Spring onions

This year we have grown 3 different types of spring onion: "White Lisbon", "Ishikura" and "Apache". White Lisbon is similar to the white spring onions that you buy in the Supermarkets:

We find that the tops tend to die back if they are left in the ground too long and need to be harvested as soon as they are ready. In contrast, "Ishikura", a type of bunching onion, does not produce a bulb, the stem just gets thicker over time. Last Autumn we left some small plants in the ground over winter and they were perfectly fine for harvesting the following spring. Our favourite type this year was "Apache":

This type has a very short red stem before turning green where the leaves join. The onion is milder and sweeter than the other two varieties that we grew. If you leave them in the ground they bulb up producing a rather attractive red onion which is also very tasty:

At the beginning of July we sowed some more Apache seed in a small pot:

These were potted on at the weekend and hopefully will be ready for harvest in the autumn.

Purple dragon

Yesterday we picked our first "Purple Dragon" carrot, seed sown on 24th April:

The outside of the carrot has a pink/purple blush to it and the inside is orange:

Only a few of the seeds germinated but those that did produced enormous carrots. We didn't weigh this one but it was probably around 300 to 400g. I cut the carrot into batons and we tried some raw:

It is quite woody and dry inside and not particularly juicy. However, it does have a very strong carroty taste and we found the batons perfect for grating for carrot muffins courtesy BBC Good Food website:

The remaining few carrots of this variety look even bigger but appear to have split. I wonder if this is a consequence of the dry weather?

Sweet Chilli Sauce

With the red chilli hot and cherry bomb chillies we decided to make some sauce - we started with 630g of chilli flesh (deseeded) so used 4 cups vinegar, 4 cloves garlic, 4 cups (!) of sugar based on scaling up the recipe. 

Was some of the chillies - probably about 75% of the total. We halved and de-seeded them carefully, chopped the chillies in the magimix with 1 cup of vinegar and garlic and boiled for a while:

Then stored it all in jars - made just shy of 1.5 l of sauce:

Turns out though it stayed runny - is very tasty but did not set. Suspect that the pith of the chillies around the seeds contains the pectin, so carefully deseeding was something of a mistake. Next time... 

Chilli update

The first chillis to ripen were the "Cherry Bomb" and the "Red Cherry Hot". This lot have been turned into a sweet chilli sauce:

Both chillis have a similar amount of heat (fairly mild, around 10,000 Scoville) and are slightly different in shape:

"Cherry Bomb" is the topmost chilli in the above pic.

The "Cascabella" sweet peppers were the next fruit to ripen.:

Due to the hot summer (and lack of space in the greenhouse) a selection of chilli and pepper plants have been kept outside against a sunny wall and are doing really well. The "Cascabella" fruits are generally a bit smaller than the peppers that you buy from the supermarket but tasty nonetheless:

The other sweet pepper variety that we have is this one:

This is "Corno Di Torro Rosso". We have 2 plants of this variety courtesy of my dad and both are quite tall and very top-heavy with fruit. They are just beginning to turn red.

The "Purple Rainbow" chilli plant given to us by a friend is living up to its name:

We were also given this "Lemon Drop" plant (aka aji lemon 15,000-30,000 Scoville according to Wikipedia) that has plenty of (unripe) fruit:

The two chilli shake plants are completely different from one another although we are not sure exactly what they are. Here's one:

Apparently it is possible to identify the type of chilli plant based on the flower. I think this could be a Tabasco/Piri/Birds Eye/Thai-type. Here's the other one:

Unfortunately there are no flowers left on this one.

Bed #5 / Harvesting

So, put in another bed at the allotment - this time for strawberries and lettuce (and probably other things) - same drill as usual except this time we have a cover:

By a happy accident the covers are about 3m long and our beds are ... 3m long. Harvesting wise we've been getting lettuce slightly faster than we can eat them - one from yesterday:

As well as many cucurbits - cucumbers and courgettes / summer squash mostly - and yellow ones from the funky veg kits which make a nice change:

Turns out we left these a bit long on the plant - crystal lemon cucumber - but they are still pretty good - have many smaller ones which we'll harvest smaller next time. We also have regular cucumbers (burpless tasty - look like snozcumbers!)

And of course the dreaded courgettes 🙂which we're harvesting at the rate of a couple a day...

Plot Update - picture heavy for later reference

Into peak allotment season now, started to get a lot of salad coming through, so lettuce is a common accompaniment to meals at the moment 🙂- also peak weed growing season too, so went to do some ho-ho-ho-ing this afternoon. Before that took some pictures of the plot in general:

Strawberries, in new cage:


Beans #1 - Orient Wonder (we think) from Florida:


Beans #2 - Black Turtle (also from Florida) but looking unhappy:


Beans #3 - Purple Queen:


Courgettes, Pumpkin:


Shallots - had to weed around these - not sure where weeds from 🤔:


More lettuce, under mesh to keep pigeons off:


Cabbages in #1 bed - TODO back-fill with some compost:


Raspberries, going great guns, flowers starting to appear:


Likewise, blackcurrants, laden with fruit so branches bending:


Quite dense with fruit, but very much green:


Garlic (not entirely sure what variety) look close to ready:


More salad!


First crop of peas now uncovered as will be flowering soon:


Second crop of peas getting established:


Apples coming on #1 apple tree:


Meanwhile, back at the ranch strawberries now have their ... straw and cucumbers reaching for the skies:


All things being equal doing OK, though the other side of the plot (the new side) is currently home to rather a lot of buttercups so still much to do...

Dodgy Constructions

Growing the tomatoes in the greenhouse creates the perennial problem of how to support them - last years solution was a complete bodge, so this year decided to do something slightly more ... proper. Fixed some spare brackets:

 (IKEA ones, which you are supposed to tie your furniture to the wall with, like anyone does that!) and fixed some canes to the apex of the roof and the tops of the walls - to these tied string, and to the string tie the tomatoes - in principle should do the job, but we shall see. Advantages: doing it before the tomatoes are too tall means it was relatively non-destructive. Disadvantages: banking on the string lasting & being strong enough...

Tomatoes doing well, and enjoying the weather.

Home Growing Strawberries and Cucumbers

Now we have some strawberries in at home, they need a cover - enter the wire mesh:

The wire mesh is interesting to work with - three designs of covers here (bees allowed, birds no). Chose to avoid netting as birds get caught up in it. Also have cucumbers in here growing up the wall - Burpless Tasty and Crystal from the salad kit. These are growing up a construction made from the traditional materials i.e. bamboo canes and string. Weather not great, but the plants all look OK so should be interesting to see how they get on.

Backdated #5: Beans, Courgettes, 19th May

Sowed beans a few weeks back which have been growing steadily, so was time to put them out in #4 bed - usual teepees from 8-foot canes for orient wonder and black turtle:

Purple queen went in to #3 bed after pulling up the sweetcorn which had failed completely:

Also put the courgettes into this bed (with fruit on already) on 24th May: