Allotment/Veg Patch - Thread 7 - The Harvesters Arms

[bookbook]

Well, it's been an interesting summer, to say the least.
We are now heading into the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness :)
Everyone welcome to join in and ask for advice , share their woes and just enjoy growing!
previous thread here

I've used the banana trick to ripen tomatoes before. This year I copied my mum and put them on a tray and covered them with a tea towel. They all ripened up - we're just finishing off the last of them now. I think we picked in early September when the blight hit.

Bookbook you have done well to getting everything sorted out. We've still got a couple of bags of homemade compost sitting on the middle of our lawn waiting to go over to the plot. They've been there for several weeks now.

Shove my neighbour's apple tree still has all its leaves. We are in the south though. It's been quite mild this week but is supposed to get colder again.

We haven't been up to the plot because of rain and visitors last weekend so nothing to report. Planning to get over there this weekend, weather permitting.

Morning all - back in the uk very late last night, and now have the heating on as it is freezing! I really loved being warm all day.

I seriously need a coffee.

chuck - hope you recover from the flight soon. It always makes me feel slightly strange. Like I've drunk too many fizzy drinks! Shame you couldn't bring a slice of that Portugese sunshine back with you!

book - your work is putting me to shame! I really need to get manuring soon. Your cabbage is perfect too! I don't know if it's just my imagination, but sometimes they seem to taste better when small.

cedar - yes, cold and bad gales on the way over the weekend I think! I have my warm fleece (human AND plant varieties) at the ready!

Afternoon!
bucketing it down here...glad I got down yesterday. It's turned cold too - forecast for sleet overnight . Horrible weather to come back to Chuck]
I always try to leave things in horrible places so I do sort it out. Not sure if that always works though! It is now the time of year of hit and miss -getting time and weather to co-operate in getting gardening done. DH absolutely ran round cutting the grass before lunch, as we knew it was due to rain. He just about managed it. But why are we needing to cut grass in November anyway?????
shove - nice warm fleece and with a cold, definitely an indoor sort of day :)

It's a beautiful day here today - sunny if chilly. Pity I have to work! I posted back the contract to the council for our new half plot so I'm committed now.

We might get to the plot on Sunday if it's not too rainy.

I could do with some Portuguese sunshine as well!

exciting Cedar - I am just sat with a cup of tea plucking up courage to go. It's still 3º , so not trying hard just yet :)

I am so bloody jealous cedar. It's sleeting here. SLEETING! Urgh.

oh shove - only nice to watch from a warm house, through the window...How's the cold - better I hope?
I gritted my teeth, jumped up and went .
Just back from cutting down the asparagus, and rather more weeding around them than I anticipated, so I didn't get to do the compost heap. I was very warm ( I had put on a fleece gilet on top of my fleece) ) . But my face was cold, and my toes were freezing. I will have to break out my fleece lined wellies now :) Still just struggling up to 4º with a sharp breeze.
I did pick leeks, perpetual spinach and a celery head .The celery are a bit disappointing - self blanching , but very 'rooty'. Lots and lots of tiny stalks , so only good for soup, but lovely smelling. May have a better go next year.
I am going to sit down and have a second browse at my seed catalogue. My seed order went in ages ago, but they are putting in another order in December, so thats a nice little 'warm back up' wasting time job with a cup of coffee

My celery went like that last year Book, I didn't grow any this year but noticed that one of my plot neighbours had hers all nicely wrapped around with paper and string.

Am of those with warm houses, our boiler died last week and it's taking a while to arrange replacement.

It has got nithering here , so feeling for you WhoKnows- they only ever go wrong when you most need them .
The celery is an odd one isn't it. I got the self blanching, and took note of what people suggested. They were planted in a block close together, as that is supposed to help. I wonder if they didn't get enough water ( well - I certainly didn't actually water them...!)
It is definitely cooking time - I am about to cook for the first time a dahl recipe posted on here last year of someone's Mum's recipe.... It is Indian warm spicy food weather :)

We've got a power cut tonight too. Luckily we have a logburner.

Evening, still freezing here.

