An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

 Kevin and myself went out to the allotment on Fri afternoon, it was not just sunny but absolutely roasting! I watered all the plants in the greenhouse and it felt like a sauna. The tomatoes are ripening slowly.Harvest included: 2 courgettes lettuce Small Red Duke of York potatoes 2 cucumbers some french beans & small tomatoes blackcurrants,strawberries,red gooseberries & blueberries.The strawberries and cherry tomatoes went to Jack who eats them like sweets!.Not enough fruit to make a summer pudding so the gooseberries & blackcurrants were added to apples to make a summer fruit tart.The blueberries go on my cereal in the morning. The long green plant at the top of the photo is a Brussels sprout plant gone to seed, the 4th of 10 to go.It was brought home to the hens and I tied it to the fence.Within a very short time it was a skeletal shape hanging from the fence! Waste not want not. Kevin noticed some of the globe artichokes and asked to take some home...

Hi,sorry for the long absense from the blog and thank you all for leaving comments. I have been busy and my computer was not turned on for days at a time.The allotment has kept me busy most days and the evenings were spent blanching, freezing,baking and jam making! We have 2 nice pumpkins on the White Ghost plant. I discovered blackberries hiding under branches when I tidied up the fruit bed, just enough to add to the morning cereal. I was loud in my praise of cabbage collars recently and the proof is here to see!Two of the 7 plants which are coming on nicely had dead snails on the collars. They are impregnated with a slug deterrent which seems to be working. The autumn fruiting raspberries, hard to see properly through the netting but there are a good many of them ripening . Blueberries are ripe and juicy, these photos were taken before I cleaned up the bed and cut back the summer raspberry canes. The lower branches of the blackcurrant bush were touching the grou...

Raspberries Yesterday I visited the allotment to pick some raspberries which are just beginning to ripen.Our Autumn fruiting raspberries are ripening at the same time?! There is a lot of wind damage with broken twigs bearing fruit but there was still enough to bring home and leave lots to redden fully, although the torrential rain all day today is not helping! Home Guard potatoes : I dug one tuber last week on the first row of Home Guard which had tiny marble sized potatoes underneath, we have had quite a bit of rain and we watered and gave the first 2 drills a liquid sea weed feed also. I dug the first tuber on the second row yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to find all of these underneath!Much larger than last week maybe due to the attention they got?They went into the pot and tasted more than OK, delicious! We will leave them now until next week and hopefully this rain will encourage them to grow a little more. We had a few flowers on our Duke of York's but none on the Hom...

Strawberry & Raspberry Pavlova. This is my first attempt at making a Pavlova even though it is one of my favourite desserts.D.Michelle makes them and my sister Kathleen has made them for years.With eggs freely available from the hens who continue to lay their 4 a day and with the fruit from the plot I decided to have a 'go'! I Googled for recipes and found one on the BBC Good Food site, I was also informed it is an Australian dessert and originated from Sydney! Link to recipe here The recipe was simple and crisp on the outside and soft in the middle just the way I like (love) Pavlova! I dug up one tuber of our first early Homeguard but was disappointed to find them very small,sort of large marble size! We have had weeks of dry windy weather which did not help so I will leave them another two weeks.The rain we are having at the moment may help to swell the crop. I pulled up one beetroot, the only decent sized one from our first sowing of them. We have great looking broad bea...

I wonder where those 2 weeks went to?! I know the birthday celebrations went on a bit, I have been away for a few days (will do a post on my trip to Limerick ). I had a chest infection and have been off the cigarettes now for 7 days (who is counting?), not being able to breathe is as good a reason as any to give 'em up! Sitting at the computer has been curtailed as I would automatically reach for a cigarette. I did not go to the allotment last week as I did not feel up to it so this morning I did remember to take the camera and also do some winter tidying up. The harvest is winter warming veg, carrots, parsnips and cabbage, most of which have now been added to a big pot of soup which is cooling before blitzing with the blender. Would Pirates of the Caribbean like some real life veg from Davy Jones locker? These are what grew of our Celeriac plants, the photo makes them look quite large but they are less than golf ball size in reality!I added one of them to my pot of soup just to m...

I only seem to get out to the plot on Tues mornings lately, or else forget the camera.The sun shone this morning and it was a crisp autumn day, quite windy but a big improvement on last year when we were almost submerged.Our pumpkin is growing slower and slower! The first large one rotted away underneath and this is the next biggest one, I don't think it will become any record size over the next few weeks! View of the plot in the sunshine,I removed most of the supports and netting from the beds where it is no longer needed so the plot looks quite bare. The fruit cage is the next one to be taken down and packed away for next year. Harvest for today which I think is quite good for Oct! Carrots, tomatoes,leeks,beetroot,lettuce and globe artichokes, I pulled 2 of our biggest leeks which are fine as they will stay in the ground until next year, to be used as needed over the winter.Tomatoes are still ripening on the vine if a little slower as time goes on but I am not complaining. The ki...

I have tried unsuccessfully to load photos a couple of times and even trying to leave comments I have been getting a 'service unavailable' message each time, not sure if it is blogger or my service provider!I remembered to take the camera with me to the plot, these photos are now a few days old and the weather has become wet and much colder. The strawberry plants were cleaned up a few weeks ago and all old foliage was cut back to allow the new growth some space, I also cut back any runners which were growing. I was surprised to see just how much new growth there was and even blossoms on some of the plants which now have new strawberries on them?! Look what I found nestling in the foliage,take my word for it ,it was juicy and sweet! Our big pumpkin rotted on one side and this is the next one which is growing nicely, I turned it over onto a leaf to see will it survive. More snapdragons! Our winter leeks, these are Musselburgh. I earthed up the plants slightly to extend the white ...

We are officially in the second month of autumn and our weather is still holding apart from a few thunder showers on Sun & Mon.I made pasta sauce last week (previous post) I had appealed to Nic nipitinthebud blog for recipes and she gave me one for Passata. I had said the sauce could be combined with passata for lasagne or spaghetti. I have not used the water bath method of preserving but used Nic's recipe from the River Cottage cook book and I must say it was simple, I only had 3 jars maybe with more it would have been more complicated! I read matron's comment about roasting tomatoes so I discarded the clear liquid left in the roasting dish.The recipe calls for putting the toms through a sieve but I only have one for sifting flour. I spent a fiddly few minutes skinning the toms and then used my hand blender to make a puree before reheating.Definitely worth the effort as it smells devine. The sweet corn in the bag are small cobs which I cleared from the plants,leaving only...