Happy Christmas
Sunflower seed give-away
Picture courtesy of Amazon.co.uk 21/12/19 I decided to put a post on our Facebook group offering free Dwarf sunflower seeds to community growing groups. I had plenty of excess seeds so what could be better than sharing a bit of allotment love at Christmas time?
Growing veg: our reliable favourites.
Crops picked in March Are you new to growing? Wondering which varieties of veg to pick to try in 2020? Here is our guide to ‘what grows well’ for us at Don’t Crop Me Now.
What a load of old s***! Lets talk manure (and compost)
Animal dung (faeces) is a very traditional way of fertilising crops, but it can seem quite confusing! What manure is best to use on a vegetable garden? When should you add it? How much? What is the difference between manure and compost?
At Don’t Crop Me Now we predominately use composted horse manure to produce most of the mulch we use on our plots. We have a long-standing source of the manure that we are confident is weedkiller free (see Aminopyralid discussion below). Because we keep our own chickens we use their manure as component of our homemade compost. We have added guinea pig and rabbit manure/compost to our compost when we can source it. Recently I found a good few sacks of alpaca manure for a small donation to charity. I still have that stacked up in bags waiting for use!
Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Bacon & Sweetcorn
Gnocchi is easy and quick to make. It is a great way to use up leftover potato, squash or beetroot.
Gnocchi is very similar to pasta and which is made by adding egg and plain flour to produce a dough that is poached in salted boiling water.
Here I used leftover steamed butternut squash.
The history of Plot 4
Plot 4 is our main plot. We have 2 other half plots (1b and 2b) and now the recently acquired 5b. Over the years we have also cultivated Plot 2a, Plot 5a, Plot 9 and Plot 11a. Plot 4 has been the only constant growing space since we took it on in July 2007! At that time we were looking for more space as we were growing on plot 9 only. There was a long waiting list, but plot 4 had been uncultivated for many years and most of the people on the list were not comfortable taking such a project on. One Sunday afternoon I agreed to take the plot and signed the contract. When I got home Ant wasn’t too impressed that I had taken on the project knowing how bad the plot was! However, I was not easily detered. In 2007 the waiting list was long. We were not going to get any other plot anytime soon!
It wasn’t really until I went and took a series of pictures that the task ahead sunk in!
Top end of the plot 
Brambles 
…and bindweed
Tomato Soda Bread & Tomato Butternut and Bean soup
We have a number of pumpkins and butternut squash that need using. I decided to steam a few of the smaller butternuts so I can use them in quick meals this week. Tonight I used some of the squash to make a simple dinner of soup and soda bread which can also be taken for lunch tomorrow at work.
Plot 5b!
Always up for a new challenge at Don’t Crop Me Now, we have taken on another plot! Here we discuss the plans for the new growing area and how we plan to tackle clearing it.
Plot 5b is next door to our main plot (plot 4). We also have 2 other half plots. In the long term we plan to give up one of the other half plots once we have Plot 5b cleared and established.
Blazing Hot Apache Chilli Chutney
Apache chillies are easy to grow in a greenhouse or polytunnel
Yes, another chilli recipe! Yesterday I found that some of the bramley apples I had stored in the garage really needed using up. In addition, there was a full bag of Apache chillies left in the freezer from last year where the whole of this year’s crop had also been squirrelled away. I decided to make another batch of Chilli preserves – this time a super hot one! This would use up all the apples and frozen chillies. Warning this is very hot. The fumes pretty much knocked out most of our house-hold whilst cooking. However, if you like a very hot chutney – similar in style to those red Indian style chutneys you get an Indian restaurants then this could be for you.
Parsnip-Beetroot Rosti
Always keen to reduce food waste, we try not to throw food away. I was left with a portion of beetroot ragu from this weeks dinners and some of the giant parsnip I had harvested a couple of weeks ago was sitting in the fridge. Root veg are built to store well at low temperatures so there is no worry of the parsnip keeping well, but with over 20 more similar parsnips left in at the plot we better get eating them!
