Preparing for Spring

I can't wait for Spring to be here, although there are signs everywhere. There are buds on the fruit bushes and trees, the weeks are starting to grow!

I have been busy in the greenhouse preparing for sowing time so have trays prepared with toilet rolls. Based on approximately 30 rolls per tray, I have 300 tubes ready for filling. I am worried that won't be enough so keep collecting. As well as toilet rolls, there is a good supply of kitchen rolls which are much longer so I am going to use these to get some parsnips started. Parsnips are notoriously slow to germinate so if I can give them a head start in tubes they I can guarantee a crop.



The rhubarb is bursting out of the ground and it will be amazing how quickly it grows. We found some on an abandoned plot last year which we put in the bank along the front of No53 (the fruit and duck allotment) and that is shooting as well, which is surprizing as their isn't much soil there and it had a loat of chippings dumped on it in the autumn.



I sowed some broad beans in the greenhouse and they are doing wonderfully but I am concerned that they will go a bit leggy so I will need to cut some twigs to stake them. I also found some garlic from last year that was sprouting so I have divided the bulbs and put them in trays to get them a better start before planting out.





The broad beans outside are looking good, although we have lost a couple to frost. We decided not to cover them to keep them hardier, but left the cloche frames in place as it will be good for support when they need it as I will be able to cut some hazel twigs and push them in the ground between the hoops. I have put CD bird scarers on a cane but I am not convinced that they are working.





The garlic that I planted in the Autumn is growing like mad, even the Elephant garlic is growing now. All the books say that you should only use bulbs from reputable suppliers and indeed I did - Tesco. They all warn against supermarket bought garlic as it is not guaranteed to grow and may be susceptable to disease, so fingers crossed that it will continue the way it has started.




Of course, no update would be complete without the girls. This was a rare occurance that I managed to catch them in the pond while I had the camera round my
neck, but I was managed to creap up on them while Emily, Florence and Fennel were on the big pond. Calling it a big pond is a bit of an exageration but it is bigger than the one they have in their compound and often there are 6 ducks in this one but as it is long and narrow they all have to swim in the same direction - try telling that to the twins who cause havoc whereever water is concerned!

The girls

It has been pointed out to me that I have not shown all the ducks on the blog so here they are. From left to right: Emily, Ebony, Florence, Apple, a twin, Fennell, another twin and Eve. I apologies to the twins but I really can't tell them apart.

It was not easy to get them all to stand still so I have given them individual resumes as well.



Emily
I have to admit to having a soft spot for Emily. She is so pretty since her moult and is one of the smaller ducks. She has created the gang of three with the twins and they are the most mischievous.






The twins (Pixie and Dixie)
Now can you see why I can't tell them apart. They are so adorable and have kept their youthful looks. They are typical Chocolate's with perfect markings. Along with Emily, they are always the last in bed at night and play games with us by running around the house rather than going up the ramp to bed. They are also the three that spend the most time swimming. When we change the water in the pond it sends them crazy and there is loads of jumping in and out and wing flapping, I think the clean cold water must tickle their feathers so there is loads of ducking under and flapping. Wherever one is the other will always be close by.


Ebony
Ebony is the matriarch of the group and is much more sedate and sensible than the others. When we got her in April she was black but since her moult has become
Ebony and Ivory with lots of white. We assume that every year will see a bit more white so watch this space.




Apple and Eve
Apple and Eve and so names as they are Appleyards. They are large ducks like Ebony and look like white ducks from the front but have beautiful markings on their back. Apple has a slightly twisted tail so we can only tell them apart from the back. As well as the distinctive markings, the colouring on their wings is beautiful and ranges from emerald green to peacock blue.



Florence
Florence is the most inquisitive of the ducks. She is always the first to come running out when we let them into the allotment for a forage. She will be looking around at anything new and I really thing she will be the one that we will be able to tame. Saying that, it is not going to be an easy job as they are all so scatty. She has a distinctive white line around her neck and an unusual pink beak.



Fennell
Fennell, and Florence, are by far the largest ducks. I think Fennell thinks that she is the boss but not sure if the others agree. They are both fawns but she has much more white and mottling that Florence. The strangest thing happened when she moulted, she grew a tiny pom pom on the top of her head and now wears it with pride.




While we were trying to photograph them on film today, Molly, the allotment cat decided to join us. The ducks took no notice of her whatsoever and just looked down their beaks at her. She finally realised that they weren't going to play and decided instead that my used pepermint teabag was catnip and rolled in it until she fell off the table.

The wizard of Basingstoke

Great excitement today to find that a new lot of chippings had been delivered. We were getting desperate as the path to the ducks was becoming a bit of a mud slide. I moved 12 barrow loads and made what can only be described as the yellow chipping road. I can almost feel a song coming on, in fact we did burst into song for a little while.