Celery - my advice on that is to buy the normal shop bought, and keep the base, and when you have used the actual celery, plant the base into a large pot, and keep it in a saucer which is always full of water, and add some seaweed feed every now and then, and just let it grow back and use that for cooking. it is very hard to get 'celery celery' for eating unless you grow it in water and blanch it...so just use the scraps to grow more from. If you have 6 plants all in large pots, then you can grow it like cut and come again.

Anyhow - i have a new job. Starts in less than a fortnight. So I am chuffed to bits - it is at a place I used to work at before I started teaching food growing and is nothing to do with horticulture at all, so will be winding down the teaching over the coming months and just concentrate on the allotment and garden. Will still do the qual though, you never know when it will come in handy [and I've paid for it already so i may as well finish it].

Hurrah!

Morning!
In the minus figures here at the moment...
Congratulations on the new job Chuck - that was quick! and thank you for the celery advice. I really use it as a base for virtually every stock I make for soup and stews ( onion, carrot and celery diced small) so thought it was worth a try at growing. I will also have a go with the next root I dig up as I want to use those up first, before buying any.

well, no plot today, far too lazy - cold and breezy. So a day making soup and knitting here , but I just wanted to pop on and hope WhoKnows and Cedar and everyone else in the south will be okay tonight/tomorrow. Hear the forecast is a bit bad.

Thank you Book. I did a short stint at the plot yesterday, a bit of weed clearing that I hadn't got round to after pulling out various finished plants, and hoed the area I cleared in September. I was out late last night in the storm, about an hour drive on unlit roads, not much fun with torrential rain, leaves swirling everywhere and masking all the road markings, was glad to get home safely.

Oh well done chuck. You can't keep a good woman down!! And bloody hell, talk about bouncing back - that was quick!

On the subject of celery, I am looking forward to trying the leaf celery seeds chuck sent me. It sounds like my ideal solution to the celery issue - like you, book, I use it a LOT a base for stocks, stews etc. (I do love a caponata) but I like the flavour more than the texture. So the idea of a solution that gives me bags of taste from leaves that are easy to grow and do not require water and blanching and fuss sounds perfect. Could this be an answer for you too? Alys Fowler talks about it here: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/mar/02/alys-fowler-celery-made-easy

I am still full of cold. Had a long-booked meetup with the in laws this weekend, which involved an extremely long trip to Batsford Arboretum - we were out in the cold for around 4 hours and because FIL has severe mobility issues and can't really move at any pace, I couldn't do my usual trick of walking really fast to stay warm. Despite wearing two layers of wool and one of fleece and warm boots, by the end of it I was so cold that it look me 24 hours to get warm again. The arboretum was lovely, though, with all the autumn colours and berries galore. I was particularly taken with a large planting of Tetrapanax with a very beautiful acer- it was just calling to me . I've seen the former in fine fettle at Scampston Hall, so maybe, just maybe I could get away with it here in Sheffield...

Ooh I love Batsford Arboretum. And yes leaf celery is so much easier [the top tip about watering with seaweed fertiliser still counts, it gives it that lovely rich deep taste].

Thanks for the congrats, I love the place I am going to so can't wait to start. Good excuse to get rid of even more of my huge seed stash.

Evening!
WhoKnows - nothing worse than driving in truly horrible weather, and hope it has all quietened down now.
shove - thanks for the leaf celery tip- will definitely put that on my list. For years I have used celery salt when I don't have actual celery, but it would be nice to have some leaves :) Bone cold I bet - it's horrid. I used to soak in a really hot bath, but it takes a lot to get warm again. After years, I found the most fantastic thermals, but my goodness they're expensive ( cotton lined wool/silk) . Luckliy I have a few pairs before I need to replace.
Chuck - I guess it will also mean you can properly enjoy work, and also gardening/allotmenting , now they won't overlap?
I did no plot today- DH was out all day from early , and it was raining until after lunch, so I have been snuggled at home. Tomorrow doesn't look any better either. Ah well - I should have done the compost heap when I had the chance

book - I didn't even know leaf celery existed until chuck's seed packet landed on my doormat! Apparently the taste is better than celery celery (!) and it stands into the winter too, which sounds super useful! I do grow it for that lovely salty metallic tang it has, so I'm hoping this is a way to get more of that, and less faff!

