What's my apple tree - part 2

Glorious day on Saturday, but sadly I was a bit under the weather and didn't want to stray too far from the house. Feeling much better on Sunday, it proceeded to throw it down with rain all day.

Anyhow, moving on... Some people have their dog blogs but me and the mad cat lady of Sheffield seem to prefer cats, so after months of promising the kids some kittens and a tip off from said mad cat lady we're now the proud owners of two bundles of fur. Besides using the vegetable rack as a climbing frame and knocking the squashes on the floor one of them also seemed to take a liking to the apple I picked from my unknown tree, providing a nice background for a close up of the apple as requested:

Gingerbread (the cat) and ???

I picked this a few days ago (the apple!), but I wouldn't say it came from the tree easily - supposedly one of the signs they're ready. A few days later my guinea pig (the wife) and I had a taste:

It's quite juicy but sharp with it. It's not inedible, but whether it's an eater or a cooker the jury is still out. According to my Dad, brown pips are a sign it's ready though. So still none the wise. I'm looking for a local apple day to take them along to to see if anyone else has any ideas???

I also have another problem: there are a lot of apples on each tree, storing them could be a problem. The outhouse is largely full of potatoes and onions and without a serious clear out it's not going to get many apples in it. There's no heating in our bedroom though and space on top of the wardrobe...

Gratuitous cat picture follows:

Florence (front) and Gingerbread (back) lying on top of the shallots

Squash Review
Now Autumn has definitely arrive I think my squashes are over now. They did OK this year. I grew Defender and Goldie for my courgettes. Defender was its usual prolific self, but Goldie was very disappointing really. It produced lots of smaller courgettes - no bad thing - but with thick bitter skin. Don't think I'll be growing them again.

I grew Gemstore for the first time - this looks a bit like a round courgette but has flesh more like a pumpkin, a light yellow/orange colour. The plant has a kind of restrained, sprawling habit and the fruits are a great size to use up in just one meal and are prolific - 26 off two plants! The skins are also quite thick so I'm assuming they'll store well - they're coping quite well with the cats knocking them over as they clamber up the vegetable rack to get to the table.

I only grew Crown Prince for my large pumpkins this year, which is a bit disappointing as I do like the sight of a bright orange pumpkin on the plot. However, all is not lost there as we have several growing down at my Grandads - by all accounts there's a whole lot of different pumpkins down there that are likely to be coming our way as I don't think the rest of the family eat many. I only managed to get three fruits from two plants, and one of them is quite small, but hopefully the taste will make up for that. All three of them feel quite solid though so hopefully a good amount of flesh of them.

If you look carefully, one of the cats is at the top of the picture trying to get in on the action.

What's my apple tree?

Any guesses? The apples are largely red, they were much bigger than this last year, they're not ready yet (late September) and in previous years we've largely cooked with them as they've not tasted so good straight off the tree - but maybe should have left them a bit longer???

And I've got another just like it behind where I was taking the photo from, so I'll be needing to find somewhere to store apples soon! The flash shows that it's getting darker earlier and there's not going to be many evening visits left :>(

I don't believe it!

It's been a while, so time for a catch up. So where to begin...?

Happy Birthday

In the beginning...

It's now been four years since I first hacked my way on to plot no. 1, encouraged by the mad fools doing the same on the neighbouring plot. It's still not full cleared, the hedge is still a pain in the ar*e and the tree is still there. However, the hedge is under some sort of control thanks to the Association hedge cutters, I'm promised the tree will go in the next month and I've been clearing some old and unproductive blackcurrant bushes, and some of the previously uncleared areas with the Azada - something I wish I'd had when I started! So with all that and the greenhouse to go up, it's looking good for next year. I have new neighbours at the bottom of the plot too, which might encourage me to keep it a bit tidier down that end too!

Harvest Festival
Never ones to miss an excuse for a party our Association decided to have a Harvest Festival on 11 September. Sadly the weather didn't play ball and it threw it down a couple of times, but the people that made it along to the day had a good time - aided by a barrel of beer from one of the local breweries and some friendly competitions. Sadly my impressive display of around 20 different fruits and vegetables didn't cut any ice with the judge we invited along and I didn't even get a place yet alone the coveted allotment trowel!

Mine is the box at the top of the photo, the one at the bottom pipped me to 3rd place.

 
However, the kids did get joint first in the miniature garden competition, my bramble jam came second in the jam category and Mrs D controversially came 3rd with her chocolate beetroot cake in the cake with a vegetable ingredient category. Controversial as the 2nd place entry was bilberry muffins...

Prize winners with their garden

Still aided by the beer and a barbeque with supplies from one of our local butchers and sweetcorn, peppers and mushrooms from our local fruit and veg shop, the afternoon went very well. The barbeque went so well that it was still going the following afternoon when we went to clear up the remaining stuff, so we just dug out the remaining food and carried on!

