Tag Archives: loldeantimber

loldeantimber, Lost label roses, project othello, roses, Uncategorized

Bank holiday blooms #gdnbloggers

I went to the allotment, thinking that I might be able to pull up the dead grass that has been lying around. That after yesterday, I might be able to continue, even if I did feel as though I had allotment ouchies all over the shop. Don’t get me wrong, it hurts and all over. It is however the sort of ouch you get from having exercised, and isn’t the flaming hot, cayenne pepper hot pain that comes from stress and anxiety. Off I went, and then I got distracted by the roses. Standing there and all pretty like.

 

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I am very surprised by how strongly the roses have started off this year. In the space of ten days-perhaps less-I have collected three differently sized bouquets. I love my roses; they are low maintenance in my view, and yield a wonderful harvest without my having to fuss over them. I do feed them from time to time-when I remember-but otherwise, I then to coo over them, and enjoy them as cut flowers.

There have been many instances where I have described the beautiful zingy fresh lemon smell that wafts around the top part of the plot. That is probably the closest, human, verbose way of describing it, other than heavenly and ineffable. On the plot, there are thirty something rose bushes, making the one half resemble a rose garden. When the glads get going, there are is a riot of colour across the plot that breaks up the green. I feel that they are pretty, and whilst not edible, they have a wonderful aesthetic value as cut flowers. Each and every time that I take a bouquet home, I do wonder just how much they would have cost had I bought them. These are not diddy bouquets, and the roses are not the perfect Disn*y beauty and the beast sort. Some are dainty,  others are fuzzy, fluffy and sprawl all over.

Alas, the bank holiday ends; I got soaked through and need a cuppa. Several, I think. I was glad really, to  have had a good day on the plot yesterday. There is still stuff to do, grass to be cleared and seeds to be sown directly; will get to that all eventually. For now, I am going to get a cuppa, and try to choose which colouring book that I want to play with.

success, tomatoes

Tomato time! #gdnbloggers

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“Get them home before the blight comes.”

So said the Allotment Secretary as I trundled home with trug number of two of tomatoes. It started with trug number one and a couple of carrier bags.

Trug one
Trug two
ugly tomatoes
puddle of tomatoes

We have had quite a few varieties on the plot. These are-if I remember correctly-tigerella, latah, moneymaker, yellow stuffer, cream sausage alisa craig and marmande. I may have missed out a few.

Anyway, I’ve been complaining acutely over the course of the growing season as to how little produce I have managed to sow and grow. I may have over looked the productivity of the thirty two-ish plants that were grown across the two family plots.

I remember having that many plants, and dividing them between my plot and mum’s. I had a feeling, that there would be quite a few if all things went well. Now, having seen a few of plants on neighbouring plots start to with and go all very baroque gothic with would be blight, I have harvested a fair amount.

For fair amount, read poundage and one big massive puddle. I have maybe one trug full left, which I might harvest next week if the airborne blight is still away in distance.

Some of the fruit are actually turning; there are splodges of red, yellow and orange floating around. I have to say, that it is the latah one’s that are by far the reddest of them all. Even moneymaker is somewhat orange hued and not red.

As you can see, there is an assortment of different shapes and sizes. Once you have sown and grown your own tomatoes, you cannot look at the generic shop bought ones in the same light. There is also the question of flavour-the distinct tomato-y-ness. The fibre of the fruit, is is squishy, solid or just a flesh that is held up up by sugars.  This lunchtime, as I sliced up a yellow stuffer for a side salad, I realised why it was a stuffer and not a salad tomato. It had been looking at me for days, pleading to be used. Although moneymaker is uniformly round, there are other varieties that are less pretty. And thank goodness that they are! There are quite a few knobbly marmande fruit, with their rather weird and wonderful shape. It is a shame, that in most instances, not many people will eat what is lovingly termed ‘ugly fruit’. It tastes the same, is of the same edible quality, and proves that nature loves wonkiness. There are far more wonky things, compared to the bland, uniform, tick all the boxes, don’t make a fuss variety.

That puddles is huge, and would probably make a lovely green tomato chutney. I’m not particularly feeling the chutney at the moment. I have some hope, that within the confines of a warm environment, these fruit will turn. In which case, they can be used in Mama F’s kitchen and I might even consider investigating pasta sauce  of some kind. There is also the option of ready made tarka mix as well, that could be interesting.

So the growing season hasn’t been an entire bust; the tomatoes are okay. I’m sure I have spuds to lift as well……

 

For now, it’s all okay, and smelling of tomatoes. (Trust me, that is not attractive….)

