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”
I’m back on your screens in my second allotment garden video! If you remember from my New Year Resolutions post, I’m making an effort to shoot more video content this year. Not only have I set up a dedicated Homegrown.Garden YouTube channel, but I’m also having fun shooting more stories on Instagram too!
In this episode, I’ll give you a tour around my plot at St. Ann’s Allotments so you can get a better idea of what my patch of dirt really looks like, as well as my (now) tidy and organised shed! I’ll share my ambitious plans for the year ahead, and show you some exciting activity that has taken place in my wildlife pond, in between the heavy snowfall.
At 29 minutes, this video is a bit of a lengthy one. They won’t all be this long I promise! So make yourself a cuppa and get comfy. I apologise in advance for my nervousness, the interrupting chainsaw and rambling! This is only my second video, so if you like what I’m doing let me know and I might even invest in a little fuzzy microphone in the future!
Trug handmade by Loldeantimber.
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 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.
I’ve put a lot of effort into producing a good strawberry crop this year and my hard work is paying off!
Early in the season I mulched the strawberry patch with manure, removed all the nettles that stung me last year, I kept them well watered throughout the dry spell and even made a strawberry cage to protect them from the bird.
With these improvements along with the warm, dry weather (bye bye slugs! 👋🏻) I’ve been harvesting a good punnet or more every day or so!
How do you like to eat your strawberries? I’m enjoying lots of brandy snap baskets with ice cream topped with berries! I also love to make rhubarb and strawberry crumble which I only discovered last year as I didn’t have enough rhubarb! You should try it, it’s devine!
Planting the peas is one of my favourite Spring jobs! The bright green shoots are usually the first of the seedlings that are ready to go into the ground and it gives me a taste of summer, eating fresh peas straight from the pod. Yum! Very few peas have actually made it home, and I don’t think I’ve ever eaten them cooked, but this year I’ll have more than ever. Continue reading “Planting Peas in the Sun.”
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.
It’s World Earth Day today which makes me stop and appreciate the things even more than usual. Especially at this time of year when everything is coming to life I’m reminded of how beautiful this place really is. The greens are suddenly so vibrant and the cherry blossom just punches through it. The narcissi have also been in flower for the past few weeks and the tulips are ready to bloom any day now. I remember planting these bulbs on one of the coldest and windiest November days, which makes their blooms that little bit more rewarding and so welcoming as I step into the plot.
Continue reading “Appreciation”
I’m so relieved to finally get the potatoes in the ground! It was a really nice day to do it and even though we had quite a sharp frost last night the ground was soft enough to dig. More cold nights are forecasted so I’ll need to get hold of some garden fleece in the week to protect the potato bed from frost damage. Continue reading “They’re In!”
Homegrown Garden 