Life on the Weald - December 2021

Life on the Weald - #Plot247 (and at home) December 2021

Crown Prince squash

November had ended with freezing temperatures but the first day of December saw the daytime temperature rise to 11C and in Hove there were sunny periods with only a moderate breeze.

I visited the plot to see what damage, if any, had been caused by Storm Arwen and was pleased that there appeared to be none, apart from the table and chairs having blown over.

The late pumpkins were looking ready to harvest but I wasn't sure that they were fully ripe so decided to leave them a little longer.

1 December - Pumpkins (Rocket)

The fleece that I had laid over the broad beans which had been sown last month was still in place despite the strong winds...

1 December - Broad beans sown under fleece

...but there was no sign of any growth under the fleece.

The autumn sown broad beans, however, had survived the strong winds.

1 December - autumn sown broad beans

At home, my genuine Quince tree (Cydonia), Serbian Gold, had arrived and as it was bare-rooted needed to be planted immediately.  I planted it in the garden.  It is currently two years old and about 1.5m tall. It should eventually grow to no more than 2 metres.  I already have a Chinese quince on the allotment, planted last year, and now two years old, which is a bush variety.  There are three distinct types of quince - the true quince which is a tree (Cydonia), the Chinese quince (Pseudocydonia) and the more common Japanese quince (Chaenomeles japonica), a flowering shrub found in many gardens in England.  The fruits of all three are edible and similar in taste.  Most years I make quince jelly in the autumn using Japanese quinces gathered from neighbours' gardens.  Hopefully, next year or the year after, I will have my own genuine quinces as well as Chinese quinces to choose from.

My Quintal Gallio pumpkins picked earlier and being stored at home appeared sound and I gave one away, to be shared between my daughter and eldest son.

9 December - Quintal Gallio Pumpkin

Watching BBC Saturday Kitchen, I was interested to see a vegetarian version of the traditional Maghreb bastilla (pastilla) with a Persian touch, from the British/Iranian chef Sabrina Ghayour. Her recipe can be found here.  I had several varieties of squash as well as root vegetables - Swede, carrots and a parsnip so I adapted her recipe and made my own bastilla with a mixture of squash and root veg..

Bastilla - the filling

Bastilla - the finished dish

I saved the Crown Prince squash for another day to be roasted on its own.

15 December - Crown Prince Squash

As rain was forecast, I took the Rocket pumpkins home but the stem/stalks did not seem to have fully dried out and within a few days the pumpkins began to show signs of softening.  We salvaged most of them and cooked and froze the flesh for use in soups etc throughout winter.

The seed potatoes that I had ordered arrived mid-December and I prepared these for chitting at home.  I had bought 3 varieties - Red Duke of York, first early and two second earlies, Nicola and Charlotte 

Early potatoes chitting

I also spent some time tidying up the front garden at home cutting back trees and bushes and removing all the dead branches from the lavender.  On my next visit to the plot on 17 December, I dug a 1ft deep trench on one side of an empty raised bed and filled it with the garden prunings adapting the Hugel principle.

burying the garden prunings

I then added a layer of wood chippings that had begun to compost and left the trench open.

topping the prunings with wood chips

There was no sign of any growth under the fleece on the second Hugel bed (where I had directly sown some broad beans last month) but I rolled back the fleece on the side where nothing had been sown and planted out a few broad bean plants that I had started off indoors and grown in pots at home.

transplanted broad bean seedlings

An inspection of the brassica bed confirmed that we would have Brussels sprouts for Christmas. And more good news - there was a good supply of kalettes

17 December - Brussels sprouts

Kalettes - 17 December

When I planted potatoes at the beginning of the year, I had a few seed potatoes left over and planted these later in a growing bag.  I tipped out the bag of Nicola and am pleased to say we have new potatoes for Christmas. Hopefully there will be more in the Charlotte  bag for New Year.

