I can keep my secret no longer

I must say thank you to my reader who pointed out that someone with degree level maths cannot count. Not only did I get the number of beans wrong, I said that we had three of each whereas we had five 1sts, five 2nds and five 3rds. The blog has been duly corrected.

Anyway, the purpose of this entry is that I can no longer keep the secret of my success with my award winning chocolate chip cookies. Although I didn't realise it at the time, it is simple.

The recipe called for:

6oz soft margarine
8oz caster sugar
2 egggs
12 ox self raising flour
4 oz plain chocolate chips

Now, without actually spelling it out, I would think everybody else used chicken eggs. I will leave you to work out the rest but the cup should really go to Ebony!!!

You are sworn to secrecy

Basingstoke Flower and Vegetable Show

Yesterday and today were manic on the allotment and in the kitchen. We gathered what vegetables we could, dug up tons of potatoes at Old Basing and made a terrific mess of the kitchen yesterday. Today we were up at the crack of dawn to take everything to the show but couldn't make it all in one trip so had a mad rush at the end. I was really annoyed when I realised that the last few exhibits that I had thrown onto paper plated I had mis-read the amount, so two classes we weren't even judged, especially as they were some we could have won as ours were by far the best french beans and fruit. Still, I will learn for next year to take more care.

Anyway, back to the successes of the day. Out of a total of 51 entries, we came away with 15 prizes. Five 1sts, Five 2nds, Five 3rds. You will notice that one of the rosettes for 2nd is missing, this is because it was rightly Katy's as it was her tub of flowers that one this one (see below) so the rosette was heres.




and last but not least, the cup for thE best home produce class. In my book, that makes me the best cook in Basingstoke!

Here I am receiving my cup from our local MP.



First prize

Class 64. Chocolate Chip Cookies. Also best exhibit in the home produce class.







Class 66. A trifle for one person.










Class 69. Five cheese straws.











Class 50. One names pot plant grown for foliage.








Class 30. Three blooms of large flowered roses of the same variety.










Second Prize

Class 71. Homemade white wine. (OK I will admit that there were only two entries in this class, and I am sure they didn't taste it)









Class 68. Five fruit tartlets.











Class 57. A window box or tub/container (maximum size 80cm/32").








Class 32. One large flowered rose of any variety.










Class 23. Two vegetables of the same variety which is not listed above (elephant garlic)








Third Prize


Class 70. A vegetarian dish for one/two persons (stuffed marrow served with sweet potato and sweet corn.








Class 63. Five biscfuits of the same variety (ginger and cinnamon biscuits)







Class 19. Two cabbages with stalks trimmed to a minimum of 2"









Class 16. Five spring onions.









Class 9. An odd shaped vegetable.







I think we have learned a lesson from the show. We should give up growing vegetables!

The graduation

Rebecca's graduation day was a lovely event, taking place in St George's Cathedral, London on 27 July. I am sure you all remember that she now has as well as her BA, a Master of Science in Human Resources (with Distinction).

Ponds and posts

Never one to miss out on a chance to get Matt working on the allotment, Nick and Matt put in yet more posts, this time for the cage at the top of 51 to hopefully keep the flying rats of the cabbages.

They then moved onto the strawberry patch which was totally overgrown with weeds.




While they were busy at this Brian and Marlene magically produced a hole in the ground which was exactly the size and shape of the pond that we had aquired from Barry. The original pond we had bought from the tip for £2 but decided that it was too small. We were chatting one day and Barry mentioned that he had a pond which was too big, so in true allotment fashion we swapped. The reason I say, magic is that Rebecca and I popped to Morrisons and when we got back, there it was. We weren't gone long enough for it to have been dug by conventional methods, so I am very suspicious.




A bit of soil sifting later, it fit perfectly giving the ducks a larger pond when they are out of the compound. They also love the fact that there is lovely soft mud all the way round the pond in which they can dig their beaks and get loads of slugs and grubs. Yummy!