I want to hear about the great thermals. I have a couple of those heattech tops from Uniqlo which are thin enough to sit underneath just about anything, but they're not great for extended periods of being out in the cold. I think natural fibres might work better!

chuck - it's wonderful that you're going back to a place you already know and - more importantly - know that you like! I'm so impressed that you've sorted it all so fast.

Morning!
It is trying to rain here - I was so hoping it would hang off for a couple of hours.
It would seem leaf celery is not so common - so we can allow ourselves not to know about it!
shove - here are links to the thermals. I have both the merino/silk and the cotton lined ones. You can layer them too if its really cold. I used to put a sleeveless one, then a sleeved one on top in truly cold weather.
merino silk
cotton lined
The other thing I found last year ( in T K Maxx actually) was a very thin proper down gilet , its superb, weighs nothing, but so warm , and also so thin you can put a coat over it. I have scoured for another one.... :)

Afternoon!
Sat inside with a cup of coffee, having braved the outside to get some essential shopping.
Truly horrendous rain and a stiff breeze, along with a bit of sleet to help matters along - lovely -
So now today I am using the fruits of earlier labours. Out of the freezer comes buttered leeks, french beans and some berries to make a pudding. It makes all the hard work during the year something to be grateful for :)

The following is what I tried to post on Saturday ...

Good grief!!!

On Thurs afternoon, in the wifi bar (whiling away the time whilst my satnav was updating) I tapped out a somewhat voluminous post. I referenced:

books point on food security and acknowledged my jealousy of your Heath Robinson/Atco lawnmower
Cedar extra plot - hooray!
shove book writting (and being pretend chased by the FBI)
Chucks holiday in Portugal
Being dissapointed with the throwaway-ness of today
Sewing - love it
Must get down to Sintra (at some point). book have been past the signs for Covadonga so many times, but I’m always on my way to elsewhere . . .

I wittered on and on. And then I pressed post.

It was then that I noticed that the connection had vanished and my satnav had stopped updating.

Anyway, today there will be success. The satnav has only another 18 mins to go before it’s finished updating, and this post will appear.

.... And so, obviously, it didn't appear. I'm going to press 'post' now - and then come back again.

Well, I've caught up again now .

Wind and heavy rain here. The only 'gardening' I'm doing is chucking kitchen waste on the compost heap.

I gave up with celery after two pathetic attempts and started to grow celeriac instead (but not this year, can't remember why not). A celeriac leaf stalk in the pot smells absolutely devine. I have a shop bought celery in the fridge at the moment and thought I might give ^that idea a try - but then I remembered the time of year (will be on my way to Engerland next month) so will hold off until I'm back again.

Good news about your job Chuck

I spotted Spotted on the The Missing thread but haven't posted there - hard enough just trying to do this one

It is an afternoon of staying in, so nice to come back after the dreaded ironing to see Igardener 's post . Isn't it always the long, interesting posts that get lost?
I have been listening to R4's The Food Programme. ( that is after shouting at the radio at the idiocy of the panel on Round Britain Quiz - I must get out more.... ) .Interesting wild forager on today - I didn't know gorse flowers tasted of coconut!. Another piece on the programme was about losing old fashioned plants. It was Good King Henry . And that is weird, as I have been contemplating growing this. A perennial much like spinach -. has anyone grown it?

Good king henry - it a complete bugger to get out again so if you grow it, think of it like comfrey and grow it somewhere that you are not going to be using for anything else again. Otherwise you have to dig a 4 ft hole to get the bugger out again.

I went out today. Crikey. What a nightmare. The rain was torrential and the lorries were getting fed up of the sensible drivers who were driving at a decent speed and overtaking in the middle lane and causing major lack of visibility issues. I just can't believe the bad driving I saw today. Back home, woodburner on and getting nice and settled in for the evening now.