Pumpkin time!

Hard to believe the summer is over and it's autumn.  Time to clear out vegetable beds, cut back old growth and its.....

PUMPKIN TIME!!

I never planted pumpkins but somehow these little plants came up amongst the beans and courgettes. The leaves looked like courgette at first but it soon became obvious they were not! 

Little green globes started to form and then grow and I decided to just leave them and see what happened.

They grew and grew and then started to ripen to orange a dead giveaway they are pumpkins!

In the end we have 10 lovely round, orange pumpkins waiting to be picked.

I have promised BoyG he could pick one next weekend and if Miss Lizzie comes she can have one too.
 

The biggest will hopefully last till Halloween and I can carve it out but the others will become roast pumpkin, pumpkin risotto, pumpkin jam, jelly and chutney to remind us of them throughout the darkest days if winter!
 

Next year I will plant some and nurture them where I actually want them to grow!

Pumpkin soup anyone??

Summer's Bounty

I love my allotment and even Mr R has come to want to be there, to carry out the day to day tasks that keep it running.

This year we have eaten more vegetables than ever and they were all free!  We have had courgettes in every form possible, baked, steamed and made into cake. I have written about lots of the food I have made and will be writing about the recipes for other things too. Check them out here.

But the deep shiny black star of the show is the fantastic crop of blackberries! 

I have so far made over 25 jars of jam,

blackberry and coconut cake,

blackberry pie and today made blackberry chutney.

I have also made blackberry vodka

and blackberry Bacardi

I made a visit today and although I thought the blackberries were slowing down they have had a new spurt - there are thousands of them still to pick! And still they keep on growing! 

When we get to the end of the month the bushes will be cut right back to encourage growth for next year but it will also give us a chance to encourage the blackberries to grow in a more civilized way next year. Wish me luck!

The end is insight!

This time of the year there is still plenty of work to be done on the allotment!

I popped up there this morning and before I knew it 3 hours had gone by! I hadn't done anything major but just a bit here and a bit there.

One of my current tasks is to clear and add manure to the herb bed.  I had planted a couple of permanent herbs but used the space in between for radishes and peas so as not to waste space.  Today I put in a new Oregano plant.

 

I am also extending the herb bed so I can plant lavender, for lots of uses but mostly to attract bees and butterflies to the plot.
 

Next week I will be joining up two smaller beds getting them ready for onions!.

There is so much to do, I must remember the coffee next time and I can stay longer!

My Allotment Contributes to Dinner

Tonight I was very proud to be serving a tasty, nutritious, satisfying meal to Mr R but which cost the total sum of £0.45! How did I do that?

Well, we had sausages, jacket potatoes, yellow courgettes and rainbow chard.

The sausages were turkey sausages and were a gift from a visit yesterday to Kelly Bronze Turkey Farm in Essex.

The courgettes were sauteed in a small amount of butter, salt and pepper and came from our allotment - free!

The Rainbow Chard was pan fried in a bit of olive oil and a tablespoon of sundried tomato paste with a little white wine. The chard was grown on the allotment so free and the tomato paste an item in the goodie bag from last month's Food Blogger Connect conference.

The cost of this meal can be attributed to the bag of four baking potatoes I bought at the supermarket, originally priced £1.89 but reduced to - you guessed it - £0.45!

And for pudding we had Rachel's organic, low fat Mango yoghurt which was also sent to me for review. This is a creamy pot full of yoghurt with pieces of mango and low fat.

Thanks to Kelly Bronze Turkeys and Rachel's Yoghurt for their part in tonight's dinner.

Ruby Redcurrant Richness

We have been doing quite a bit of work at the allotment this weekend.  For starters we have cut back loads of trailers from the blackberry bushes which will allow us to pick them more easily in the next few weeks.  There are loads and loads of unripe berries just waiting to ripen and be picked by me!

On the way out Saturday I noticed a small sign on one of the plots.  'Help yourself to red and blackcurrants as our freezer is full'!  How nice.  Mr R was ready to go home so we didn't stop but I noticed that both the red and blackcurrants bushes were laden down with currants.

Today I brought a container and popped down to the currents.  The blackcurrants had been stripped from the bushes which didn't really bother me since I am not that fond of them.

The redcurrants however were virtually untouched.  I popped down to pick whilst Mr R was watering and in just a short time had a box full of ruby red juicy jewels!

 

When I got home I stripped all the berries from their stalks, washed them and let them drain and then weighed them.  1.5kg!!!

They are now in the freezer in four small bags ready to be used this winter.  I think I will pop some into my cranberry relish this Thanksgiving and any jam I make will get a handful to ensure there is pectin present.

I must pop into the supermarket and see how much redcurrants cost. I always like to know the extent of my bargains.

What do you do with currents, leave me a comment below please.  Thanks.

Veggies veggies everywhere!

 

We hadn't been to the allotment for about five days and during that time we had warm weather and a fair bit of rain.

That means only one thing - veggies!!!
 

As daughter and grandsons were visiting we made it a family affair!

 

Boy G helps me pick courgettes and helped Grandad with the watering whilst Baby G sat there looking cute!

 

 

 

The courgettes had been growing steadily but today WOW courgette explosion! 

We picked over 20 yellow courgettes (the green seem to have slowed down), loads of French beans both yellow and green, beet root, rainbow chard and runner beans!

 

The blackberries are ripening and will be ready to start picking soon, will be checking to see the jam jar situation in the shed!

Still so much to do but I love it there. Mr R is keener to go now as well and keeps referring to 'his potatoes'!

That is no weed!

I was up at the allotment this afternoon with a visiting cousin of ours and after giving her some produce that I had grown we took a walk around the whole site.

It's so tranquil there and I love seeing what everyone else is growing and the ingenuity they use to make the supports and tunnels etc.

On the corner of my plot and my neighbour's I noticed this weed like clump growing and then today whilst walking around I saw loads more clumps of this.

When we got back from our stroll my plot neighbour was at his plot so I asked him if it was a weed.  No way, he said, its horseradish!  He got his spade and dug up a piece for both of us.

I had never seen horseradish growing before so it is with great excitement I shall grate some on something I cook this week. 

I also plan to put one of the smaller roots in a pot of soil and see if it takes.

Love new learning experiences!