Nicola potatoes - 17 December

We had a few days of pleasant weather but this was soon  to change with a period of heavy continuous rain so there would be little opportunity to do anything more on the plot before Christmas apart from a brief visit on 23 December to collect the sprouts and kalettes and lift a swede.

Christmas itself was very wet as were the days following so we used the post-Christmas period to strain the Sloe gin which had been maturing since October

Straining the sloe gin

We had been anticipating a large family gathering for Christmas and New Year but all that was cancelled due to the new variant of Covid and we spent Christmas on our own.  We cancelled the order for the Christmas roast but our freezer was well stocked for the post-Christmas period and New Year.  We had a variety of game so decided to make a Game terrine based on my previous recipe but ommiting the chicken liver.

Game terrine in preparation

Game Terrine, the finished product

There was also bread to be baked, and I used the tried and trusted "Dutch oven" method to make a 50/50 White and Wholemeal Spelt loaf using my old recipe

50/50 loaf with Spelt flour

31 December: the month - and the year - ended with abnormaly high temperatures. New Year's eve was predicted to be dry, sunny and 13-15C.  In some parts of the country it exceeded expectations and was the hottest ever New Year's Eve recorded in the UK.  Whilst it was mild in Hove, at around 12C it remained a dank and damp day with a heavy mist and occasional drizzle - what we have come to call "mizzle" but brightened up in the afternoon.

The morning weather did not deter us from visiting the plot to pick some more kalettes, some cavolo nero and a Swede.  Earlier in the month I had applied a mulch of leaves to the rhubarb patch and was surprised to see that the new rhubarb shoots were showing!

Rhubarb -31 December

The garlic had also shown some progress

31 December - garlic

I returned to the bed where I had fillied a trench with twigs and wood chips and covered it over with the soil that had been removed. I then dug a parallel trench which I also filled with twigs, prunings, woodchips and grass mowings from home and left it exposed.

2nd trench - Hugelstyle

2nd trench with woodchips and grass clippings

We also lifted a few Charlotte potatoes from a growbag for New Year's Eve.

Charlotte potatoes - 31 December

I checked on the November sown broad beans by lifting the fleece and was pleasantly surprised to see they had germinated - about 4 weeks after sowing - so I removed the fleece in the hope that the mild weather continues.

31 December - Broad beans sown 25 November

Back home I checked on the broad beans that I had sown in trays earlier in the month which were in the unheated loft extension.  They were looking very "leggy", and as the temperature was warm and the winds had subsided, I put them outside to harden off.

Broad beans sown at home hardening off

The mild weather continued into the evening and just before midnight we strolled down to the beach with a bottle of fizz...

New Year's Eve - Hove Promenade 23.46

...and saw out the old year with a bang!

 31 December 2021 Midnight 00.00 - 00.01 1 January 2022

John Austin

Hove, December 2021

Life on The Weald - October 2021

 Life on the Weald - #plot247 October 2021

(and in the garden)

Ready for Halloween!

Storm force winds had been predicted for the first weekend of October. There was a torrential downpour on the evening of 2 October but the morning of Sunday 3 October was warm and sunny for the London Marathon.

Monday and Tuesday had been cloudy and dull but with the tempeature reaching 17C. Wednesday 6 October was forecast to be cloudy but warm and I made my first visit of the month to the plot.  There were occasional sunny periods when the temperature reached an unseasonal 19C.  I decided to make a start on clearing the weeds from the area behind where the mini-greenhouse had been and where the sunflowers had been growing.  I had decided this was a suitable location for my first proper "no-dig" bed.  With the unseasonal warm weather it was hot work.

The weed infested patch - 6 October

an attempt to dig out the invasive weeds

Thursday 7 October was forecast to be sunny with no rain but there had been heavy rain overnight and the morning was overcast.  We had planned a long day at the allotment but instead we spent most of the time in the shed, sheltering from the fine drizzle and left earlier than intended.

The snails seemed to appreciate the wet weather!

Snails come out to play on our brassica cage!