Not quite the same when you are wearing wellies rather than ruby slippers but I think you can get the idea. Follow the water butts, past the raspberries and the orange bucket and don't stop until you reach the ducks.

A winter's harvest

I have decided that all/most winter veg are peculiar. Just take a look at this lot that were picked today. Clockwise from the top are: very odd parsnip, salsify, scorzonera, carrots, turnips, chillis, florence fennel, savoy cabbage, celery and jerusalem artichoke.

Autumn

As it is most deffinately Autumn and becoming quite Wintery with the frosts we have had this week, I thought I would give you a reminder of Summer. Although saying that, these pictures were taken on 3 November. We got home from the allotment to find this bee collecting nectar from the passion flower. He was not at all camera shy but obviously felt that this was his best side.



The fuschias are still in flower and buds opening, which is amazing as usually they are all wiped out by the frost at the beginning of October.













Back to reality now, and that means beans. Having lost the use of the kitchen table with beans drying, they are ready for packing away to give us some lovely soups and stews throughout the winter. I have kept some back for sowing next year as my idea is to build up my own stock of seeds of as much as possible. As well as the beans, I have kept seeds from tomatoes (what few there were after the blight wiped them out), passion flower, chillis, peppers, and melon.





We started to panic, as last year the water was turned off as soon as frosts started and we weren't prepared. We found as many water containers as we could, and with the help of our local plummer (Katy) sealed off the pipes that weren't needed and fitted taps. I then spent the afternoon walking back and forth from the trough with watering cans full of water. It wasn't a problem last year but we now have to think of a drinking water supply and pond refills for the next couple of months. It is amazing how much water an old water tank and two wheelie bins can hold.





As you will all know we are great believers in composting everything we possibly can - vegetable waste, not perenial weeds, teabags, cardboard, newspaper, wilting flowers, the stuff collected by the Dyson (I can't spell vacuum cleaner), the fluff out of the tumble dryer, the mountain of hair out of my hairbrush, duck bedding etc, etc.




A year later this is what it looks like!








It is fantastic stuff. I wish you could feel it, it just crumbles between your fingers and smells wonderful. I have put two barrow loads in the bed in the greenhouse ready for spring and have great hopes for a bumper crop of toms from that lot.Well, this is how it looks on a daily basis when we keep adding more.




Remember back to those heady days of summer when the bowls season was in full swing and yours truely has quite a successful season. Well, the prize giving is on 30 November so I will be able to show you my collection of awards. Old Basing Bowls Club is not the fastest off the mark, but they have finally got the results from the previous year on the roll of honour and of course, I won something then as well. Sadly this year, my win doesn't qualify for a place on the board but still, I will go down in history.



You will need to click on the picture to get a full view but I thought I would include a close up as well.










To finish as I started, with a picture of what we believe will be a prize winning dahlia. We have great hopes for this one and are going to join the Basingstoke Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Society so that we can enter the dahlia show next year.

All aboard the No 42

I had a great surprise when I got home from a week away to find that the shed at home was almost finished. All that is left to do is the glazing in the window. It looks lovely now especially as the colour that we chose matches the roof. It also looks much less like a bus shelter than it did before it was painted.

Update for August

The building of the shed has started. Nick and Matt laid the base exactly to measure wit6h a nice little patio outside the door and window. When I say started, I mean that the bit are laid all over the lawn and painted. I am not sure which has the most paint on it, the shed or the lawn!





The beans that I planted for drying are ready to shell and I was surprised to find that I had one plant of 'Ying Ylang' kidney beans. I am going to keep them to sow next year and hopefully increase my supply year on year. They look fantastic.




A selection of other beans are 'Butter Beans' 'Bellotta Beans' and what ever you call the beans that come from dwarf french beans. I have also shelled some runner beans that had got too big and they tasted great as well. At this stage it is OK to cook them as they are but I have a load that I am hanging to dry and store to use over the winter.


These do look good hanging in the kitchen especially as the pods are so different. They will lose their colour as they dry and I am a bit worried that the beans will start dropping all over the kitchen floor but I will overcome that problem if it happens.






We don't seem to have as good a crop of onions as last year but it has been very dry and they do like a lot of water. I realise that I don't have anywhere to store then as the beans have taken all the room on the bottom of the wine rack where the onions hung last year. I have asked Nick to make a rack to hang over the kitchen table but I think it is fairly low on the list of jobs that I keep adding, and the shed has priority.


The elephant garlic looks fantastic and I am saving a couple to plant for more next year. It has a really mild flavour, more like leeks than garlic (that reminds me, I must photograph the leeks to show you next time).



In my mission to be organic and to save my own seed, I have gone a bit mad and am even saving seed from the passion flower that is fruiting like made in the garden. Unfortunately the fruit seem to be more seed that fruit so I really don't fancy eating them altough they do look lovely.