The only downer to the weekend was the plot we had the event on (supposedly our community orchard) had been served with a notice to quit just the day beforehand - ironically just before our first major event on it and at a time when it was looking better than it had ever done so! Fortunately our Allotment Officer is a reasonable man and it looks like we might get a reprieve.

Potatoes
Given the choice between accompanying his Mum and sister to a local cafe, no. 1 child decided to come with me to plot no. 2 (sadly without a camera). I had 'hired' the hedge cutters from the Association on the other site to tackle the rapidly getting out of control hedges, which I tackled whilst he wore the safety visor and ear defenders... Once that was finished we moved on to the maincrop potatoes (Romeo and Pink Fir Apple). The few we've had from plot no. 1 have suffered considerably with slug damage - annoyingly most of these being the larger ones. After some discussion as to whether there'd be more or less than 10 on the first plant (he went for less than 10) we dug it up between us and counted 24 potatoes! This set the tone for the 3 rows we dug up (largely romeo, but 3 PFA plants too), which produced a sack and a half of potatoes which don't seem to have suffered from blight, have very little slug damage and are a good size, so all good there then. And we even managed to get them bagged up before it started raining.

Now all I need to do is to find somewhere for these - they're currently in the boot of the car. We have about 5 bags of shallots and onions in the kitchen at the moment (including two bags that Mrs D has crocheted to get them off the floor!). Then there are the pumpkins - only had a couple of Crown Prince but they feel good and are awaiting a suitably grand recipe. The other plants I grew were Gem Store which have proved to be prolific - 24 off just two plants. They are just a bit bigger than a cricket ball so are a great size to use up in one meal, but also have thick skins which should mean they'll keep well. There should be room in the old outhouse for lots of things, but I'm a bit concerned when I start picking apples. They might not be as big as they have been in previous years, but the trees are full of apples...

Look at the hedge on that!

The Allotment Association was fortunate enough to get a grant for a hedge cutter earlier this year and I finally got my hands on it a couple of weeks ago. Harder work than I thought it would be - truth be told my arms ached for several days after, but that may have something to do with my nice comfy office job and not being used to manual labour! However, I'm quite pleased with the results. Even the hedge inside the plot isn't looking too bad, but you'll have to take my word for that!

Nice bulbs!
Those of you struggling with onions and garlic this year, look away now!

Plot no. 1

Plot no. 2

First onions

Shallots

Garlic, almost ready for plaiting

This is the 'reward' for our summer up here, apart from a few weeks in June it's been wet enough for them to grow very well, possibly my best year yet. Well for the white onions anyway, reds are a bit disappointing. The kitchen has been home to a tray full of shallots and another of garlic drying for the last couple of weeks too - as it's been far too wet to dry them outside. It does mean we end up waking to an onion/garlic aroma though and the bad news is I haven't dug up many of the onions yet...

Elsewhere on plot no. 1 the sunflowers are looking good, although they may be getting a bit too big to support themselves now and they could do with a bit more sun so they actually come out!

However, after that it all starts going downhill... The bottom of the plot has been 'lost' again and will need to be reclaimed so I can eventually get the greenhouse up.

Erm, wildlife area...

There should be a greenhouse here!

Continuing on the weed theme...

There's some Brussels in here

After a couple of hours I 're-discovered' this bed, reclaiming it from the weeds, planting some Purple Sprouting Broccoli (a bit late I know), giving them all some seaweed meal and re-netting the whole bed. Sadly no pics of this hard work, but I'm hoping to mulch the bed with leafmold later today to keep the weeds down - hopefully with camera in attendance.

Up on plot no. 2, the lettuce are going to seed (must try successional sowing...), the courgettes (aka marrows - must not go on holiday in summer again) are growing like mad, getting plenty of peas (all of which are eaten before ever seeing a saucepan), even some carrots (!), beetroot (which makes a great chocolate beetroot cake!), french beans are coming along well but could do with some sun and the pumpkin patch is giving the bindweed a run for its money.

The apple trees are loaded with fruit too, although a bit small still.

 And finally, the reason why I can get away with spending many a long hour on the plots...

... keeping Mrs D supplied in sweetpeas!

A trip to Grandad's

Needing to pick up some of our camping gear from my parents, a day trip to a somewhat parched Northamptonshire was in order. This also gave us a chance to check on the pumpkins I gave to my Mum to plant out in the 'family allotment'.

In reality this is an approximate 3.5 acre field adjoining my Grandad's house that has been used for many things over the last 30 years from strawberries to potatoes, but now Grandad is well into his 90s there is probably only around a quarter of it used now. And whilst he is still pretty active with his growing he doesn't need much room for just his stuff so it now functions as a space for my Mum and Dad to grow their veg, as well as Mum's sister and brother. And right at the end of the field is a 30+ year old orchard with a mix of about a dozen trees. And these apple, pear, plum and damson trees are prolific. Given there is far too much for Grandad, there's nothing he likes more than sending us off with as much as we can carry!


