MY WEEK 25: ( 19TH JUNE )

Hello all once again, another productive week on the allotments to tell you all about. Although it has been cooler this week, we could desperately do with some rain as it is only possible to water some of the crops. Despite this drawback there are still some crops starting to mature, I have harvested my New Potatoes, Turnips, Early Carrots, Lettuce, Radish, Spinach, Stawberries and Raspberries so things are looking ok.



The Courgettes are starting to produce their first crop, in the week I have been watering them every other day to get them to this stage, I was asked in the week about whether you should remove the flowers on the Courgette or not, in my experience they grow that quickly, almost overnight, you do not need to remove them. However they can be eaten as a starter, you dip them in a light batter and deep fry them and serve with a Garlic Mayonnaise dip and salad.



Although some of my crop of Turnips have gone to seed, I'm pleased with remaining ones. These are a vareity called Purple Top Milan, I will be sowing some more to provide an ample stock in my freezer ready for the Winter soups and casseroles. The tops of them provide a good source of material for the compost heap so they will not be wasted.



This week I have also been able to harvest the first of the Early Carrots and also the Broad Beans. The Carrots are an Early Nantes vareity, they taste wonderful and sweet, the difference in flavour compared to the supermarket ones is amazing and they require very little cooking when this young. The Broad Beans are a vareity called Bunyards Exhibition, they are still on the small side at the moment however as with most veg they taste wonderful when eaten young, as a child I did not like Broad Beans but now when you can eat them so fresh and young I'm surprised how good they taste.



You may remember that last week I had made a start on making collars for my Celery plants, I have now completed that task and hopefully from the photograph you can see the result already from having the collars around them, they have put on a good 6" in height and this will make them more tender and less stringy, as they grow you need to give them a regular water and feed, also you need to remove the very outer leaves that are not developing into good stalks, this encourages all the plants energy to go to the good stalks which will provide you with a better crop.




My Florence Fennel are starting to swell up nicely after some extra watering, the scent around their bed is really refreshing an Aniseed smell which makes me think of Liquorice sweets from childhood such as Bertie Bassetts Allsorts and ones that looked like katherine wheels but the proper name escapes me. The Fennel can be eaten raw, grated into a nice salad or as I prefer to have it Braised as a vegetable with the Sunday Roast or added to soups and stews during the Winter months.


This week I have noticed that the Spray Chrysanthemums are producing flower buds alot sooner than I expected them to, I'm not sure if this is due to the weather conditions we have experienced or because of taking the cuttings too early or even stopping them too early, however I will enquire amongst my fellow plot holders if they are experiencing the same thing or not, I don't mind them flowering early but I'm not sure if we have enough flower vases to cope with them as well as Sweet Peas, Gladioli and Dhalias, the house will look and smell like a florist shop.




This week has also seen the start of the Raspberries maturing, they taste beautiful when eaten fresh and still warm from the sun's rays, as the photographic evidence shows I pinched one before taking this photo, naughty me, but as an ex chef I always say Quality Control, well that's my excuse anyway. The Strawberries are cropping very heavily at the moment, almost too well as we can't keep up with the yield, we have had them every day this week, I will have to put my chef hat back on and make something with them that can be frozen for later consumption.




During the week I have also harvested some of my New Potatoes, Spinach and Corriander. The main job this week has been the watering and then the refilling of the water butts, walking round with the hoe and generally watching the produce grow, it's nice when you see all your hard work during the cold and wet weather paying dividends and your reaping the crops, it gives such a good feeling of satisfaction.

I'm afraid that I have not been able to update the RECIPE section of my website yet, on reflection it is something that I should do during the Winter months as at this time of year I'm too busy as you probably are with the plots. I have though been working on a little project that I wanted to add to my website and that is the inclusion of a videoblog so that I can share various techniques with you all, a sort of HOW TO section, I apologise for the Amateur Directoring now, but hopefully with time and practice I will improve. I have included my first offering at the bottom of this post and would appreciate your thoughts and feedback as to whether you think that this would be a good ides and if so what topics or things you would like me to include in the videoblogs.

Well that is it for another week at my allotments, hope you enjoyed the update and hope you are all enjoying your harvests, take care all and speak to you all again next week ,thanks Steve.