Awaiting another frost

Got back from Christmas in Cornwall which was lovely. Wet though. I took down some veg from Plot 35 for Christmas dinner (see below - note the lovely Christmassy thumb nail of my future mum-in-law).



The homemade plum gin also made an appearance as part of the meal - in the cranberry sauce. I was loosely following a Nigella recipe but replaced cherry brandy with plum gin and it worked very well.

I'm itching to get onto the plot to start tidying things up. See below for the how the plot looked a couple of weekends ago, before the frost really hit hard. So much to do.



Tomorrow will be my main opportunity this week as it will be dry (perhaps not on the ground though) and it is due to snow quite heavily on Tuesday.

Oooo, and I think I might be buying a wormery in the New Year.

Silly me...

The ground was so hard at the plot today that it was touch and go whether or not I'd be able to get any parsnips out for Christmas dinner let alone plant out any garlic. My fork bent with the strain. I think I chiselled just enough roots out for the 6 of us. I was surprised at how hard the ground was - silly me. I'll plant out the cloves in trays at home later.

The trick of leaving the cut stems of the Jerusalem artichokes over the ground to keep the frost off came into its own. It was easy to get some of those out to supplement the parsnips. Plus, a sweet little robin used the stems to perch and look to see if I was revealing any worms in the soil. I also took a cabbage to supplement the meagre number of sprouts produced in Bed 7 this year.

Just one other fellow plotter over there today but it was lovely to see him.

Leaving it a bit late?

Today, I came across the packages of seed garlic I received a while ago. I figure those should go in the plot asap. That's one of tomorrow's jobs sorted (there is also harvesting to do - parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes, chard, cabbage). There are 10 varieties in all - I fancied trying a few just to see. Fingers crossed that the ground isn't too hard.

Today, I tidied up the shed and lean-to at home a little bit and sowed some onion seeds. It is a bit early but I wanted to celebrate Midwinters Day somehow. Plus, I found some Christmas crackers in the shed so that was a bonus. I also got round to repotting the lemon and lime plants, bringing the lime into the house and putting the lemon in the lean-to to overwinter.

Too damp to dig...

...today. No-one else was at the site. The morning was nice and sunny but it greyed over in the early afternoon. I nipped over to Plot 35 (it had been ages) in my wellies to check things out. I was all ready for some digging but it was simply too wet for digging, soil sticking to the boots and all that. Nevermind. So I harvested some stuff instead.

I dug up a few kilos of Jerusalem artichokes which I'll take into work this week for colleagues to take home (reserving some to try mangocheek's stoved Jerusalem artichokes recipe). I also took a small handful of parsnips (first of the year), a cabbage, three small horseradish roots, a few baby leeks (to use like spring onions) and a couple of handfuls of Brussels.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the weeds hadn't taken over too much at the plot. I am looking forward to having some time over Christmas to tend to the allotment and garden.