Mama H recipes, Soft fruit, Taking stock, Uncategorized

Pudding, potting up and moolis #gdnbloggers

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Peppers to put up
spotted: ripening tomatoe

The initial plan for the day was to pot up rescued chilli plants. I had decided that i wanted some more in the poly tunnel; and in the coming days I try and find some more. I popped down first thing to have a general mooch, also to harvest gooseberries. More on the gooseberries later. Early on in the day, I was okay, I wasn’t sneezing so much; all was well. Fast forwards three hours to when I wanted to pot up the peppers; and I kid you not. Whooping sneezing; the horrible, squelchy, bogey-fied, ‘all right, there, Punam?” sort that has your plot neighbours wondering if you are okay and shouldn’t go home and lie down. With my “Yes, thank you, it’s just hay fever” response, I did try and carry on. I was going to pot up the chillies even if my brain made an exit. It took forever, to pot up those peppers and add slug tape. Once completed, I cried off; left Mama F and scarpered home whilst clutching rolled up balls of tissue. Mama F heard her first born whine and snort that she was going home.

Today was all about food. Making the most of what was harvested. Mum’s focus was all about the moolis-the things that I can’t grow-and mine was pudding based with gooseberries.

A lot gets written on this blog about growing, but not an awful lot gets written about eating; surely as a GYO thing, that is important! I was rather glad to see that the tomatoes aren’t doing too badly; the courgettes on the other hand, are a cause for concern with not a lot a fruit as they are slug/snail damaged.

Mama F and mooli
harvested moolis
coriander
mooli roti under construction
Mooli roti and raita: lunch!

So, first thing first. Mum harvested a few mooli. Declared that these would be dad’s lunch as she raised one aloft. There was also a handful of coriander that was harvested. I simply cannot get mooli’s to grow, I get seed pods. My mum on the other hand, was and is committed to the cause; she has sown loads on her plot and is now reaping rewards. Mooli-or japanese radish-is used not only as a salad crop, but Mum stuffs it into chappatis. With the coriander that she also harvested, today’s harvest was lunch. With atta (dough) already made, Mum grated the radish, added salt to the squeeze out the water; before seasoning with the contents of her spice tin. Adding to a rolled roti, this was then cooked on a tava. I had mine with a 5 minute raita as an accompaniment. You can also stuff chappatis with fenugreek, and this is next on Mum’s agenda. A note of caution, mooli’s are spicy, hot and blowaway the cobwebs. So if you don’t fancy the heat, stick with conventional radishes.

{You can find recipes for both of these in #plantpottales -the yellow one!}

trug of all sorts
gooseberries
pudding trug
gooseberry and coconut sponge

As mentioned, before my focus was more sweet rather than savoury. This years gooseberry crop is exactly double compared to last year. Last, 250g came from the then new bushes. This year, with 500g, I’m making cake rather than jam, pickle or gin. I seem to have lost my jamming mojo, and will try to get it back at some point. The crop was added to a sponge mix containing desiccated coconut and golden caster sugar; one of the tins is still in the oven as I type. I fancied making a pudding, rather than jam as it seemed an interesting experiment to do.

So what happened with the cakes?

goosecoconutcake.JPG

Now cooling. I assure you, they are golden and not burned!

Anyway, I am now dosed up with anti-hay fevers stuff. Exiting stage left; to feed to the veggies and harvest some roses.

Preparation, Uncategorized

Sowing Seeds on a Saturday

Today is the first day of my Easter Holidays, and that means starting to think about what is to do on the allotment. In particular, inside the polytunnel.

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The youtube version can be found here.

Whilst I have tried plants and potatoes in the poly tunnel, this is the first for seeds. I have scattered an assortment of radishes, beetroot and different types of lettuces. There were all year round butter head lettuces, as red yugoslavian, lollo rosso, little gem and one called rouge D’Hiver. With radishes, we have a mixture. In terms of beetroot we have have the usual boltardy and Chioggia.

It was very cold in there! Less warmer than it was the other day when the shelving was built.

 

I hid in the poly tunnel, whilst Mum did some digging outside. Whilst it was cold, the plot has started to dry out a little bit more. I think the worse thing that might happen in terms of the weather might be a deluge of April showers. No news yet on the beans sown the other day, I suspect the poly tunnel needs to be a little warmer.

 

chillies, grapevine, loldeantimber, preserving, Soft fruit, success, superhots 2015

Summer to September: Changes

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Whilst many of my teaching colleagues will be returning to school, I have a few weeks before I do. This means that my attention is taken up with the plot, and recuperating before the new academic school year starts.

