Bit photo heavy, this post; bear with me. It’s the hottest Xth October on record and as a result the HTC is actually capable of taking passable quality photos.
One of the last courgette flowers of the season – and this one’s a boy (fyi you sex them by looking at the stalk under the flower – nothing obvious in this photo). Courgettes have male and female flowers (on the same plant) and the males are generally useless if no female is around at the same time. But they look pretty. And you can eat them, although I’ve never felt the inclination.
A pot marigold. Our allotment was very successful at inadvertently growing pot marigolds by the hundreds this year, so I dug up a handful and transplanted them to the garden, where they are likewise very successful.
The boys are very pleased with this weather! Although partially perspective (Thomas is bigger than Alfie) and lack of graceful body position, Alfie is on a diet as of this weekend. Slug boy!
A new concoction, these are the haws I picked and froze a few weeks ago. Using a recipe from River Cottage Preserves I made 250g haws into 200ml spicy ketchup – lovely stuff, thoroughly recommended, even though the bushes can be a little challenging to harvest from (hawthorne).
Back to the allotment! I got a couple of bags of shredded paper of a girl at work and decided today was the day to put the beds to bed for winter, though I suspect we’ll uncover them and top them up as we go. This is the root veg bed mid covering. No manure on this one, only the weeds that were already there, plus some paper to add fibre.
And the whole plot covered (the far corner needs permanent covering, and the bare bed next to the root veg bed on the right is for permanent plants that will be planted/transplanted there. I have garlic, shallots and Japanese onions (they overwinter to give an early crop next year) to plant, but fresh manure isn’t good for them and thanks to this weather the clay ground has set solid under the mulch so I can’t remove the manure and use the ground underneath instead. So I figure leave it a week to cool down/get damper and try next weekend. I’m a little concerned we may have accidentally bought non-permeable weed membrane, as the water just sat on top of it when I chucked some on, but perhaps it percolates slowly? Need to check this… Otherwise we’ll have to stick a hose underneath periodically to make sure the mulch rots as it’s bone dry today.
Some of the last few veg on the allotment – these are the brussels and the cabbage cuckoo (bottom left). I bought a tray of nine brussels from the garden centre and planted them out, and one turned out to be a giant cabbage. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth – eight brussels is enough for any family lol.
I sunbathed in the garden and read a bit of Cranford, and I’m happy that in my quest to find unwanted CDs as bird scarers, I found Discworld Noir which I’ve been wanting to play since P#1 and P#2 bought LA Noir for their XBox – here’s hoping I can get it to work! Hilarious – never knew Rob Brydon did the voices…
