- allotment
- allotment supper
- asparagus
- bees
- borage
- chard
- compost
- courgettes
- golden gooseberry jelly
- golden sweet mange tout
- gooseberries
- gooseberry jam
- greenhouse
- hanging basket
- lemon apple cucumber
- lemon verbena
- no-dig allotment
- onions
- purple basil
- quince
- radishes
- rose de roscoff onions
- shed
- snowdrops
- strawberries
- sweetcorn
- sweet peas
- tomatoes
- yellow raspberries
- zinnias
Author Archives: Ruth Paris
fresh and tasty
Such a pleasure; first the picking… And then the eating!
Posted in Allotment, beans, peas, produce, strawberries, sweet peas
Tagged allotment produce, baby beetroot, griddled courgettes, show perfection peas
2 Comments
evening sunshine & puddling in leeks
Such a beautiful evening. The grass easily cut by my new lightweight lithium battery mower. Thyme flowering with bee-enticing display. Fruit cage starred with jewelled currants and strawberries. O Joy. And baby leeks from Andrew’s bountiful flower stall at Stamford … Continue reading
Posted in Allotment, asparagus bed, bees, strawberries, sweet peas
Tagged dibber, leeks, puddling in, thyme
3 Comments
easy peasy allotment supper
A handful of mixed greens (kale, beetroot tops, red & white chard, brocolletti) and a baby yellow courgette. Supermarket all-butter puff pastry. An egg and a glug of cream. Yum.
Posted in Allotment, allotment recipes
Tagged allotment supper, baby courgette, mixed greens tart
1 Comment
flowery, bowery
I do like this little poem by George Ellis, The Twelve Months: Snowy, Flowy, Blowy, Showery, Flowery, Bowery, Hoppy, Croppy, Droppy, Breezy, Sneezy, Freezy June is indeed ‘bowery’ in the huerto, and although the sweet peas have not yet reached … Continue reading
Posted in Allotment, cosmos
Tagged calabrese, carrot thinnings, carrots, charlotte potatoes, James Galway Rose, lettuce grandpa admires, mangetout shiraz, violas
Comments Off on flowery, bowery
first pickings…
Preparing a picnic for our village Great Get Together party, here are the very first little mangetout and sugar snap peas, calabrese and baby courgettes (varieties alba, soleil and romanesco) – delicious crudités with aioli made with the early wet … Continue reading
Posted in Allotment, gooseberries
Tagged baby courgettes, crudites, gooseberry fool, Nigel Slater, picnic
1 Comment
a beautiful evening
The greenhouse is starting to look quite ‘professional’, even though I’m making it up as I go along… I have discovered that using twine for tomatoes to grow up doesn’t work – the strings that I secured into the planting … Continue reading
Posted in Allotment
Tagged achocha, calabrese, gooseberries, greenhouse, peonies, rose Nostalgia, strawberry planter, sweet peas
8 Comments
tipping point
Every year it seems like things are never going to come right. Either my planting scheme hasn’t worked, or I’ve been chaotic or over-exuberant. Or all three. And then suddenly it comes together. There’s a turning point where everything looks … Continue reading
Posted in Allotment
Tagged allotment in June, fruit cage, greenhouse in allotment, herbs, lettuces, onions, peas, tagetes
3 Comments
Biodynamics and Hope
Having applied a biodynamic horn manure preparation to the soil some weeks ago, I now imagine a sparkling invisible web of life enlivening the huerto… “Spring drew on, and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested … Continue reading
Posted in Allotment, greenhouse, pigeons, sweet peas
Tagged biodynamics, greenhouse, hope, horn manure, quince, spring, tomatoes
Comments Off on Biodynamics and Hope
‘beach hut blue’ this year
Although propitious for planting roots and flowers today, my lunar calendar warned of the ‘worst Saturn‘ aspect so I contented myself with a short inspection of the emerging asparagus and then set to work on the shed. I much prefer … Continue reading
Posted in Allotment, painted shed, Shed
4 Comments
seeds and auriculas
Acquiring the greenhouse has set in motion other developments: I’m now also the proud owner of a heated propagator and have been busy planting seeds today, now that the moon is waxing again. The various old tins and boxes in … Continue reading
greenhouse (contd) & black gold
A trip to the glazier sorted out the broken panel and after a lot of pinging of fiddly wire springs and throbbing fingers the greenhouse is fully glazed – & washed inside and out. A kind addition to the ebay … Continue reading
snowdrops and a new leaf mould path
Transplanted from my parents’ garden a couple of years ago, these clumps of snowdrops are a lovely welcome to the allotment site, planted underneath my damson tree. A productive day, and a delightfully warm one, sufficiently so to have lunch … Continue reading
Posted in Allotment, no dig, no dig method
Tagged boscobel rose, leaf mould, mulched path
7 Comments
feed the soil, not the plant
Still committed to the no-dig principle, I increased my order of composted manure to 30 sacks and managed myself to trundle them from the gate where they were delivered all the way down to plot number 10. Whew. I’ve now … Continue reading
what I learned this year
As I shovelled this year’s precious harvest of compost from the bin to mulch the raised beds, I pondered the allotment year that’s ending and what I have learned: >> The no-dig method has completely won me over, supported by … Continue reading
Posted in Allotment, no dig method, peas, pigeons, strawberries
Tagged golden beetroot, morello cherry, no-dig allotment, salvia amistad
4 Comments
autumn update
A gorgeous day. The salvia ‘Amistad’ I planted among the roses has taken over! I hadn’t realised quite how big it would grow… it clearly likes the situation. Along with jerusalem artichoke flowers, tulbaghia violacea and verbena bonariensis it makes … Continue reading
Posted in Allotment, asparagus bed
Tagged asparagus bed, oca, red sweetcorn, salvia, verbena
1 Comment
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