I have finally made it back to the allotment. There has finally been a break in the not-letting-me-get-to-the-allotment weather. After weeks of frozen soil and snow followed by a lot of rain, today is just grey. It is cold but not cold enough for the soil to be impenetrable to my fork.
It has been about a month since I had last been there so I expected the worst. I expected all my crops to be dead, yet I also thought that the weeds would have managed to have survived the winter and grown spectacularly. I assumed that my plot would be completely over grown with grass and bindweed. Yet again my logic and knowledge of plants let me down.
Because of the fact that it is winter nothing had really grown. Neither the vegetables nor the weeds. Bare earth was still bare earth. Big, very pretty ice crystals all over it, but it was still bare. Oh the joy. I had thought that I was going to have so much work to do.
This was not the only surprise. I had left the cloches over the salad leaves but thought nothing of it. They are summer plants after all so they’ll be dead now. Oh how wrong I was. A quick peak under the plastic presented me with a very pleasing sight. Some had survived. Oh yes, I picked fresh salad leaves in January. The rocket doesn’t look to good but had survived but the other one that I don’t know the name of is doing very well. Hurray for nature I say.
So there wasn’t that much for me to do today except a little light digging and I put some broad beans in, they do pretty well at sorting themselves out. Some parsnips were found as well.
To be honest I wasn’t looking forward to today but in the end it was really rather lovely being the only one there on a Monday morning.
Monday 25 January 2010
Tuesday 5 January 2010
Allotment 4/1/10
Happy New Year to one and all.
Sorry I haven't written anything for a while but what with Christmas and all I haven't really had the time. That and yet another weather moan. During November I complained about the rain quite a lot because it stopped me getting out there.
I did manage to get to the allotment 2 days before Christmas so that I could get some veg for the seasonal meals, however the soil was frozen solid. I could barely get the fork into the ground. Past episodes of Casualty ran though my head as I stood, both feet, on the fork trying to penetrate the earth. Whilst I understand that a parsnip is supposed to taste sweeter after a bit a frost this was ridiculous. I did manage to break the surface of the soil, in the end, and cut fork sized squares out of it. Solid cubes of soil that had no intention of releasing the sweet root inside.
Then followed the bashing of the cuboid lumps with the fork to try and get at the tasty treats. This did not go well. As the parsnips were frozen as well they fractured easily. Oh it all went badly.
A few days ago Significant Other strolled past and the soil was still frozen. For 3 whole weeks it has been solid. This is good in some ways. It kills slugs and snails and general bugs and stuff but it makes it completely impossible to do any work there. It is also good for the annual things such as fruit trees and bushes that need a bit of a rest.
But what have I been doing to pass the time as I can't allotment you may ask? Well apart from eating Christmas cake and mince pies (made my own mincemeat this year which was very tasty) I've really got into bread making.
I have been making my own bread for about 18 months now, just simple loaves, but I have started to get a little more experimental. Please don't see this as showing off, it isn't, bread making is easy. Here is a basic recipe. Don't take it too seriously and have fun, who cares if you mess it up. Oh and don't bother with a bread maker, what a waste of money.
A few weeks ago I made croissants simply because I hadn't done it before and I wanted to see how hard it was. It was a bit hard and quite time consuming.
If you do get really into may I recommend that you try Sourdough breads. Now this is a little more time consuming and a little bit more of a fuss but it is worth it because, as long as your start is ok, it always rises really, really well and is really tasty. Here is recipe that I started with. This is a basic sourdough but you can make all sorts of things with the start. This week I have made a rather tasty sourdough rye bread. It takes a while but the results are worth it and you get a really impressive looking loaf, check this out,
Happy baking.
Sorry I haven't written anything for a while but what with Christmas and all I haven't really had the time. That and yet another weather moan. During November I complained about the rain quite a lot because it stopped me getting out there.
I did manage to get to the allotment 2 days before Christmas so that I could get some veg for the seasonal meals, however the soil was frozen solid. I could barely get the fork into the ground. Past episodes of Casualty ran though my head as I stood, both feet, on the fork trying to penetrate the earth. Whilst I understand that a parsnip is supposed to taste sweeter after a bit a frost this was ridiculous. I did manage to break the surface of the soil, in the end, and cut fork sized squares out of it. Solid cubes of soil that had no intention of releasing the sweet root inside.
Then followed the bashing of the cuboid lumps with the fork to try and get at the tasty treats. This did not go well. As the parsnips were frozen as well they fractured easily. Oh it all went badly.
A few days ago Significant Other strolled past and the soil was still frozen. For 3 whole weeks it has been solid. This is good in some ways. It kills slugs and snails and general bugs and stuff but it makes it completely impossible to do any work there. It is also good for the annual things such as fruit trees and bushes that need a bit of a rest.
But what have I been doing to pass the time as I can't allotment you may ask? Well apart from eating Christmas cake and mince pies (made my own mincemeat this year which was very tasty) I've really got into bread making.
I have been making my own bread for about 18 months now, just simple loaves, but I have started to get a little more experimental. Please don't see this as showing off, it isn't, bread making is easy. Here is a basic recipe. Don't take it too seriously and have fun, who cares if you mess it up. Oh and don't bother with a bread maker, what a waste of money.
A few weeks ago I made croissants simply because I hadn't done it before and I wanted to see how hard it was. It was a bit hard and quite time consuming.
If you do get really into may I recommend that you try Sourdough breads. Now this is a little more time consuming and a little bit more of a fuss but it is worth it because, as long as your start is ok, it always rises really, really well and is really tasty. Here is recipe that I started with. This is a basic sourdough but you can make all sorts of things with the start. This week I have made a rather tasty sourdough rye bread. It takes a while but the results are worth it and you get a really impressive looking loaf, check this out,
Happy baking.
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