Life on the Weald - #Plot247 (and at home) December 2021
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| Crown Prince squash |
November had ended with freezing temperatures but the first day of December saw the daytime temperature rise to 11C and in Hove there were sunny periods with only a moderate breeze.
I visited the plot to see what damage, if any, had been caused by Storm Arwen and was pleased that there appeared to be none, apart from the table and chairs having blown over.
The late pumpkins were looking ready to harvest but I wasn't sure that they were fully ripe so decided to leave them a little longer.
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| 1 December - Pumpkins (Rocket) |
The fleece that I had laid over the broad beans which had been sown last month was still in place despite the strong winds...
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| 1 December - Broad beans sown under fleece |
...but there was no sign of any growth under the fleece.
The autumn sown broad beans, however, had survived the strong winds.
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| 1 December - autumn sown broad beans |
At home, my genuine Quince tree (Cydonia), Serbian Gold, had arrived and as it was bare-rooted needed to be planted immediately. I planted it in the garden. It is currently two years old and about 1.5m tall. It should eventually grow to no more than 2 metres. I already have a Chinese quince on the allotment, planted last year, and now two years old, which is a bush variety. There are three distinct types of quince - the true quince which is a tree (Cydonia), the Chinese quince (Pseudocydonia) and the more common Japanese quince (Chaenomeles japonica), a flowering shrub found in many gardens in England. The fruits of all three are edible and similar in taste. Most years I make quince jelly in the autumn using Japanese quinces gathered from neighbours' gardens. Hopefully, next year or the year after, I will have my own genuine quinces as well as Chinese quinces to choose from.
My Quintal Gallio pumpkins picked earlier and being stored at home appeared sound and I gave one away, to be shared between my daughter and eldest son.
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| 9 December - Quintal Gallio Pumpkin |
Watching BBC Saturday Kitchen, I was interested to see a vegetarian version of the traditional Maghreb bastilla (pastilla) with a Persian touch, from the British/Iranian chef Sabrina Ghayour. Her recipe can be found here. I had several varieties of squash as well as root vegetables - Swede, carrots and a parsnip so I adapted her recipe and made my own bastilla with a mixture of squash and root veg..
I saved the Crown Prince squash for another day to be roasted on its own.
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| Bastilla - the filling |
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| Bastilla - the finished dish |
I saved the Crown Prince squash for another day to be roasted on its own.
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| 15 December - Crown Prince Squash |
As rain was forecast, I took the Rocket pumpkins home but the stem/stalks did not seem to have fully dried out and within a few days the pumpkins began to show signs of softening. We salvaged most of them and cooked and froze the flesh for use in soups etc throughout winter.
The seed potatoes that I had ordered arrived mid-December and I prepared these for chitting at home. I had bought 3 varieties - Red Duke of York, first early and two second earlies, Nicola and Charlotte
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| Early potatoes chitting |
I also spent some time tidying up the front garden at home cutting back trees and bushes and removing all the dead branches from the lavender. On my next visit to the plot on 17 December, I dug a 1ft deep trench on one side of an empty raised bed and filled it with the garden prunings adapting the Hugel principle.
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| burying the garden prunings |
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| topping the prunings with wood chips |
There was no sign of any growth under the fleece on the second Hugel bed (where I had directly sown some broad beans last month) but I rolled back the fleece on the side where nothing had been sown and planted out a few broad bean plants that I had started off indoors and grown in pots at home.
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| transplanted broad bean seedlings |
An inspection of the brassica bed confirmed that we would have Brussels sprouts for Christmas. And more good news - there was a good supply of kalettes
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| 17 December - Brussels sprouts |
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| Kalettes - 17 December |
When I planted potatoes at the beginning of the year, I had a few seed potatoes left over and planted these later in a growing bag. I tipped out the bag of Nicola and am pleased to say we have new potatoes for Christmas. Hopefully there will be more in the Charlotte bag for New Year.
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| Nicola potatoes - 17 December |
We had a few days of pleasant weather but this was soon to change with a period of heavy continuous rain so there would be little opportunity to do anything more on the plot before Christmas apart from a brief visit on 23 December to collect the sprouts and kalettes and lift a swede.
Christmas itself was very wet as were the days following so we used the post-Christmas period to strain the Sloe gin which had been maturing since October
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| Straining the sloe gin |
We had been anticipating a large family gathering for Christmas and New Year but all that was cancelled due to the new variant of Covid and we spent Christmas on our own. We cancelled the order for the Christmas roast but our freezer was well stocked for the post-Christmas period and New Year. We had a variety of game so decided to make a Game terrine based on my previous recipe but ommiting the chicken liver.
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| Game terrine in preparation |
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| Game Terrine, the finished product |
There was also bread to be baked, and I used the tried and trusted "Dutch oven" method to make a 50/50 White and Wholemeal Spelt loaf using my old recipe
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| 50/50 loaf with Spelt flour |
31 December: the month - and the year - ended with abnormaly high temperatures. New Year's eve was predicted to be dry, sunny and 13-15C. In some parts of the country it exceeded expectations and was the hottest ever New Year's Eve recorded in the UK. Whilst it was mild in Hove, at around 12C it remained a dank and damp day with a heavy mist and occasional drizzle - what we have come to call "mizzle" but brightened up in the afternoon.
The morning weather did not deter us from visiting the plot to pick some more kalettes, some cavolo nero and a Swede. Earlier in the month I had applied a mulch of leaves to the rhubarb patch and was surprised to see that the new rhubarb shoots were showing!
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| Rhubarb -31 December |
The garlic had also shown some progress
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| 31 December - garlic |
I returned to the bed where I had fillied a trench with twigs and wood chips and covered it over with the soil that had been removed. I then dug a parallel trench which I also filled with twigs, prunings, woodchips and grass mowings from home and left it exposed.
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| 2nd trench - Hugelstyle |
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| 2nd trench with woodchips and grass clippings |
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| Charlotte potatoes - 31 December |
I checked on the November sown broad beans by lifting the fleece and was pleasantly surprised to see they had germinated - about 4 weeks after sowing - so I removed the fleece in the hope that the mild weather continues.
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| 31 December - Broad beans sown 25 November |
Back home I checked on the broad beans that I had sown in trays earlier in the month which were in the unheated loft extension. They were looking very "leggy", and as the temperature was warm and the winds had subsided, I put them outside to harden off.
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| Broad beans sown at home hardening off |
The mild weather continued into the evening and just before midnight we strolled down to the beach with a bottle of fizz...
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| New Year's Eve - Hove Promenade 23.46 |
...and saw out the old year with a bang!
31 December 2021 Midnight 00.00 - 00.01 1 January 2022
