Autumn at the Allotment.

The allotment adventures are winding down now Autumn is in full swing. Today Ed and I went and dug up the last of the potato crop, picked the beetroot stragglers, collected the onions that have been drying in the greenhouse and did a small amount of tidying up. 

We have had the allotment for about a year now and it has definitely been a story of ups and downs. We have had some amazing food such as blackberries, garlic, onions, beetroot, raspberries, strawberries, plums, runner beans, lettuce, potatoes, nettles, dandelions and courgettes. And we have also had some disappointing ones, those being sweetcorn, Romanesco broccoli, bak choi and the kohlrabi. Pretty much anything that the cabbage butterfly could lay it's eggs on got chomped. So next year we have decided to get plenty of netting.  

It feels amazing to eat food that you have grown. I know exactly where it has come from and that it has had no chemicals poured all over it. I also know when it was picked so its always super fresh when it ends up on my plate.  

One thing I have learnt is that allotments are a lot of hard work! More than I could have ever anticipated. The upkeep has been really tough and what with having a 30 year old campervan to maintain and repair, this summer was a lot more hectic than planned. But it has definitely been worth it. That said, it will be nice to have a few months off battling weeds so I can get down to figuring out what I want to grow and eat next year. 

How have your green fingered plans spanned out this year?

Much Love

Kirst x

Our Future Food is Growing!

So you may have noticed I haven't been around for a couple of days, I've had a bit of a gluten attack. It must have sneaked into my food somehow over the last couple of weeks. A lot of people ask me what the symptoms are, for me the main ones are horrendous stomach cramps, exhaustion and this weird brain fog. It just means I have to be even more careful for a little while to get insides properly functioning again, I am eternally thankful that I can control this just by diet though. Healthy me is definitely worth all the label reading and ingredient scrutinising. Anyway enough of that...

There seems to be so much to do at the allotment right now, I didn't want to plant a lot in early April because it was still quite cold. Now it seems like everything needs to be planted and the weeds are making a run for it. So Ed and I have plenty to keep us busy. It is a lovely feeling to watch seeds grow into little plants. I am especially pleased with my sweetcorn because I was worried the seeds were a bit old because some of them had a bit of mould on, but they seem to be really healthy little plants. Our allotment neighbour warned us that the badgers like sweetcorn so we will have to put a fence up when it grows larger. 

It is amazing to see how much everything has grown in only a couple of weeks, you can see the previous allotment post here. I also bought a cucumber plant at the weekend for £1.40 which I thought was a bargain. Mum is starting us off some runner beans and we are also getting some tomato plants off our friend tomorrow which I am super excited about. It feels like it is coming together... slowly. 

Hope your week is off to a good start.

Much Love.

xkx

Planting Our Future Food.

Ed and I have been working hard at the allotment this weekend, I thought I would show you what we have been planting and what is growing. It is so exciting to see the first few plants poking their heads out of the soil. 

The garlic and the salad leaves have survived through the harsh weather. The salad seeds even had a heavy snow on them a couple of days after I planted them, so I was really surprised to see they were growing. I planted my sweetcorn in toilet roll tubes, sweetcorn gets very grumpy if you disturb the roots of young plants so by planting them in toilet roll tubes it means you can plant them straight into the ground when they have been hardened off. The pea shoots and mustard white are a chic edition to salads and they are so cheap to grow, you can even grow these on windowsills. (All the seeds shown were covered with compost after these photos were taken otherwise the seeds would not germinate.) I also planted a row of peas outside, some rocket, spinach, turnips and lettuce. Can't wait for us to have our first salad from our allotment!

Hope you have had a wicked weekend, we are off to a BBQ in a bit *yey*.

xkx

Nettles and Dandelions... for Lunch!

Ed and I have been really busy at the allotment today, planting seeds, digging over beds and fertilising them to get it all ready to grow lots of tasty vegetables. We didn't really have a lot in for lunch today so I decided to have a quick look at what the allotment already had on offer!

I snipped off a little punnet full of dandelion flowers and then donned my gardening gloves to gather some nettle tips. You want the lovely young leaves at the top of the nettles, the older leaves can be a bit fibrous. I also picked some random onion-things we have growing on one of the raised beds, at first I thought they were spring onions but they had a garlicky hit so I wonder if it was green garlic. If you are brave enough to try this and don't have green garlic then you can replace it with a clove of garlic or a few spring onions. 

So to make my weedy lunch I washed the nettles and picked the dandelion petals from the stems. I washed them really well then sautéed the nettles and chopped green garlic in a knob of butter (this will take all the sting away), on a medium heat. I added a little salt then waited until the nettles had wilted, you will know they are ready because they will reduce in size by about half, then I put the dandelion petals in. I cooked this for another 5 minutes then added a portion of rice noodles to the pan and mixed it all together. 

This was so delicious! Ed couldn't believe that I made this from weeds, that are free and easy to find. If you want to try this yourself a couple of things to remember are, nettles are best picked in the spring and autumn, when they are far away from flowering. Only pick these two plants if you are sure what they are, don't pick them if they have had pesticides or weed killer on them and don't pick them if they are at dog peeing height (for obvious reasons). 

Enjoy <3

xkx  

Allotment Treasure Hunt.