Pumpkin patch

As you can see it's doing quite well! There are approximately six different squashes in here: Tom Fox, Crown Prince, Gemstore, Goldie, Defender and some sort of butternut squash. There may be another pumpkin in there as well, but no-one's quite sure and it's kinda difficult to tell now they've grown in every direction. The Tom Fox is the 'traditional' orange pumpkin which my Mum is looking after to grow a pumpkin for each of her 3 grandchildren. These have recently been 'written' on with each of their names to grow into the skins, which are hiding under the leaves, and they are roughly all the same size of just a bit larger than a basketball. And at this rate it's doubtful where either of the two younger grandchildren are going to be able to lift them up.

The Gemstore and Crown Prince are there as a backup for our plants and the courgettes are there for who ever can eat them - which given the size of some of them and the number going straight on the compost heap, isn't that many people.


The Orchard

Although it's still a bit early in the year we still came away with a dozen or so apples and a load of plums - having sadly forgotten the names of both of them. However the rest of the trees are loaded with fruit so we're looking forward to a return visit at some point in the future and will hopefully be purchasing an apple press to take along too so we can make use of the ones that have fallen on the ground too.

The trees aren't that tall but are just right for climbing in though:

And one of the trees also supplies the family with mistletoe:

A quick browse through the raspberry patch and the greenhouse and our haul was complete:

Although to be honest, we have no need for the marrows and left them behind!

Gardening with the kids

School holidays are here and they're already bored, so a trip to the allotment was in order. They largely moan at the thought of this but always enjoy themselves when they get there, and today was no different. So they came, dug, planted, ate, argued and got muddy. Very muddy. So much so they needed a complete change of clothes when we got home!

First they tortured some worms:

Then they planted some leeks:

Big brother made the holes and his sister planted the leeks. After watering them in they had a snack on some fresh peas before checking on how the carrots were doing under the fleece:

"It's a whopper!" Yes that's why he actually said after pulling up that carrot! It might not be the biggest carrot in the world, but it's probably the biggest I've ever grown so he's right in one way!

His sister was quite excited with her carrot as well. Then of course they ate them.

The arguments started to come along a bit more frequently after that so we took this as a sign to go home (picking another courgette first) where they proceeded to eat courgette, mint and feta 'cakes' (savoury) and then courgette cake (sweet) later.

Catch up

The last month has seen a lot of strawberries, tidying and weeding, followed by a holiday and a couple of plots looking like I hadn't done any weeding... I know it's goes with the territory but apparently the allotment officer came round to inspect plot no 2 this week again when it was look a complete mess - aaarrrrggghhhh! The stone wall falling down at the front of the plot isn't really helping matters. Guess I'll be getting another letter soon...

Anyway, back to the review. The last month has seen a couple of firsts. Despite having the most unhealthy look plants I managed to grow one Okra. I hate Okra, but Mrs D likes it and confirmed it was tasty. Not sure it was worth all the effort to be honest and so far one Okra off for four plants (not to mention those that died in the cold weather earlier this year) isn't a great return, but there are a couple more growing.

Secondly, my first tomato grown at home. I know it's pretty sad, but I always fail to grow them for various (neglectful) reasons, but the one taking over the attic room is doing very well and has begun to fruit. Weather we get enough to make sauce from them is another matter altogether... Must get the greenhouse put up!

Now, the strawberries - gratuitous gloating follows! We've had a lot, even to the point of giving some away. They were great strawberries this year and to celebrate we made a lot of stuff with them:

Strawberry cheesecake

Strawberry flan

Strawberry jelly

Jam in the making

Jam, which did set, bit runny but the way we get through it, it's not going to be a problem!

We've had quite a few peas - all of which have been eaten straight from the pod, largely by the kids - and broad beans, although I never seem to get as many as I'd like - we like broad beans a lot! We're eating Charlottes for several meals a week, and very tasty they are too. Kids haven't started complaining we're having them too often either, so I take that as a sign they like them as well! The French beans (Major) are just starting off - they've been having to compete with the weeds so haven't been doing so well and some of my dwarf beans appear to have developed a climbing habit... Must have got mixed up with the labelling somewhere!

The summer raspberries are doing OK, most of the gooseberries seem to have been eaten (by what?) as did the red currants (must put netting on better next year).

Then we went on holiday for a week and this happened:

We ended up with 16 courgettes/marrows, all the lettuce ready at the same time (of course), some of the main crop peas coming through, good sized beetroot and some reasonable (it's all relative!) sized carrots. We're currently working our way through many different courgette recipes However, I'm with Nigel Slater - we should call them Zucchini it just sounds much more exciting!