July Harvest and Jamie Oliver’s runner bean stew thingy
Just a quick post to show you that the plot is now giving up some of its goodies. The overgrown back of the plot has plenty of lovely sweet red currants and raspberries whilst the last of the new potatoes are out of the ground. The longer they stayed in there the larger they swelled compared to the first lot we dug up six weeks ago but they are also more prone to little maggots drilling holes in them. We had to chuck a few of these but will have enough for a few meals. The runner beans are coming on in their droves, not my favourite veg in the past but picked young they are delicious.
The pic below is a quick camera phone grab (not the best tool for food photography - colours are yuck) of tonight’s runner bean based dinner. It’s from the last Jamie Oliver book. He does it with fish but we made do with chicken. Tasted great though - the sauce has anchovies in it. Note the parsley which never grew very well for us in a pot out the back but is doing very well down the plot.
Below, how it’s supposed to look when made with beans that look like they were picked very young and a more expensive photographer not using a camera phone:
mmm potatoes
Take a look at my new spuds:
Go on, click on the picture to get the large version. They look good don’t they? They taste good as well. I only got into this allotment larky in oder to grow spuds and here are my first ones. I can’t recall what variety I planted but have got about 20 plants worth - the above being the bounty of a couple of them.
Will do a full June allotment plot update soon - betcha can’t wait….
Dave
Plot update - May 2008
Thought I’d do an update of how we’re getting with our allotment patch.
We’ve now had our patch since January and so far kinda so good. I wish I had some before pics but generally the front half of it wasn’t in too bad a condition so the comparison wouldn’t be that stark. The compost area was very overgrown and we’ve now tackled one half of that area and in doing so have created a nice, rich mound for what we hope will be a pumpkin patch (currently propagating a few indoors). We’ve had to dig out a ton of evil bindweed though:
We’ve got two and a half rows of early potatoes (about which I fret constantly) that can’t be far off digging up. Once they do a significant amount of flowering I’ll dig a few up and report back. There’s certainly plenty of plant to them:
The slugs are a constant battle with anything tender and our cauliflower have really suffered. We went out today to find every one of them chomped to bits. A few might survive but although the slugs have won this round, we’ll fight back with a multi-trap approach (more to come on this).
Other stuff on the plot includes garlic (dead on its feet - planted too late), rhubarb (tons of it, despite extensive digging out), peas (doing well), runner beans (most doing fine), onions (growing nicely), carrots (we’re expected some stunted funny shaped ones to emerge), parsnips (still not emerged), lettuce (not emerged but might divert the slugs from the cauliflowers).
The back of the plot is covered in fruit bushes but is incredibly overgrown. I’ll report separately on this as we begin it tackle it. Without any intervention from us though it should produce all sorts of goodies. Actually fighting our way though to the goodies will be the issue. In the meantime we’re focusing in the slug-ridden front part.
How to dig up spuds
Am loving this site. Videos on how to sort my allotment out. My early potatoes keep me awake at night. Do I need to earth up again? Are any spuds actually growing? Is it all plant and no spud? None of the videos on this site stop me worrying but at least I’ll know how to dig things out of the ground when the time comes (late June probably):
How To Harvest New Potatoes