Some of the plot has been wonderfully abundant. Other parts less so. Whilst the tomatoes are five foot leafy triffids, there hasn’t been a great deal of fruit. What fruit I do have, is being placed upon a light and warm window sill to ripen. The raspberries were very hit and miss, and I think the same is to be said of Blackberries. I have harvested a few blackberries, but there doesn’t seem to be as much as previously seen.  This time last year, I had harvested a great deal of plums. Despite what the a picture above might suggest, that is a fraction of what last years bounty was. The above plums have been stoned and frozen for use in the autumn.

The squashes are quite abundant, and today I have been chopping courgettes and squashes that are most likely going to be turned into chutney.  You can see a baby butternut, a bit developmentally delayed; I think this primarily because of the erratic conditions this year.

Chillies have been very good in that lessons have been learned. I am very proud to have had a handful of orange habaneros. I have been desired such a crop for years! Whilst the plants are small, I cannot say that they haven’t been plentiful. These are after all, a very potent chilli. I had to wear gloves whilst chopping, as a preventative health and safey measure. The hungarian hot wax-the label is wrong- are fantastically productive, and the orange pumpkin chillies are a really nice surprise. They have ripened incredibly quickly. As eve the cayenne chillies are doing well as well.

As well as the plums, I have apples to play with. These were donated by a plot neighbour. Again, like the plums, these have been chopped and frozen to be used over the autumn.

success

Trug love with @gardening_leave via @loldeantimber

Last year Loldeantimber and I sent a hand made trug to Gardening Leave in Ayr. A trug that would help them to continue the sterling work that they do. Gardening Leave work with veterans using horticultural therapy, so having a trug would be rather useful!

It was lovely to see a harvest of broccoli, mine looked a bit off colour in comparison!  Fabulous to see the trug being loved and used for what it was designed for. I really hope that they get lots more bountiful harvests.

You can find further information about Gardening Leave here and also their honesty pledge

success

floral ‘obbit seedbox by @loldeantimber

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You are all aware of the floral obbit trug made by https://www.facebook.com/Loldeantimber?fref=ts and now they have matching seedboxes too!

The trug was brilliant last year and the matching seedbox is a welcome addition. Now contains some seeds, so already been put to good use. The seedbox was a fabulous welcome surprise when it arrived the other day. Complements the ‘obbit trug beautifully. The same colour and the same pattern, I am really very proud of them both.

The floral ‘obbit trug was a commission made of https://www.facebook.com/Loldeantimber?fref=ts last year. Hand made, with the unique floral petal, the trug has paid for itself over and over in courgettes and goodies. It’s evidence of a small British Business growing and going from strength to strength. The hard work, commitment and passion of @loldeantimber is evidenced beautifully in their hand made GYO products.

As with everything on the blog, if I like something, I will say. I will share the love for something that is outstanding, makes allotmenteering easier and more of a pleasure to do. I don’t do random plugs or advertising for the sake of it. You won’t find such phoney product placement or promotion here. The floral ‘obbit trug has been a gem to use and with the seedbox, it becomes even more special. I love both the box and the trug, and just have to share.

NaBloPoMo

#NaBloPoMo: The ‘Obbit Trug

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No one year is the same as the next year that follows when it comes to growing. But you always need something to carry your crop home. If you have loads of supermarket plastic bags, you need something to put those in. And pumpkins as you can see can be quite cumbersome. So naturally, having a trug is useful. I didn’t want just any old trug, I wanted a Hobbit trug. Off I went and saw to asking the lovely people at https://www.facebook.com/Loldeantimber?fref=ts

Having spotted @loldeantimber on the twitterverse, figured that they would have just the trug I wanted. I started out wanting a racing green one, or just plain green. To make it look prettier, wanted some flowers on it. I left it with @loldeantimber, and lo and behold, I got a fabulous handmade trug. Supporting British Business too! There were no air miles involved here. Though they might be international yet.  @loldeantimber do lots of other handmade gardening thingies too….chicken perches? I don’t have birdies yet….

It’s not delicate, and it is adult sized. They do have children’s ones. I may be hobbit sized, but this size is big enough I assure you!  Over the summer, it has been filled to the brim with assorted GYO crops. Has rather earned it’s keep, and it is sat in Dad’s shed, resting til next year. It’s not quite hand bag shaped.

When you have a trug this fabulous, you want to share it. So I did. I asked @loldeantimber if they wouldn’t mind making another one for me.  Only this one wasn’t for me. This trug was for http://www.gardeningleave.org/  Gardening leave works with Veterans of conflict, and uses horticultural therapy to help ease the effects of conflict. Being passionate about gardening, and currently training to be a trainee counsellor, I can fully understand the work that charities such as Gardening leave do.

So much so, this is their page for the http://www.gardeningleave.org/index.php/honesty/ The work that they do is incredible and really needs more awareness and support.