Here's Graham and Colin loading some of the wheel barrows. 20 of them have gone onto our plot.
10 tonnes of manure arrived at the allotment. We spent the morning working with about 5 others moving 120 barrow-loads to various allotment plots.
Sunday, 12 October 2008
Poo
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Squash and Spinach Cannelloni
First up, sorry for the lack of picture on this one, but we were hungry. Ok, so actually we forgot to get the camera out after I'd cooked and concentrated on filling our faces instead.
We have been getting quite a few squash from the allotment recently and my usual response to is to throw them in a veggie risotto. Bored with that idea, I decided to come up with something entirely new and did a bit of a make it up as you go along thing to get there. Here's the idea...
Ingredients:
- 1 Squash (from the allotment)
- A couple of handfuls of Spinach (from the allotment)
- A handful of grated parmesan (our is local from West Sussex)
- A couple of knobs of butter
- Garlic (from the allotment)
- A home made sheet of fresh pasta
- Large tin of chopped tomatoes
- Red wine vinegar
- Fresh basil
- Salt and pepper
Method:
As if you're making mashed potato, boil the squash for 15 minutes or so in water.
Make a tomato sauce by heating the chopped tomatoes with chopped basil stirred in. Add salt, pepper and a dash of red wine vinegar to taste. Reduce this mixture down until you have a rich tomato sauce.
In the mean time, heat some oil and melt a knob of butter in a frying pan. Add the garlic to the pan and start to cook. Wilt the spinach in the pan. When done, chop the spinach.
Mash the squash with a knob of butter, adding salt+pepper to taste. Whip in the parmesan while still hot then stir in the spinach. This forms the filling for the cannelloni.
Roll out your pasta sheet (or use fresh lasagne sheets if you can get them, or even dried ready made cannelloni if you must). Place a good line of the filling across the width of the pasta sheet, say a heaped desert spoonful, depending on how wide the pasta is. Roll the end around the filling so you end up with cannelloni the size of a decent sausage. Cut that one off the sheet and repeat until you've run out of filling (or pasta).
Pour a little of the tomato mixture into a lasagne type dish. Then add all of the cannelloni tubes on top. Pour over the remaining tomato mixture. You can now add anything else you want to the topping, such as more basil, cheese, or maybe use a mix of white and tomato sauce. When assembled, put into the oven on about 200c, gas mark 5, for around 15-20 minutes.
When done, serve with garlic bread and or a simple green salad. Lovely!
Saturday, 27 September 2008
Blackberry and Apple Jam
As we get a lot of blackberries from the allotment, I decided to make some jam.
I used the recipe from here: www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=430
Took quite a while to make, so glad that I doubled up on the quantities, as I only made 5 jars!
Sunday, 14 September 2008
A typical days picking
Squash, cabbage, courgette, beetroot, blackberries, broad beans, green beans, peas, runner beans
Taken a couple of weeks ago, but shows the variety of crop that we're getting
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Spuddy wuddies
G spent much of Saturday afternoon digging up potatoes. 14.6kg worth (we weighed them on the bathroom scales)
These are 'Rocket' new potatoes, and some of them are absolutely massive. Most are now in storage in the garage.
Garlic
First garlic harvest. Am well chuffed at growing garlic - a first for me. Ignore that Skate said it is dead easy.
It was quite simple really I guess, break up a clover of garlic (these are from the Isle of Wight Garlic Company), and then plant, each clove about 6 inches apart. Did this in September, then wait until Mid Summer's day and harvest.
I liked the fact that they were due to be picked on mid-summer's day - reminds that you are reliant on nature for these things.
Sunday, 29 June 2008
the first onion of the year
our first onion of the year.
the plot is beginning to start producing sensible amounts of produce. Which is good, there are points (two failed carrot sowing sessions), where you wonder whether you're going to get anything out of it.
I'm pleased to report that this past week has been a turning point, and now the majority of our veg is home-grown. We've had broad beans, peas, onion, garlic, potatoes, lettuce, rocket and radish. Have also picked the last of this year's rhubarb, but have to admit that we froze that rather than ate it.
B
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
New Brassica Netting
After my recent pictures showing our cabbages looking rather sorry for themselves, this is my solution to the problem. The netting is a lot more substantial and hopefully pigeon proof than the last lot.
Sunday, 8 June 2008
Broad Beans
Not a total failure, but not the biggest bean plants either. I'm sure we'll learn from these and do even better next year, but they are producing some nice looking pods now.
Onions
I'm reliably informed these are the mixed over winter onions nearing readiness for summer consumption. They're pretty much ready to go now in fact so it'll just be a case of harvesting and drying them properly for storage. Although, these don't keep as long as the later variety.
A mixture of red and white.
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