It's been a very blustery couple of weeks - with another named storm (Kathleen) passing by but the strong winds helped to dry off the land a bit to make weeding a bit more feasible. There's still a lot to do though! Other plots are looking a lot more ready than ours but we'll get there - in fact, the site was looking rather lovely as the Sun was slipping away yesterday. We have just one empty plot left at the moment - a bit different from this time 8years ago where I recorded that we have 50poles empty! We're celebrating 15years of the site this month. Other celebrations have been going on ..read more

This was such an amazing rainbow! It was so bright and huge, much more impressive than this photo shows but it’s the best I could get. So beautiful, I stood and stared for a while. Sunshine and showers definitely sums up the weather over the last couple of weeks/months. I’ve got a few days off for Easter, but the hoped-for plot-days haven’t worked out yet… We’ve had plot visits and have even done a bit of weeding but it’s hard work having to do it by hand because the ground is too wet to walk on let alone to dig. Well, that’s the leeks patch cleared to make way for root crops. It’ll need be ..read more

I feel I need to write a post - February ends tomorrow and it's been such a wet, grey, windy month that even the allotment hasn't been very inspirational. Thank goodness for the occasional morning walk to see some sunshine before the clouds gather. Sorry to be so whiney, especially after we had such a lovely Saturday - we had a HAHA Work Day. You can see that a lot of plotholders turned up. We're all so desperate to do something out in the fresh air! We got to work on Ivan's fruit cage, which has now become a HAHA Communal Fruit Plot - look at us all in the cage ? Photo courtesy of For ..read more

We’ve had a huge amount of rain again, the rivers are fit to bust again but yesterday we had some extremely welcome sunshine. We were surprised there weren’t more plotholders on site, but the ground is a bit too wet to dig. We’ve been clearing weeds, edging and pulling the carrots which had been left in the ground way too long. And there were some proper monsters in there, most had severe slug damage so have gone into the green bin at home - our 3 compost bins are already full. This is Jamie’s extremely neat handiwork last weekend - making way for brassicas. He added lime and chicken manure ..read more

It turned out that my Cornells Bush Delikata squash had survived being stored for nearly 4 months and have become part of this spicy parsnip, squash and leek soup. All home-grown vegetables and plenty of spices. I have a couple of parsnips left over so I may try making parsnip crisps next time the oven is on - they sound tasty.   I cooked it in the slow cooker - on high, so it probably would have been cooked in 3hours. I left it in for 4hours whilst working this morning and it smelled so delicious. It doesn't look as pretty after (over-)cooking but it is very tasty - I decided to leave ..read more

The temperature last week dipped to -9.2° in the polytunnel. Brrr certainly not gardening weather but bright enough to tempt me out for a brisk early morning walk to see the Sun. As well as frosty walk weather it’s soup weather so I’m glad I pulled leeks and parsnips last weekend before the ground solidified! I made this delicious curried leek & parsnip soup - flavoured with garam masala and a bit of curry powder. Hmmm, spicy but not hot - just how I like it and it served me for three lunches. That little bowl was just a taster. Yesterday we went to the plot but it was far too cold to h ..read more

It can be difficult getting into the swing of things after Christmas and 2024 started with such rotten weather that it hasn’t been very motivating. The rain, brought by Storm Henk, was so torrential that there has been serious flooding in nearby towns and Hungerford’s rivers and canal have all overflowed with some houses needing to be pumped out - not us I’m pleased to say. What a truly horrible way to start the new year ? Here's the River Dun by the war memorial, at least 1 metre higher than it should be, with water gushing through from flooded areas upstream. Thank goodness for the marshla ..read more

I hope you’ve had an enjoyable Christmas and that 2024 brings you plenty of good times as well as an extra day in February. I’m hoping that 2024 runs a bit slower than recent years, but we’ll see. Thankyou for dropping by occasionally and I hope you enjoy the music, here’s a brief look back over last year, with some fave photos and my book list at the end. Happy to receive any book or music suggestions of course!January  The first planting of the year was some Egyptian walking onions. Unfortunately, along with all my spring onions, the slugs enjoyed them. I’ll try again though! It was a ..read more

I'm on my final lunchbreak of 2023 - breaking up for Christmas in a couple of hours!  It's not like it used to be - no driving home for Christmas (no, not that song) because I'm already home. I just need to pack away my laptop and sit back down. With 3 days to go I must admit that I'm not feeling very Christmassy. Maybe it's the weather - it's been a very damp December so far and it's rather warm and windy today. We've had a few December visits to the allotment - it's not very inviting, but we've pulled some great parsnips and we bought 3 tiny fruit trees - here's the Thompson & Mo ..read more

It’s been a wet month, I’ve not been inclined to move very far and work has been keeping me very busy but yesterday we had a long walk in the chilly countryside. It had been a very frosty morning and the temperature remained close to zero, but we were dressed up warm and it felt ok in the sunshine. We walked a 6-mile circuit to Chilton Foliat, which is a neighbouring village. It was very beautiful and near the River Kennet much of the time. This was looking West from the Fairy Bridge. The river is swollen and very fast-flowing at the moment after all the rain. Rather strange to see a lone c ..read more