27 Jul
Well I have just updated my produce spreadsheet and updated it with latest Waitrose pricing, choosing organic where available. So already up to £35.00 worth of food in 2013. Tis included the fabulous kale from last year for early in the year.
Made a tasty pasta with plot veg for dinner tonight.
25 Jul
Yippee – managed to grow some carrots. OK so they are a bit wiggly but that is because they were planted in modules and transplanted. Eleanor suggested growing them in loo rolls next year to avoid this problem – sounds like a plan!
Jordanian cucumbers in sweetcorn bed are ripening now and the Crown Prince squash are doing well.
25 Jul
Hans has grown some edible amaranth for us to try in bed 12.
I had some the other night stir fried and it was delicious (fried in sesame oil with sliced garlic and a dash of soy sauce).
Treat like cut and come again salad ie don’t pull the whole plant but cut some of the leaves up.
Here is some info about this veg. It can be stir fried when young, boiled like spinach or added to soups.
http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/amaranth-plant.html
http://www.foragingfoodie.com/fish-with-amaranth.html
The other unknown leaf was great in a soup. I fried up some diced bacon and sliced garlic in olive oil. Then added 2 pints of chicken stock and loads of the leaves until they wilted. Served with grated parmesan cheese mixed through – delicious.
14 Jul
The sweetcorn are starting to get their male flowers now.
The male flowers appear at the top of the plant. The female flowers appear further down. The male flowers pollinate the female flowers below, aided by the wind. I find that it helps to gibe them a hand by shaking the male flowers over the female. This helps to ensure that each sweetcorn grain in the cob gets pollinated.
We have a seep hose! Richard has draped this around the runner bean bed so we can water right at the roots and go off and do some weeding or other work.
13 Jul
Well it’s been a bit of an RHS week, what with attending the In Bloom reception at South Hill Park on Tuesday, being assessed for Its Your Neighbourhood on Wednesday, then a visit to a very hot Hampton Court Flower Show on Friday.
Too hot to spend long down there this morning, just long enough for a quick bit of watering and a radish raid. The ones in the ‘Y’ bed are huge and delicious.
Picked a few raspberries too. Managed to get the hose to reach all but about 4 of the canes. The whole area looks a mess, but probably now a blitz job for the autumn.
My Dad has given me an unwanted seep hose. Once we get the right connectors we can use this to give the runners a good soak, whilst getting on with other plot jobs.
Look at this amazing aerial photo of the plot – I can’t believe how big our bit looks. Very impressed how circular the hub is and how ramrod straight the beds Mike re-edged are. When you see it like this no wonder it takes hours to water! I have posted this to the Plot Plan page as well with our plot delimited.
7 Jul
Boy was it hot down on site today.
Took the opportunity to take pics of the flowers in the hub.
Dug up one Charlotte potato to see if ready to harvest. Some reasonable size tubers but we probably need a week or two more to let them get a bit bigger. Some of the potatoes have not reached flowering stage yet either.
The raspberry beds look awful. The ground is too dry to weed them though and looks like some have perished for lack of water.