Friday had been forecast to be sunny with temperatures reaching 20C but the early morning saw rain and the rest of the morning was cloudy and overcast with temperatures reaching only 16C by midday.

The weather throughout the month was warmer than the seasonal norm but not as warm as the forecasters had predicted and often raining on days when they had said it would be dry.

I had a bit of a shock early in the month to discover a caterpillar on the kalettes.  I had assumed it was a large Cabbage White but one of my neighbours thought it was a Box Tree Moth.  The good news is that I could only find two.

 7 October - Caterpillar on the kalettes

I had decided to have a go at "Hugelkultur"  and create a Hugel raised bed. I will write a little more about Hugelkultur next month. With a dry day on Thursday 7 October, I made a start on the first Hugel trench.  I had dug down about one spit depth, and had a trench 2 metres x 1 metre about 30 cms deep (app 6 x 3 x 1 feet).  At the bottom of the trench I laid some logs, cut from a large bush/tree we had removed earlier in the year.

trench number 1 with logs as base layer

On top of the logs we laid several layers of organic material, mainly semi-rotted material from one of our compost bins together with the contents of the lower trays of compost from the wormeries, including a lot of worms.

logs covered with semi-rotted compost

added compost and worms from the wormery

I watered it well and left it a few days to settle.

The stem of one of the Crown Prince squashes had dried off and as rain was predicted we thought it was time to harvest it. Crown Prince squashes store well.

8 October - Crown Prince squash

On 11 October, after a few days of heavy rain, work resumed on the first Hugel bed by putting a layer of wood chippings and prunings down folowed by a layer of cardboard which, hopefully will keep any deept rooted weeds, like bindweed, from coming through.

 11 October trench number 1

trench number 1 - a layer of cardboard

Sylvi had been busy riddling the soil we had removed from the trenches, removing any sign of weeds such as bindweed and couch grass.  We laid a layer of the seived soil on top of the cardboard.

adding some sifted soil

The new beds were not the only things needing attention.  There was some weeding to be done in the brassica cage and I also removed some of the lower leaves to improve air circulation and let in some light.  I was pleased to see that we will have some sprouts for Christmas!

11 October - Brussels sprouts

11 October - Brussels Sprouts

We are not growing any Jerusalem artichokes on our plot this year, but I couldn't resist taking a photo of my neighbour's which were just coming into flower.

a neighbour's Jerusalem artichoke

Having made some progress with the first Hugel bed, I decided to tackle one of the areas where courgettes had been growing, near to the pond and decided this would be a good spot for a second Hugel bed; so on 14 October I started to clear the weeds.

Weeds!

weeds removed!

Digging the whole area was a daunting task, so I tackled it in two stages.  I dug a trench about 1 metre by 1.5 metres about 1 foot (30 cms) deep.

trench number 2

I still had a supply of logs but some were rather large, and I had to dig a little bit deeper.

the bottom layer - logs laid in trench

The following day, 15 October, I spotted a moth on the back of my car when I was in a supermarket car park.  It was still there several hours later when I got home!  Had it come from the allotment?  It was definitely a box-tree moth.  Was the caterpillar I had spotted on 8 October a box tree moth caterpillar and not a large cabbage white?  The two caterpillars are very similar in appearance.

Box tree moth

One of our plot holders had several bags of shredded office paper on offer and I took two. On 16 October, I resumed work on the second Hugel bed and deposited one of the bags of shredded paper.

Trench No. 2 - shredded paper

I then topped it with wood chippings/prunings.

Trench No. 2 - a layer of wood chippings

It was time to dig trench number 3, which would be a continuation of the second trench

Trench No. 3

Trench No. 3

The Hugel beds were all part of my "no dig" plan.  It seems there is an awful lot of digging to get them started though!  Still I'm told they should last for 10-20 years.

On 17 October we returned to our first Hugel bed. We had constructed a rough frame from some old pallets and after adding another layer of wood chippings on top of the cardboard and soil we were almost ready to start returning the rest of the soil that had been dug out.