I managed to score some free pallets and lengths of wood to make some potting tables in my greenhouse earlier this week. So today was the day to knock it all into shape. Ed took apart most of the pallet (which I used for the legs) but then he had to do emergency repairs on the greenhouse because it was so windy the polycarbonate sheets were just flying out. He frantically cut some lengths of cane to wedge in the frame, which seemed to work pretty well. I took the rest of the pallet apart and got creating. I had to saw a couple of inches off the longer pieces of wood so the bench was at a nice working height. I was really pleased with the end result, I am finally nearly ready for the growing season! 

We have a bit of land at the back of our allotment which is very overgrown and there is a lot of rubbish that has been thrown there by previous tenants. We are slowly working to clear this area, it will be lovely when it is cleared but it will take a while. These are some of the things that we found today. The toilet is probably my favourite find, the colour is amazing, proper retro. We are pretty sure there is a matching bath in the chaos, but we are nowhere near pulling it out yet!  

Hope you have had a great weekend, even though I bet you haven't found any toilets!

xkx

House Plants to Hurry Spring Along.

It feels like winter has returned this past week! We have had snow, ice and cold, blustery wind. This time of year I love to have beautiful flowers and plants in the house to remind me that it won't be long until I can get busy at the allotment and go adventuring in the countryside. 

The Auricular is my all time favourite plant. When I was little my mum and I use to walk down the country lanes to this lovely ladies house, she lived in a little cottage that smelled of lavender and always had a log fire crackling away. Before we went home she would always give me something, whether it was 50p or some dolls clothes she had made. This one time she gave me a beautiful auricular that was a dusky blue I think. That little plant survived for years in the garden. So when I saw this pretty plant in the market for £1 I just couldn't resist. It has been in constant bloom for over 2 weeks and has brightened my day every time I have seen it. I think I will plant it in the allotment when it has finished flowering  alongside Frasier the Christmas tree.  

Lovely Edward usually buys me flowers then the old ones have gone over, I usually put the dead flowers in the wormery or on the compost heap at the allotment so they don't go to waste. I think Ed buys me this colour occasionally because his favourite colour is orange. My favourite cut flowers are probably either roses or big lilies as they are pretty and they make the house smell sweet.

I bought this plant from the Gardener's World show a couple of years ago, it was very pretty and the older plants were as big and flat as saucers. I think I bought the freak! The mummy plant has grown down on the weird stalk and has now grown babies around the base. I think it is kinda odd but pretty, especially now the baby plants are growing on it. I want to research to figure out when I can split the young plants off the mummy.

Hope you have had a productive Thursday and have some exciting plans looming for the weekend.

xkx

Greenhouse Day!

I won this greenhouse on eBay last week, I really wanted to get one before the spring arrives (I know it is a long way off yet) so I can be all ready for the growing season on the allotment. Thankfully the weather held up and it was a lovely, sunny, Autumn day.

I think Ed and I were a little intimidated when we walked up to it, I just thought 'where do we start?!' But Ed got his toolbox out of the car and away we went.

Ed was gurning away trying to unscrew the bolts at the same time as dodging all the spiders. There were so many! Really big fat ones. They gave me the creeps. My job was to pull out all the clips that held the panels in, which pinged everywhere when released from the frame.  

And ZAP, as if by magic one and a half hours later the greenhouse was demolished! The guy we bought it off also let us have the potting up tables which I was super happy about, that was the only shelf that wouldn't fit in the car.

Just in case you wondered what a greenhouse looked like packed into a Ford Focus, here is the picture evidence. Ed teased me all the way home that the spiders were going to come and get me in the car! Which I think was a bit mean as I was scarred for life when I was little and there was a massive wolf spider climbing up my seat belt in the car... Eeeek. I will have to find some way of getting him back hehe. 

We didn't have time put the greenhouse up at the allotment, I think it will take most of a day. It needs a really good scrubbing too before we put it up. Ed was also very restrained, as he didn't get his DIY bossy head on! It was a test for our marriage but one we definitely passed. Can't wait to put it up at the allotment and for spring to come so I can start growing seeds!

Hope you all had a great weekend. 

Sunday in the Soil.

Ed and I spent a good few hours today tidying up the allotment today. After we had finished up there for the day we decided to pop over to our local gardening centre. The image above is a collage of some pretty plants i snapped whilst we were there. 

The picture below is of the allotment when I had nearly finished my weeding yesterday.

This one I took before we left today. We are so happy with it starting to come together and look a bit tidier now. We are going to get some weed barrier material to lay over the raised beds so they will be all ready to plant in come the spring.

Hope you have all had a great weekend <3 

Our Lovely Allotment.

Ed and I both signed up for an allotment about 6 months ago when we moved into our apartment. We were informed that we would probably have to wait at least a year. So when I got a phone call at the weekend offering us a plot we were super excited! We went to look at this one yesterday to see if it was what we were looking for... it was!

It has 3 fruit trees (which at least 2 are cherries), 4 raised beds (as you can see) some more raised beds towards the back and quite a big planting bed to the right of where I took this photo. Also I spied in the tuft of grass to the left of this picture that there were quite a few raspberry bushes. This plot also has hard standing right at the end so we can put a shed on it to keep all our tools in. 

Hopefully by the weekend we will be ready to start to tidy it all up because I am going to try and grow some hardy broad beans and peas through the winter. Time is of the essence now Autumn is sneaking closer to the peripheries. I can not wait to explore our plot further.