Aiming for a long(er) chilli!
We have decided to give the giant (long) chillies another go! In addition, today we have sown Cayenne, Apache, Thai Super Hot, Spaghetti & Ancho chillies.
Snow at the allotment
It has been a long time since we have had #snow here in South Manchester.
Snow at the allotment How much time does an allotment take? Part two
In July I decided to spend a couple of weeks recording the time we spent at the plot and the proportion of time spent of different activities. We spent an average of 11.6 hours on activities related to the allotment per week.
One of our fellow plotholders volunteered to do a similar audit, so here is a comparison for a bit of fun!5 allotment tasks for the Christmas holiday
Do you have a few days annual leave between Christmas and New Year and fancy spending a few hours at the plot? For us, autumn and winter are very important preparation times. In an ideal world if you have a tidy, and planned out, plot going into spring it makes a #kitchengarden much easier to manage!
Dried bean harvests and our beany plans for 2021
In planning for the 2020 growing season we posted a discussion about growing beans for drying. We have always grown Borlotti and Butter beans; saving own our seed, but we decided it would be a great challenge to see if we could expand our range grown on our plot in Manchester!
2020 harvests of dried beans Giant Chilli
I have always fancied having a go at ‘giant veg’. This year I have grown ‘gigantomo’ giant tomatoes and long chillies. Here is my long chilli – quite a way off the World’s longest chilli which is a record 505mm long – grown by Jürg Wiesli (Switzerland) in 2018.
Projects for the Autumn
We have found that if we want to get any ‘structural’ work done on the allotment it is best to use Autumn well. Once the wet weather really sets in rainy weekends can make full days of construction difficult. Spring is far from ideal for projects – you need to be planting so time spent in Autumn is very valuable.
Compost bins reconstructed with new lids – completed over the last 2 weeks. Brocolli-Lemon Bulgar Wheat salad
With a real glut of brocolli I have been getting as creative as possible to use this crop up – there is only so much soup a household can eat and we were getting pretty close to the brocolli soup limit!!
This salad can be served as a side or main. Would be lovely with some grilled chicken, fish or halloumi.
One side serving here is about 200g in weight or around one cup. How to spot Potato Blight and what to do about it
How much time does an allotment take? Part one
This is a question that I have been commonly asked and it comes up regularly on social media from those interested in taking on a plot. In Part one I discuss how much time managing our plots take us and the factors that influence this.
