall is not very safe and I’m allergic to the idea of it falling on my head or losing my living room wall because of cowboy builders! While I was at it, I also had a talk to downstairs about the ongoing situation with the bins. I hate to do it but its the tiny, little things that make for bad neighbour relations and maggots in rubbish bins, rubbish in recycling bins, leaving things out for foxes to get and using all the bins so I can’t put the one bag of rubbish I generate every two weeks out are things that seem minor but really get to you (or maybe just me!).
I’m sure that it’ll all sort itself out and be fine but I don’t like having to be the person to pull people up, moving and new houses are stressful enough but I have to live here too and it all felt exhausting.
Drinks with a view
I’m really feeling the ‘back to school’ vibe at the moment, more people are coming into the office and on Thursday after work we went for drinks. It feels like we are all being cautiously optimistic, although I just got the notice for my flu jab and Ma has hers booked so we’re not being stupid but things do feel more normal.
Last week was also the momentous occasion of the youngest nephew turning six. We went up on Saturday for dinner and then for the birthday party on Sunday. Which was all fun, six is the age you wear your football kit to your birthday party!
I spend Friday afternoon with a friend and then with her and her kids, which is adding to my ‘things might be getting to the new normal’ vibe too.
This week is slightly less mad, I’m in the office a couple of days and seeing Sue for a walk today, I have some solo allotment time as Ma isn’t here this weekend and I’m going to see Christelle and Mike on Saturday via Ma’s (just because she’s not on the plot, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t get a share of the bounty!)
Overall, it’s a bedding in week, house tidy, bedtimes and generally ensuring that I have some control over what’s happening. We’ll see how that works out!
As part of my climate conscious, use less plastic drive, I needed to address the problem of washing up sponges.
Loofah side
Once I’d used up the ones I had already bought, I tried some silicone ones but they were worse than useless and it was an effort to use them to destruction but I did it and then went to these.
They are quite stiff to start with, but are much nicer to use than the silicone things, the scrubby side works ok and can be used on non-stick, I just use a metal scourer for things that need more scrubbing, which I was doing anyway. The best bit is that when I’m finished with them, I can cut them up and put them in the bokashi.
Sponge side
The only thing that’s bad about them is the cost, 12 sponges cost £25 (I got 5% off and delivery was free, so £22.50). Plastic sponges in Wilko are £1 for 20. I know that money is an issue for most people and I’m extremely privileged to be able to buy the expensive washing up sponges/scourers but I’ve been saying it most of the year but things that are bad for the planet need to be taxed more heavily and the planet friendly alternatives need tax breaks so buying them is easier. If we are serious about climate change, we have to be serious about it and governments need to start putting their money where their mouths are. In the meantime, if you can afford it, these will at least stop some plastic consumption.
We didn’t do much this week, I was tired and needed to shop.
So we came and watered (which was a mission in and of itself) and harvested.
The beans and cukes are winding down but the summer squash is on a mission.
There are some parts of the plot that are looking wild.
Wildness
Because it’s been hot this week, yeah, September so far has been warmer than all of August, I went to water again this morning. And there were another 4 straightneck squash (it’s really living up to the prolific part of early prolific straightneck!) and another courgette. Also 4 strawberries!
The roses are having a second wind as well, I have no idea what they are but they sure are pretty. We call the red one, Iris, after my Grandma because it’s just so in your face!
We’re in a nice space at the moment with the production winding down a bit, everything is in for winter and it’s really just maintenance until things really slow down and we can start moving and building things for next year.
Usually I’m anxious to start but this year I just want to enjoy it.
