My New BOL/Allotment Diary

[dannytsg]

I dont have a dehydrator at present, however dried fruit would be a nice healthy addition to our preps.

[Arzosah]

I hear lots of good things about strawberries and rhubarb together.

Blackberries - I make jelly, I don't like the texture in jam

Apples - put them with anything, they make the flavour of everything else go further and their pectin helps the jam set.

Some of that would go great in chutneys too.

Erm, danny? That isn't a case of "sadly we won't be able to use it all". Thats a case of "aha! we can process our own food for later in the year, thus saving a ton at the supermarket"

[ForgeCorvus]

Don't forget that if you're short of time to process (Dry, Jam, Bottle etc) your glut, you can always bung it in the freezer and sort it later.

[dannytsg]

A little bumble tonight resulted in this to become dessert. Lovely, sweet and very very fresh!

[Stasher]

You must be well chuffed, congrats!

I have noticed you using plastic bags to transport and or store the fruit and veg, this is not the best option as plastic will encourage 'sweating' and will also contain all the gases that naturally ripen fruit. We use old ice cream containers (with the lid off) and baskets for the larger produce, this allows the frt & veg to 'breathe' naturally and doesn't speed up the ripen to rotten process

Jams, there's loads of recipes on line. You're best bet is to get hold of an old fashioned recipe book which just has basic non glamorous recipes which essentially involve fruit, cane sugar, water and the occasional addition of pectin (lemons/apple/shop bought)

Some of our best jams have been 'just chuck it on the scales, I haven't got enough to make a large batch - surely there's something else we can add, oh, hang on, give me that orange that's past it's best I'll chuck that in too'

I have a lot of jam with the label - mixed fruit or rhubarb and citrus (!) etc etc

[grenfell]

I have a lot of jam with the label - mixed fruit or rhubarb and citrus (!) etc etc

Done that myself and have several demijohns of wine with the same label.

[dannytsg]

29/7/15

Just a quick update from us. It's been busy on the allotment recently with our harvesting going on. I wanted to post an update on our lamb which we called Chop as he is now coming along well and has a few more months before slaughter.



Chop is being grown free range essentially, he is not being fed bulking feed and is being allowed to naturally graze at his leisure. As a result he is probably somewhat undersized for his age given the wet spring and subdued grass growth we have had this year.

We will also soon be making the decision on the cuts we expect to get from him. I will post what we are getting as soon as we choose.

[dannytsg]

06/09/15

So I haven't managed to post an update in a month or so as we have been very very busy with many things. Today we visited the allotment as we have been doing each week and we took a harvest of our available veg. Here are some pictures:


Here's the harvest basket. Leeks, onions, tomatoes, broad beans, rhubarb, blackberries, cooking apples and some mint! A great selection of fresh goods.


This is our patch of leeks at the moment. They are growing very strong amongst the weeds that are being very persistent.


Our apple tree is almost there! We have plenty of lovely apples almost ready to eat of the tree as soon as they redden a little more.

We also have a bumper crop of blackberries coming through now along with our gooseberries and blueberries. Unfortunately we haven't taken photos of these as they tend to get eaten before we even get home.

We have also now taken everything out of our polytunnels. Now letting these settle before digging them over and re-fertilizing for next spring. We have also covered a lot of our weed full and defunct beds with tarps and will be systematically getting around to digging them over.

[dannytsg]

26/10/2015

Just a quick update to let everyone know that we are on the wind down now for the winter period at the allotment. We have a few final crops to pull such as leeks/broccoli etc but we are well on the way to cold nights and frost ridden ground.

As such we have begun to cover all the beds with tarps and start sheltering things ready for winter.

I do have a few jobs I need to attend too over the winter months which include deweeding the poly tunnel beds, repairing some broken panes of glass in my greenhouses and general tidy work in anticipation for spring next year.

All in all since taking this allotment on in February we have had a really productive, if short growing season which has afforded us the luxury of not only putting fresh, home grown produce on our table, but also on those of our close friends and families.

Thank you for all the comments and advice thus far. Hopefully this thread can have a revival in a few months time to chart another season.

[Decaff]

Bloody marvellous!!! Really enjoyed this thread, thanks for sharing and please do again next spring