Allotment plans..

I would like to grow:

Maincrop potatoes, anything that roasts & mashes well because that's what I mainly use spuds for
Garlic - thinking of elephant garlic
Red onions and normal onions - not crazy amounts, although I will make red onion marmalade with some and dehydrate the rest
Squashes and pumpkins. Perhaps something giant to keep the girls interested, plus butternut squash (surely they have to grow for me at some point?!) and crown prince, my favourites
Beetroot
Sweetcorn
Sunflowers, again to keep the girls interested!

There will no doubt be more when I get the Spring seed catalogues. Can't wait.

And in other news.. 8 days til we get our chickens!! Sooooo excited! 

Allotment!

I finally got down there for another nose this evening. I'm so thrilled. OK, so it's a lot of work, and getting the weeds and bolted things up isn't going to be much fun. But all that growing space will be brilliant. Also it has an existing fruit cage and a big rhubarb plant, and a little strawberry patch. I'm a little paranoid that the old (still just about existing) owner will come and remove everything, but I think the chances are pretty low.

The fruit cage is home to a load of raspberry canes with lots of lovely ripe untouched fruit on them, and what appears to be 2 gooseberry bushes and 2 blackcurrant bushes! I'm SO HAPPY about this!!!










I'm also considering investing in a food dehydrator. My current top choice is the Stockli model, as it's not extortionately expensive but seems a decent one. I'll be buying some of the fruit leather inserts because fruit leathers are amazing and we all love them. I must admit that my primary reason for considering getting one was the leather aspect, but it seems you can also dehydrate things like onions and courgettes, and then rehydrate them for use in cooking throughout the year. It seems an ideal way of coping with gluts of things (ha, fat chance of that this year!) and takes way less space than trying to store things in a 'cool dry place' or the freezer. It might end up gathering dust like so many of my other gadgets, but so far I'm hopeful :)  Especially now I'm going to have lots of different kinds of berries to experiment with!

It's been a while..

I have been a little disheartened to be honest, but it's not all bad. The beans seem to be doing very well since I bought a rainbow coloured twirly bird scarer thing from Poundland..

We've also had a decent supply of cucumbers, although the latest ones are very strangely shaped!

I don't think it will be long before our apples are ready. Some of them are very tiny, but that's OK. I can't wait to try them!

 Scrumptious

Broadholme Beauty

I harvested my red onions yesterday. I didn't have room to plant many of the set, so it was a bit of a waste of money, but.. yesterday I met my allotment for the first time! It's VERY weedy but huge and my mum assures me it has good soil. And it only costs £4.50 a year! So next year I will be growing loads of things :)

We've been blackberry picking twice over the Summer holidays and have made a few jars of bramble jelly and a batch of fruit leathers. The leathers are delicious and have proved so popular that I'm seriously considering splashing out on a dehydrator, as our oven doesn't go low enough to cook them without burning within minutes, and unfortunately my friend's oven took *3 days* to dry them sufficently which is a bit of a pain if you want to cook anything else! 

And in even more exciting news, CHICKEN RUN!!!

15 days until the chickens arrive :)  I hope our girls like their new home!
More chicken and allotment news to follow :)