Katrina’s Allotment Diary
It’s the end of Great British Pea Week, and what better time to celebrate my love for the humble garden pea! Starting life as a shrivelled up wrinkly seed, the first luscious green leaves that emerge are a welcome sight in early spring. Once they start growing, they don’t need much encouragement as they soon start to romp away, climbing my natural hazel trellis support with their adorable curly tendrils.
Continue reading “Minted Pea & Ham Soup”
Happy Apple Day! Since today is the day that we, in the UK, celebrate the versatile fruit we all love eat, drink and grow, I thought I would share my home-brewing cider process so far. Continue reading “How I Made Home Brewed Cider Part 1”
I can’t believe it’s September already and the growing season has almost come to an end! I thought I would do one last tour of the polytunnel (below) to show how the plants have progressed with their new support and water systems in place.
Continue reading “September Polytunnel Video Tour”
I was wrong all along! Well…kind of. Let me explain. I got the keys to my allotment in September 2014 and one of the reasons I chose it was for the apple tree growing at the back of the plot. The first apple I ate was sour and must have been an underripe one because for the last THREE YEARS I thought my apple tree grew cooking apples.
The evenings are getting noticeably darker earlier and there’s a subtle chill and smell to the air as the change in season is underway. The golden hour tonight had the most beautiful warmth and even though I’m frantically preparing the seating area for the bank holiday, I reminded myself that these last few hours of sunlight should be cherished. Continue reading “Late Summer Evenings”
You might remember how excited I was to find my first squashes including some tiny butternut squashes forming last month. Well, it seems 2017 is going to be the year of the squash! I keep seeing more and more pop up beneath the jungle of leaves. I counted..wait for it…
Continue reading “Squash Overload”
It’s been almost a month since my last polytunnel post, when I planted out the tomatoes with string supports. Everything is growing well, the tomatoes are loving their support system and have lots of flowers and fruits. I keep the polytunnel door open permanently to prevent blight even though it’s quite cool. I also feed the tomatoes every Friday with a liquid feed. Check out the video at the botttom of my post for a tomato tour! 🍅😄 I’ve just harvested the first of honeybee tomatoes and they’re so sweet! I can’t wait to try these in a Mediterranean veg tonight.
The small greenhouse is becoming very crowded! Only thing is, I still have even more (yes, I probably over did it a little..) pepper and tomato plants growing at home, eager to be moved into the new polytunnel. Fingers crossed it will *finally* go up this weekend – that is IF the weather holds out.
Despite the topsy-turvy weather we had over April a lot has been happening in the last few weeks! In between the hail storms, rain showers and sudden heat waves, I’ve spent a lot of time at the allotment, making the most of the longer days – so much so that I’ve hardly had time to write about it! Continue reading “A brief May update”
Homegrown Garden 