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

Morning!
well, I made an executive decision to go and pick veg this morning. The wind is getting up here , so hope you are going to be okay everyone further north - (take care Grouchy)
So my basket is full for the next few days, I picked leeks, sprout stalks, a (small :) ) savoy , the very last of the beetroot and courtesy of my plot NDN a couple of beautiful parsnips.
Now we can hunker down
I am going to be making garlic soup a la shove ready for boxing day , this afternoon so I have been hoarding garlic

whoknows - I am getting quite into Scandinavian flavours like pickles with dill. I didn't like them at first but they have really grown on me!! So I might copy your idea of doing that with the cucamelons.

Book- your Christmas box is absolutely wonderful!! Your leeks are super. Hope you like the garlic soup! I've just made a leek, onion and celeriac one with some smoke through it and it's turned out really well. I try the veg in butter beforehand and it's like a vegetarian chicken soup (to the point that I'm going to try it with tarragon next time)

Wind is really picking up here. Keeping my fingers crossed for grouchy... The far north looks like it will take a bit of a battering.

Well done grouchy!ovely for you to get that ticked off. I'm impressed with your box also book. I might still give cucamelons a go for novelty factor, kids will like them. Weather is going past the window sideways at the moment so I am having a cup of tea and reading gardening magazines waiting for mince pies to be ready. I finally finished my marking last night and feel like a new woman.

Thinking about things I should plant now - any garlic tips?

Evening!
I should have put some tinsel on the basket
shove - that soup sounds lovely . I may have good leeks, but my celeriac is something of a rooty disappointment ( a bit like the celery !)
Sounds idyllic Cathpot ,( even with the weather) - a bit different from where you have come home from :) and great that you can now relax!
Garlic is a bit late tbh - should probably have been planted out last month. You can plant out early spring though - maybe early March. I think its an idea to give them a bit of an artificial cold snap to help them split into cloves, so a time in the fridge before planting out may help. You could do broad beans now - I have direct sown some also about a month ago, but will be sowing in pots beginning of January for some back up early plants, before some more direct sowing in spring.
I'm not sure I will be posting now until after boxing day - I have a busy time tomorrow, and am then at my daughters for a couple of days.
So...
Can I wish everyone on here -(whether you post or not ) a lovely, happy Christmas , with peace and joy. And I hope you all are able to spend time with the people you love, and who love you. Enjoy!

I faced the compost Dalek yesterday - and all was well. I think the rats had given up, having scoffed whatever they wanted - obviously v hungry this time of year. The blighters have chewed a smallhole in the door, though.
I sifted through the heap, and actually it's almost all composted. The rats have done a great job of turning it for me, by digging half of it out of the Dalek. Just some eggshells and the completely intact "compostable" bags, and avocado pits, which I removed and binned.

I am going to bin or burn any food waste for a few months, to be sure they have gone. Then I'll join the world of Bokashi-ing! (Rubs hands gleefully). I blasted them with a few episodes of the Archers, just in case. Hoping Rob's evil voice has seen them off.

Book, your harvest is beautiful. I am inspired by your photos, and working towards this!.
Shove, did you post the garlic soup on here - I missed it if so, but sounds amazing, as does your other veg soup. Recipes, please!
Kiwi, very well done on passing your driving test. Freedom!

Dear fellow veg gardeners - wishing you all a restful Christmas, and a very Happy New Year. I am looking forward to some garden tidying over the next week off.

Oh well done for facing the dalek (and its inhabitants) so bravely quince! I'm glad the little monsters had scarpered and that the contents were so well rotted down - you're all ready for your spring mulch now!! And HOORAY FOR BOKASHIING!!!

book - I can't lay any claim to the celeriac, I think it just likes very rich soil and very wet conditions! My Dad is a much better gardener than me, but he can't grow it at all simply because it's so very dry where he is. It's one of the few compensations for the Sheffield rain

Recipes -

Shove's cheatin' smokin' garlic soup (this is based on one I found online, but has a sneak cheat ingredient)

26 garlic cloves (unpeeled)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
375g sliced onions
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
18 garlic cloves, peeled (yes, these are a separate lot from the first 26)
700 ml Marigold bouillon (less if you want a really thick soup)
125ml cream
Parmesan cheese (about 2 ounces)
4 lemon wedges
Amazing cheat ingredient: 2 tablespoons of Colgin liquid smoke (you can buy it from the website Souschef)

Preheat oven to 180 C. Place 26 garlic cloves in small glass baking dish. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper; toss to coat. Cover with foil and bake until garlic is golden brown and tender, about 45 minutes. Cool. Squeeze garlic between fingertips to release cloves. Transfer cloves to small bowl.

Melt butter in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions and thyme and cook until onions are translucent, about 6 minutes. Add roasted garlic and 18 raw garlic cloves and cook 3 minutes. Add stock; cover and simmer until garlic is very tender, about 20 minutes.

Purée soup in blender until really smooth. Return soup to saucepan; add cream and bring to simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Add about a tablespoon or two (more to taste) of liquid smoke right at the end.