The twins especially love it and rush around like a couple of teenagers diving in at the deepend and swimming lengths. They haven't yet worked out that there is a shallow end so make a lot of splashing and wing waving trying to get out of the deep end, but I am sure they will learn.






The reason why we went to Morrisons was to get refreshments for the workers and we decided that it would be easier to BBQ. We had a BBQ sitting in the shed but it took two to put it together.


All was prepared and cooking started when we noticed a huge black cloud heading our way. Matt fixed a tarpaulin over one end of the duck compound and we hastily moved in. A bit smelly but as long as you didn't look down at what you were standing in, all was OK, except the BBQ really didn't want to light. Guess who was a boy scout!

The babies

We needed a day out yesterday and we found somebody in Birmingham who had two 12 week old Chocolate Indian Runners for sale, so off we went. I phoned her when we were on the M62 to let her know we would soon be there and she was so helpful with directions - follow the signs for Cadbury's world and you can't miss us.

Now, you can imagine how we felt hearing that we were going to the Cadbury's factory to get two Chocolate ducks!


It was with great relief that we went on a couple of hundred yards and found that there were read ducks and really cute. Even cuter were the one day old, three week old and seven week old ducklings that she had hatched.

We kept them in a large box overnight and introduced them to the others this morning. Ebony seems to have adopted them and they follow here everywhere much to the iritation of the other two who are a bit put out. Elena did a lot of quacking as she seem to have taken the role of guard duck so was warning everything else to keep away. They had no problems settling in and are actually almost fully grown but are certainly more lively and have larger apetites than the others.

Tomato blight

A very sad weekend as Sylvester passed away on Sunday leaving a very empty space at home and a very confused Spikey as to where his brother was.

We also got to the allotment and found that we have lost nearly all out outdoor tomatoes with blight which means that all we could do was pull them up and destroy them. We still have about 10 plants in the greenhouses but due to the constant change in temperature and unpredictable sunshine these aren't looking great.

It is lucky that we are not totally relient on what we grow to eat, as this is it now that the early raspberries and the rhubarb crops are coming to an end.

Ashamed at my lack of blogging

I must most sincerely apologise for the lack of blog but I put it down to the weather and Wimbledon (not the garden but the tennis).

Very little work seems to have gone on as every time we are at home it is raining. The weeds are growing like mad and the ducks are loving it. They now stand by their gate waiting to be let out into the allotment when we get there in the evening as they love being out amongst the fruit trees foraging for bugs and young shoots. They especially love getting their beaks under the ground cover that I put around the trees as there are loads of woodlice and slugs around. The trouble is that it is so soft soil that the they come up with muddy beaks as Elena is demonstrating here.

Some things are growing well and we have had bucket loads of raspberries, they are starting to come to an end but the logenberries are also covered so a couple of boxes of them as well. There goosberries were totally wiped out by the birds as we forgot to cover them and the blackcurrents, red currents and white currents are too young to give a good crop this year but I have great hopes for next year.

Logenberries in their growing stage. We made the mistake of trying to pick them when they were the colour of raspberrries but they go really deep purple before they are ready and get sweeter as they mature.





An interesting experiment in the growing of peas. The ones we grew are CW were disasterous and we had about 30 pods from as many plants. The ones I planted at OB have done wonders and I picked a carrier bag full last week and as many are ready for picking already. I have pulled up the peas at CW and replaced them with more climbing beans which should give us a late crop.

Back to the ducks. We are down to very few eggs from Ebony only as Elena doesn't seem to be laying at all and Emily has gone broody. We are hoping that another week she will be over it as she is quite pathetic. She sits in the nest that she has made in the corner of the house with her head poking out of the door so that she doesn't miss anything. She seems to have become the leader as the others wait for her before they come out of their compound. We have a tarpaulin pinned down to supress the weeds and it has made a natural pond which they love. As it is filled by rain water they loved sloshing in it and filtering the water with their beaks.

Now all there is to do is leave your with the promise that I will keep regular updates no matterwhat the weather and will leave you with trying to imaging the wonderful smell that is filling the kitchen from the sweet peas that I have growing at OB.