Another one of my missions is to make more of the hedgerows and our hedge at Churchill Way includes the hazel that I cut for bean poles and elder. So, having missed the elderflowers, I couldn't miss the change of the berries. After wine last year, I decided that 2007 was the year of the chutney - elderberry chutney that is. Surprisingly it is not a very strong taste and in my opinion ideal for cold meats. I will be circulating jars shortly for the taste test.


Back to the shed, or rather the bus stop. I think the telegraph pole is what gives it its name.






Now an update from the bowls green. I was in the final of the novice singles against Lyn. At this point of the game, we had completed 10 ends and she was beating me 9 points to 3 and the game is the first to 21 points. I now have the reputation as the come-back queen as it got to the point where she needed 1 point to win and I needed five. I got one, then another one and then three - so you can work out who won. Another cup to match those of last year.

I came a very close second in the ladies pairs and a not very close second in the ladies two woods singles but at least I get runners up medals for them.

Remember the giant apple. It has grown so big that it looks as though it is bigger than Nick's head. He was determined not to pick it except one day last week we arrived at the allotment to find that it had harvested itself and was sitting on the ground.

The fruits of our labour

We’ve started to really enjoy the fruits of our labour now so I thought it was time for another update from the Little London Garden:

We’ve started getting a lot of fruit from our forest of cucumber plants so we’ve made some chutney (with some apples from our tree), relish and pickled cucumbers to get rid of some of it.



We’ve also had some beetroot so now have a couple of jars picked for our lunches:



We came home from visiting Mummy and Nick this weekend to find that all of our tomatoes have been struck down with blight after the rains so, not wanting to lose all of our hard work, we picked all of the green tomatoes. As you can see, we had quite a few:


We’ve made 8 jars of green tomato chutney, which was delicious last year, but haven’t even dented the pile so I’ve found some recipes for Green Tomato Ketchup, Tomato Chilli Sauce and Green Tomato Tarte Tatin. We’ve got through 3 bottles of vinegar this week so need to get to the shops to stock up before we start are big green tomato cook-off.

We’ve also been making the most of Mummy and Nick’s produce wherever we could. When we were in Basingstoke at the weekend I made 4 jars of the now famous Runner Bean Chtuney, which is just delicious! As you can see, we’re building up quite a stock pile of preserves for Christmas presents:







Matt has also been busy baking, he’s made a Plum Custard Tart and a Red Onion and Goats Cheese tart, both of which were delicious:










We had some pastry left over so I made a vegetable quiche, seen here with some home grown salad, Matt’s homemade bread and some home grown borlotti bean salad – which we made from a recipe from Jamie Oliver:

Borlotti Bean Salad

Boil how ever many fresh borlotti beans you can get with half a potato, half a tomato and a whole bulb of garlic for about 40 minutes. When they are all soft, drain ¾ of the water off and mush the potato, tomato and garlic into a rough paste. Add this paste back to the pan with the beans and the left over water. Slosh in some good olive oil and vinegar (I used white wine vinegar) and some fresh herbs (I added parsley and chives) and serve.

Besides the food that we’ve been getting plenty of, we have also still been getting plenty of visits from our menagerie of wildlife. The squirrel was hanging of the bird feeder this morning along with some sparrows and last week we had 3 foxes in the garden – we think they are Geraldine, her older cub from the spring, and a younger cub (who is very energetic!). Here are Geraldine and her eldest asleep under the apple tree (you wouldn’t believe we lived in London would you?!):

Fruit and Flowers

The raspberry crop is still fantastic but we have now found a supply of blackberries to go with them. Today's crumble has a lovely sharpness to it as the two complement each other beautifully.



The James Grieves Apple is getting bigger and bigger and we are approaching the time when the decision has to be made to pick it. After all the effort of growing it to this size, it will be such a shame if it drops from the tree and is bruised.





Something new at the allotment this year is flowers. I hear you say 'but you can't eat them', and you would be right, but in such a disasterous year for vegetable growing, it is lovely to have something to show off. The gladioli are magnificent and there is a lovely selection of dahlias (to follow next time) and we have actually
been complimented on our sweet peas at Old Basing (also to follow as I keep forgetting to take the camera when I go there).

Whatever happened to Emily

After her period of being broody, Emily went into moult. This is another period when ducks don't lay well but the moult has now finished so we are hoping for laying to start soon.

Something very strange has happened though, she has lost her soft honey beige and has become one of the brown ducks. Now, I don't know if this happens naturally and she will pale down with time, or she wants to be one of the gang.

The picture is a before and after.

The first decent harvest

A big picking day today, starting with the usual one egg and followed by, a cucumber, celery, various beans, lettuce, tomato, carrots, chard, spinich, herbs, garlic, raspberries and chillies.