Grate some cheese over in the bowl and squeeze some lemon over it. Best served in relatively small amounts, but makes an amazing starter!

Leek and celeriac soup

This is dead easy - just melt a big old bit of butter (do not skip this bit and use oil, it's not the same), add a large chopped onion and fry off at a medium heat for a few minutes. Don't let it brown - shove a lid on if it needs extra moisture. Add 3-4 big leeks and a head of celeriac and fry then sweat for at least 10-15 minutes to get as much flavour out as possible, stirring regularly. Add a decent amount of water to cover plus an appropriate amount of Marigold bouillon (normally 1.5 litres and 4 tsp for me) plus 5 bay leaves and simmer for a short while until the veg is soft. Add a can of butter beans and a dessert spoon of the Colquin smoke at the end of this, remove the bay leaves, then liquidize. I reckon a couple of teaspoons of fresh tarragon would taste smashing.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! I really hope you all have the most wonderful time.

Happy Christmas everyone! Thank you for all the advice and kind words this year - look forward to hearing everyone's news in the new year.

Well, I’m in England. Been here for nearly two weeks. I keep trying to catch up with the thread, but I’m still only up to the 15th ...

elephant and Golden - hello!

Killer Kucurbit (a butternut squash previously known as “Bloody ‘ell Bertha”, weighing in at 3.9 kilos) has been donated to neighbours here. I brought 6 with me in the car.

Anyway, I particularly wanted to post today so I could say say Happy Christmas to you all.

⛄⛄⛄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄⛄⛄⛄

Enjoy !

Season's greetings to all. I am ridiculously pleased by my early Birthday present given to me by my DM. A wheelbarrow!!! And bought with care, it has a hard tyre so I haven't got to worry about punctures.

Hi all,

I'm a lurker but just wanted to say happy Xmas to all. Sorry to hear the the rats, I can't stand them. I put down a bait box. I'm still enjoying lots of winter veg, leeks always seem to be a disappointment; tend to get them in too late though.

I'm revamping my unproductive, newly acquired second plot - am planning lots of fruit and flowers. Plan had always been for it to be a low maintenance one - work and have small child. Have just found out pregnant with twins so that plan is all the more important now!

Hello Fields.

Twins? Congratulations

And a 2nd plot - is it near to your first one? I grow my fruit and veg in my garden in top/left Spain (which you'll possibly already know )

Being no where near it at the moment, the only 'work' I have to do is flicking through seed catalogues ...

ig

p.s I've caught up now. You need a cat for those rats quince.

Opposite each other! You do need a cat, Quince!

We have a cat! He was a rescue moggy, so approximately 11 - a bit old for major rat catching. He did kill a few, but got quite a nasty bite on his jaw where one must have gone for him. Really, even several cats could not have kept the number of huge rats under control.
Best just not to tempt them too much for a while.
We had chickens with absolutely no problem at all (and a compost heap) for several years. It wasn't until someone kept a horse in the field adjoining our garden, in a shelter built with no concrete footings, that we had an infestation. They lived under/in the straw and we used to watch them nipping through our hedge for some chicken food. Horse now gone though.

Afternoon!
hello Fieldsandgrasses - a little one, twins on the way and now 2 plots - wow- much respect!!!!
quince - congratulations on the successful dalek and rat sorting
and igardener - nice to hear from you
elephant - you know when you are properly adult- when you are really pleased with something useful!
well, obviously no plot since I picked my last box ( boy was I glad I did- it heaved it down with rain on Christmas Eve, morning , which is when I had originally planned on doing it), But its been pretty chilly here - icy in fact in the wind, and proper ground frost. So hah to you slugs!
The garlic soup was lovely ( I did tweak it a bit. I had no liquid smoke , so when I tasted it I left out the cream and threw in extra parmesan instead ). DH has said we need to make it again - so definitely a winner :)
Roll on Thursday, which will be my first trip back to the plot. I need to burn off some calories

book (waves back) I made some butternut squash soup yesterday, which I customarily make in the spicey style - however, I fancied a change and made it more 'herby' with some dried parsley, and used up the dregs of a pot of double cream at the end. Reading your comment about parmesan - if I had any that would have made it a touch more perfect ... !

Chilly here too (Oxfordshire). Been checking the weather back at my house, hoping for a night or two of frost. Not quite there yet - hovvering around 3c night time temperature, but Jan is usually colder.

Happy last week of the year

Hooray, I'm glad the soup worked book. I'm not a great cook, so it is pretty rare for me to get things right in the kitchen!

Igardener- your pilgrimage with the squashes made me laugh out loud!! What a great gift a whopping big squash is, though. They keep for ages!

Elephant- now that IS a good present! The solid tyre is definitely useful. I had to replace my blowup one with a solid because (like most plotters)I tend to use the barrow for quite heavy loads and it kept puncturing.

