Nearly Halloween....

And my pumpkins are ready!!!!

Once I took down my dodgy broccoli cage and the sun could get to them they turned orange in a couple of days!  If I make anything yummy with them or the kids carve them I'll take some more piccies to show you.....

The bean structure has finally come down now... Look at all the weeds it hid! Still got to take down my pea wigwams....

My potato patch is starting to grow weeds again already! Eek! What to do? Any suggestions what to do with it over the winter????

I've throughly weeded and dug over my broccoli and pumpkin patch and added a load of compost.  Not sure whether this is any good as far as crop rotation goes but this is where I've planted my onion sets for over-wintering..... one set of normal brown onions - these ones are called Troy.... and one set of red onions - Electric. I've got no idea about the varieties at all but they are what they had in the garden centre so we'll see what happens!

Apparently they have a habit of popping back out of the soil so I'll check them every few days to make sure they're staying put!

I've also sown some all year round cauliflower seeds in trays at home.... apparently they like to keep warm at first but can go out in the allotment after they've grown a bit. I'll try to keep you updated on their progress!

Love 'n' hugs,

Erm... more beans and more potatoes.....

Hiya!

Before we get to the beans and potatoes, I've got a pumpkin update from a couple of weeks ago.... Slowly turning more orange :-) The kids are getting excited!

Paul tried to dig a bit more for me (left piccie) but it was really hard going.... I meanwhile dug up some more spuds as you can see on the right....

I planted the rest of my leeks and earthed up the ones I'd planted before.  You can see the difference in size....

I carefully sorted through all my potatoes.... Seconds go in the cardboard box, the perfect ones go in the M&S carrier bag (not just any potatoes....)

And my little tiddlers went into the bucket for roasting whole - nom, nom, nom!

And yet more runner beans.... getting fed up of preparing them now! This must be the last of them, surely?

My tomato plants are still going strong. Between the two of them they give us enough tomatoes to keep us going every week! I can't believe how much better they taste than the supermarket ones....

I've got to start thinking about what to do with my bare ground..... I've had all year round cauliflowers recommended and onion sets for over-wintering.  Any other suggestions? I must get to the garden centre.... :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

A well overdue update....

Hiya!

Sorry I've not been around much - busy, busy, busy! I just wanted to share some piccies with you of the stuff I've been bringing back from the allotment....  I'm afraid these piccies are now about a month old!

A mountain of runner beans, half way though their preparation for the freezer.....

I cut them up and froze them in family dinner sized portions......

My bean structure on the right, my dodgy (but effective!) broccoli cage at the back on the left, a patch of bare earth where I'd dug up some potatoes and the dying tops of my potato plants still to be dug up....

My biggest onion - I was sooo proud! I grew my onions from seed this time, but I'm thinking I'll try sets next.....

My pumpkins... the one in a little more sunlight starting to turn orange and the larger, greener one that gets hidden by the broccoli cage....

Some of the millions of potatoes my kids helped me to dig up..... These are King Edwards - yummy! Might try some other varieties though next year. Just to compare....

And even more runner beans I picked a few days later! I've given loads away and still have loads in the freezer :-) Definitely doing these again next year....

Right, I'm off - busy cooking Sunday dinner..... Roasted King Edwards and runner beans with our roast chicken today - what else!?! :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

Leeks and beans.....

Hiya!

I've finally managed to get some of my leeks in the ground! I've put them in my onion patch and given them a good haircut like Matron told me I should - I do try to do as I'm told! I'm not sure how long they need to stay in the ground though.... More reading! I haven't planted them all out yet - mainly cos I couldn't fit them all in my car to take them down to the plot (not when I've got children, potties, bags, snacks and association paperwork to take aswell!) so I'll plant the rest as soon as I can....

My bean plants are looking fab! It's George's job to spot all the runner beans that need picking and he loves it. It makes him feel very important :-)

We got loads this visit:

Enough for a dinner and for three bags to be frozen. It took me nearly an hour to prepare all these!

And they're yummy! I love runner beans :-) My Grandad used to grow them when I was younger and I remember bringing loads of them home for dinner :-) A few of mine were a bit tough - I'd let them get too big so I'll have to be careful to pick them when they're a bit smaller in future.....

Have a lovely day!

Love 'n' hugs,

Some "After" Piccies.....

Hiya!

I've managed to take some photos of the plot after all the work Paul and I put into clearing it after it had become a jungle following a little bit of neglect!  This is our onion patch.... I'm quite pleased with the onions... I'm definitely going to do more of these next year, on a bigger scale. For the mean time though, this is where my leeks will live :-)

The patch where we've dug up our potatoes had started to become quite weedy but it's looking nice again now! I'm just not sure what to do with it until next year.... Maybe I'll just cover it to stop the weeds coming up!

And (shock, horror!) we've even managed to dig a little bit more of the plot..... Not much but I'm very grateful to Paul for doing some digging for me. It gives him a horrible achi-ness in his hand since he broke it last year....:-(

And then we strimmed the rest of the plot so it did look like it was owned rather than abandoned! Hopefully all this bit will be dug next year.....

Right! I'm off. The littl'uns are out of bed now and demanding their breakfasts :-) Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Love 'n' hugs,

Oh dear.....

Look what happened....

That'll teach me to take my eye of the ball! My allotment has become a jungle! Time to pull my socks up and put in some proper hard work again....

This patch shouldn't take too long to fix.....

On a positive note, I now have two pumpkins growing quite successfully..... This one is approaching bowling ball size.....

While this one is more of a grapefruit size.... They look very different considering the seeds came out of the same packet.....

And then there's this.... It's growing where I put my radishes but I though everything got wiped out by slugs??? Is this what a radish plant looks like? Or are they just weeds? More research needed I suppose!

These runner beans are HUGE! And there's loads more to come aswell. I can see I'm going to need to freeze some.... :-)

Definitely enough for today's dinner....

Some more broccoli and an onion cos I just had to see..... :-) I think I should have left it a bit longer though.....

And of course more spuds!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take any "after" photos so you could see what it was like when I'd done a bit of weeding..... Sorry! Maybe next time :-)

Take care!

Love 'n' hugs,

Tomatoes and other goodies....

Hiya!

I've been so caught up with all the Allotment Association business that I've hardly had time to actually spend on my allotment! These are some photos I've taken over the past couple of weeks to show you how things are getting on....

Firstly, my ripening tomatoes.... :-)

They only took another couple of days to become this......

I'm hard pushed to get any more though. My greenhouse isn't very toddler-proof and my two year old, Charlie, picks and eats them before I get a chance to photograph them - never mind eat one myself! I shouldn't complain though. At least it's better than sweets!

My leeks are coming along well.... Time to go in the ground when I've done a bit of weeding!

Down at the allotment, one pumpkin in particular seems to be doing very well :-) Of course this picture doesn't allow any sense of scale... It was about the size of a lemon in this picture.....

I'm pleased with my broccoli too....

Not quite enough peas and broccoli for a dinner this time though.... Just got to pop to Asda.....

Onions are getting nice 'n' big. When can I pull them up though? Must read up some more...

And the runner beans are doing nicely! Such pretty flowers and loads of buzzy insects :-)

George loves coming along and giving me a helping hand - he especially likes digging up spuds and picking peas :-)

Have a fab day!!!

Love 'n' hugs,