Hugel  bed number 1

Hugel bed No. 1

As a relief from the hard labour, we harvested some of the padron and chilli peppers...

Padron peppers and Apache chillies

....and lifted a Swede (or for my northern friends a turnip!)

A Swede (or turnip if you prefer)

On 19 October, I was delighted to see the first sign that the broad beans I had sown at home were beginning to germinate.

the first broad bean appears

There was other important work to be done at home.  We had a large quantity of Sloes  in the freezer and a plentiful supply of cheap gin. If we were to have Sloe Gin for Christmas, now was a good time to start.  Placing sloes in the freezer results in the skin cracking as they defrost which saves the laborious task of pricking them with a needle.  After adding some sugar and the gin, it was now time to find a cool dark place for the majic transformation to take place.

Sloes soaking in gin

20 October I received some good news from my son Damien. Almost two years ago, before lockdown, I had bought him a log for his birthday which had been impregnated with mushroom spores. It had rested in a damp corner of his London garden since February 2020 and now at last it had come to fruition.

Damien's mushroom log

23 October and the pumpkins, lately discovered last month under the apple tree were ripening.

Pumpkin (Rocket)

Pumpkin (Rocket)

Elsewhere on the plot, the Tromboncinos and yellow pumpkins were ready for harvesting.

Tromboncinos and pumpkins

I was also still lifting Charlotte potatoes

23 October Charlotte potatoes

24 October was a pleasant Sunday with clear skies, Sylvi spent most of the time riddling the pile of soil that had been removed from the first trench and I was able to use it to begin topping off the bed.  I wanted 4-6inches depth of topsoil on top of the wood chippings.

We also laid cardboard around the perimeter of the bed as a weed suppressant....

Sunday 24 October

...and then covered this with wood chippings.

24 October - Hugel bed number one

On Monday, 25 October I cleared some old logs from behind the shed at home.  They were too large to fit in trench number three on the allotment, so it was a job for the chainsaw.

25 October - sawn logs

The following day, I transported the logs to the plot which was beginning to look a little untidy.  The foliage on the pumpkins and tromboncinos had died back so I will harvest them before Halloween.

Pumpkins and tromboncinos

26 October The third hole I had dug was ready to receive my logs

trench number 3

bottom layer logs

I covered the logs with brushwood and twigs and thin branches from earlier pruning of apple and plum trees (making sure they were dead - I didn't want plum trees sprouting) and then covered this with a sackful of shredded paper.

shredded paper

The paper will retain moisture and eventually rot down.  I then covered the paper with any available green material including the dying down courgette plants and lower leaves removed from the chard and kale.

green material

This was then topped with a layer of wood chippings/prunings which looked to have come from a mixture of hedging, fruit trees and Leylandii.

wood chippings/prunings

Trenches 2 and 3 together now made a bed approximately 1 metre by 4 metres

trenches 2 and 3

All that now remains is to sift/riddle the pile of earth which was removed from the trenches, and mix with some compost as the topping.

Soil that had been removed from trenches

Then we will have Hugel bed number two!

28 October We had a good supply of old pallets which Sylvi started to take apart so we could make a frame for the second Hugel bed

30 October and the chillies were still doing well.  I picked the Basket of fire chillies and transferred the plant to a pot to try to overwinter at home.

Basket of fire chillies

I also transplanted the broad beans, which had been sown at home, to the first Hugel bed.

Broad beans - Aquadulce

We began to make a frame for the second Hugel bed.

Hugel bed No 2

We also picked our first kalettes

Kalettes - 30 October

The pumpkins were too heavy to carry - they are called Quintal which means a hundredweight.  They were not quite that big but the largest did weigh 2 stone! (12.7kg) So I had to bring the car round to get them home.

Pumpkins (Quintal giallo)

Safely home and lots to share with family and friends

At home with my pumpkins (and a Crown Prince by my side)

October had been a very active and productive month. 

John Austin

Hove, October 2021