Quince- isn't it funny how a change like that can just cause a problem? Small alterations in environments can just cause a population explosion. I have been noticing this with the spiders in my garden. We used to get lots of those horrible fat house spiders, absolutely enormous ones that were the size of side plates. Then all these big but delicate spindly ones started to appear and no more big ones. Someone told me that the little spindly ones have moved north as a tiny bit of difference in temperatures due to climate change has let them survive, and they eat the big fat ones hence the dip in those. I can honestly say this is one change I'm not unhappy about

Fields- welcome!! And congratulations on your twin plots and double congratulations on your twin babies!!

Waves at Cath- hope you're having a relaxing break!

I have been to the plot to execute the chuck method of wood addition as an experiment. There is a pile of 2 year old woodchip, which I have dug into, barrowed to the plot, and spread on the beds. I'm going to leave it at a thin covering for now and let it start to rot down, then add manure and fork it in a bit before I plant out in April. I am hoping it will encourage mycelium, as chuck said it did on hers, and give me bumper crops!! It was heavy work transporting it all by hand- I reckon I shiftes a bulk bag's worth! But I needed the exercise as was starting to turn into a cheese having eaten so much of the stuff.

Morning!
Its really frosty this morning - and still -2º here .
igardener - you have reminded me to go and get a crown price squash out of storage for this week :)
shove - that sounds very hard working for Boxing Day - and doesn't everyone have to eat their own weight in cheese? . (and it was a great recipe - cooking is only really experience of what works with what !)
I quite like spiders - we don't seem to see them much at the plot, but do at home in the garden . I especially like all all the fine webs looking like lace curtains when its cold . :).
We are out today , rockpooling and stone turning on our annual trip to a special beach ( with DDs, partners and DGS) and it is nithering so an extra layer of thermals is needed I think! And maybe a football to get the blood moving

Hello! I'm slightly tipsy on rum and full of Christmas dinner mark 2 as DH arrived home today - we are a very happy house. Cooked some leeks from the garden in cream and Parmesan but slightly burnt it all due to rum intake. Did salvage a bit to eat luckily.

Spent an hour with DD1 weeding and putting down new weed matting on big bed- did about a quarter of it- and now am wondering how it works if I mulch with manure round the trees. Presuming the worms can't get at it to pull it into the soil- should I leave a pull away bit of the membrane for that??

Morning!
Hope your head is okay this morning Cathpot - but a lovely celebration with your DH home :). I don't think it will help to put the manure on top, so yes to pull away , manure underneath and re- cover - should do the trick.
Another really frosty morning , , so I am going to the plot after lunch - I need to get some spinach and broccoli picked .
So - seed catalogues came in the post yesterday - big fat ones from Suttons and D T Browns. I know I have ordered everything I need, but there is no harm in browsing :)

Hello- I will go and sort out the membrane round the trees today- that makes sense. Went to buy a cherry tree yesterday - looked at 2 local places - but no joy- any recommends for on line suppliers?

I got my dad seeds from this catalogue
www.realseeds.co.uk/

• looked full of interesting things! I should go back and order for myself now.

Morning!
another very frosty one, but it seems to be warming up just a little more quickly - it is already +0.4º :) , so an hour at the plot late morning hopefully.
Cathpot - how annoying about the cherry trees - did they not have any? I am much in favour of going to see them, they do vary a bit in look . I am lucky in having a very good nursery (relatively) near . They do online , but as I always go and pick out the plant I want. I have no idea what the service /cost is like , but the plants have always been excellent
Rogers
and these people are pretty good too
Vertigrow

Thanks book I'll have a look at those. As you say ideally I'd rather see the tree first. They didn't have much in at all the two places I tried- apples/ damsons and plums . There is another nursery that is shut for Christmas so I might hold on and have a look there. We have lovely blue skies today after the fog lifted but have a morning of domestic blaa like getting new tyres and possibly taking the kids to rogue 1. Hoping to get out in the garden later.

well, I popped to the plot, as my DD is coming around later this morning. Still only 1º - so a very quick nip in - the ground is still frosty. Dug up leeks and picked spinach.
A little look around - some varieties of garlic are now nicely sprouted and the broad beans are looking good .!
I am going to have to do something with the poor Prizetaker leeks though - they are starting to suffer in the cold , going soft, so even though not particularly well grown I think I may have to bite the bullet , dig them up and make soup.

Hello! Newbie allotment holder here (well, we got it in October and apart from putting a few onions in we haven't grown anything yet)!

Just starting to think about planning what to plant and buying some seeds, but I've got a few questions. Wondered if any of you lovely experts would mind sharing your wisdom?

• Where is the best place to buy seeds from? They are all half price in the garden centre at the moment and I get an extra 10% off with garden club card, so probably makes it quite a good deal.

• How many seeds will I need for half a plot? I'm thinking a packet of everything should be plenty, but what about things like potatoes? Haven't seen them in the garden centre, so where would be good for them?

• Where do you buy your seed trays from? We're lucky that we have inherited a greenhouse, but I'd like to treat myself to some nice new matching trays so I can plant things in pretty neat rows!!

• How do you heat your greenhouses? Any links to gas heaters that you'd recommend?

Sorry for all the questions. I bumped into my neighbour this morning who said he's already planted his broad beans and it's made me think seriously about how little I know