not such a productive weekend

I have picked 178 tomatoes at my allotment since 12 January.  I've eaten them, given them away and yesterday decided to make some chutney.  I love chutney and am usually kept in stores by two Aunts.  I've never made chutney before and I won't bother again, I spent hours preparing and it looked so pretty in the saucepan.  Pity it tasted like poison.

So I rang one of said Aunts for her recipe and tried it this morning.  A more involved recipe than the first and two more kilos of tomatoes were used.  Not quite as poisonous but still bad.  I never want to see a tomato again.

Moving on, I sewed up an apron I cut out at Christmas, it's just not quite right. 

new harvest

This morning I harvested my first crop of tomatoes and potatoes.  There must be about 100 more tomatoes to turn red and I'm beginning to think about what to make with them.  The tomatoes are a bit blotchy so I'll have to read up about why that's happening.  I fear I'll have loads of potatoes too so will be distributing them.

I also recently bought a great book/journal called My Garden : A Five-Year Journal by Mimi Luebbermann.  It's a handy way to record how the garden is growing, successes or failures, visiting insects, sketch garden plans etc.

my allotment

In April this year I was lucky to get an allotment at a community garden, I'd been on the waiting list for 18 months and was told there were 17 people after me.  My allotment is for the 'beginner', it's the smallest in the garden at 25sq metres.  I was a bit disheartened when I was shown my garden as it was a big patch of weeds (that's my dad in the photo).

After much weeding it started to take shape and look like a veggie patch.

I've started to put a brick edging around the garden (it's still a bit wonky) and I've planted rhubarb, turnips, brussel sprouts, potatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, snow peas, spring onions, jostaberries and raspberries. 

I'm loving the allotment, everything is growing, touch wood.  I'm finding the weeding ridiculous, I have to spend at least two hours at it every time I'm there.  It'll all be worth it when I can eat what I've grown.