Allotment 19/10/10

The first frost of this Autumn, in Dorset anyway, was on Sunday. Sunday was also my birthday. Do these 2 things occurring on the same day have any significance? Is it like the groundhog thing? Probably not, it just shows that winter is on the way so it's best to be prepared. If you get some of those dull jobs done now, such as digging over, then you don't have to do them in the middle of the cold, cold winter and that is why I spent about 6 hours last Wednesday moving my raised beds.
When I first got the allotment I had no experience of such things so the spacing between the beds was far too big and there was fair too much wasted space. It was a job that I had been putting off and finding excuses not to do as I knew it would be hard work but I had a surprise day off and the sun was out so no excuses.
I'm not going to bore you with heroic stories about how hard I worked but I did have blistered hands afterwards.
I did have to move a few plants but I'm pretty sure that they'll be ok. My chilli plants, however, have come inside. Last year I left them outside and the fruit didn't ripen leaving us with a lot of green chillies, which was ok but I wanted red ones. Having dug them up, replanted them and placed them next to my indoor chilli plants I noticed something interesting. The outdoor fruits are so much bigger. Really much, much bigger.




See. I have no idea why. Ah well, as long as they ripen I'll be happy.

Anyway, on to the main event. Nettle ale. What does it taste like?

Allotment 5/10/10

 So a while ago I told you of a useful upside of running i.e. that you get to see where stuff grows. Well yesterday I put this knowledge into practise.

 It was a beautiful day so I decided to make the most of it. With my rucksack on my back I mounted up. This little journey would require my bike.

 Firstly I headed out to the road that leaves Dorchester and heads towards Bere Regis (it's the A35 I think but I'm not sure as I'm not my Dad). This is quiet a busy road so care was needed but luckily they are doing some work on the Roundabout so there were some big gaps in the traffic. I was after apples.

 People like me throw their apple cores out of the car window and some of them grow. I think that my haul would have been a little more impressive if I'd been out a week or 2 earlier but I don't think it was too bad, well, all free stuff is good.

They are not the prettiest apples in the world but that really doesn't matter as they taste fantastic.

Now, I wasn't going to do sloe gin this year because we've still got a couple of bottles of last years left but there are so many sloes about this year (well there are here) it seems a little rude not to.  This time it was a different road that leaves Dorchester, the one that goes to Yeovil (B3147 that joins the A37 according to Google maps), and I didn't have to go to far to find them. Loads, everywhere.

So I went shopping in the afternoon and bought some cheap gin. Soon the two will be combined and a lovely thing well be created.

I have to admit that I was inspired to go out by a repeat of a River Cottage Autumn that I saw on Sunday afternoon. One of the things that HFW made was Nettle Ale so I thought that I would give it a go.

 Nettle picking is never the most fun you can have but a glove and some scissors usually protect you. The recipe is here. As it is the first time I have made it I have made half the quantity in the recipe but I have just had a sneaky little taste and it is coming along nicely.

I'll let you know how it goes.