Monday 28 September 2009

Garlic and sciatica

Dug bed one over at the weekend and then dug it over again and was still pulling out bindweed roots! However got garlic and autumn onion sets in on Sunday. I love growing garlic and it is a bit of an experiment planting it this early, but have read that it can encourage bigger bulb growth.
I have had bloomin' sciatica since last Tuesday and it is now beginning to get on my nerves (no pun intended!). It probably was not helped though by the weekend digging and bending over planting - but on balance I'd rather have a life than sit around not doing things just because they might hurt.

Monday 21 September 2009

Logs



Ready for burning on our lovely new Clearview wood burner.

Tiles



Lovely old french terracotta tiles - sadly not very frost proof.

Weekend work


Saturday was a hard day physically. We got up to our annual log delivery. They are left on the road outside the house so Nigel had to transport about 20 wheelbarrow loads round to the back garden whilst I loaded them all into the log store - back breaking work.
In the afternoon we went to the allotment - Nigel removed all the old tiles from bed four. This is going to become the allium bed, and we are going to put a pond in at the back of this part of the plot.
I retired the courgette plants to the compost heap and dug over bed one - pulling out the bindweed roots by the handful! I've got some field beans to overwinter in this bed, to be dug in as green manure in the spring.

Butternut squash!

Sunday 6 September 2009

Courgette loaves



Just got them out of the oven! I'll give them a few minutes to cool down then take the taste test!

Glutney phase two



I can't believe how different the plot looks now to how it was when we first took it on. I've looked back over the old images and am quite amazed by the progress.
Yesterday I made another 8lbs of courgette and tomato chutney, and I have just put two loaf tins of courgette cake in the oven. It smells glorious already. I found a recipe which also includes banana, and as I had a bunch of mushy bananas in the fruit bowl, it has put them to good use.
The recipe was also quite heavy on sugar and oil so I have reduced these quite significantly, and included some soya milk as extra moisture. I think it'll be ok, but the proof, as they say, will be in the eating!