And here they are!

9 jars including a big jar in the fridge. Gotta love Delia! http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/traditional-seville-orange-marmalade,1223,RC.html

I used 3lbs of seville oranges (rather than 2 as this is the size bags the oranges came in) and adjusted the weights of all the other ingredients. I used preserving sugar rather than granulated as that's what I had in the cupboard. I also grated all the peel in my food processor rather than sliced by hand. Worked fine, though as we don't like too much peel, I only put half the peel in the pan and the rest in the muslin with the pips etc. I will probably try slicing it next time to see the difference.

Ryton Potato Day

What fun! It was like a pick and mix at a sweet shop! To be honest I think next year I will only get my spuds from here so I can get EXACTLY what and how many I want. I now have even more spuds!!

I bought: 10 Sarpo Mira; 5 Highland Burgundy Red; 5 Salad Blue; 5 Pink Fir Apple; and 5 Mimi. All very exciting!

They also had a stall where you can bring along packets of saved seeds or even commercial ones and swap them for those that someone else brought along. A good day all round (despite all the coughing and sniffing around me :oD!)!

Came home and had a real urge to make Seville Orange Marmalade... and so I did!.. Still to bottle it up (still waiting for the dishwasher to do it's thing with the jars), but first tasting are fab. Not as sweet as shop bought, but a much richer taste mmmmmmm!

SPUDS!

....have arrived! I've got them all chitting in my bedroom (all thousands of them! :o) ) I wanted to try at least 5 different varieties and they only came in 2.5kg bags so what can you do? AND I'm off to Ryton tomorrow for the potato fair/day thingy so will no doubt come back with a fair few more, hmmmm!? Sooooo exciting though! We love spuds and although I have got far more than I need, we do get through at least a bag of spuds a week, more at early potato time, so I'll squeeze as many as I can in at the plot and the rest I'll give away.

Also sowed my first seeds of the new year. Mostly toms of many more types than I need (again!), and I can't seem to help but sow too many of each. I'm sure I'll be able to find a few foster homes for them if need be.

It was cold on the plot today (I had on about 6 layers and legwarmers), but not windy or wet so actually really nice. I did a bit of weeding and sorting, not much really, it was just nice to be there.



This is the new Tayberry bed I put in a few weeks ago. I've split the plot in half with it and am not totally sure I like that yet. I will have to see, I can always move them next winter if I need to.

I've also got around to creating a cage to protect my gooseberries with the Build-a-Balls I got for Christmas. The idea behind them is sound enough I think, though the balls don't seem all that secure. We'll see if they hold together.
Finally, just a couple of pics to show Feb on the plot looking from either end! x

We succumbed and had go with the allotment's rotivator to turn over the spud beds. The thinking was that I really just wanted to see what the difference was, and to conduct a bit of a comparison test between that and digging each bed by hand. Firstly I was totally girlie and was rubbish at using the rotivator, so Hubby took over and sent me home to make lunch while he did it.
A few weeks on (Sunday) we came back and checked through the beds for weeds and marked out the beds. We also spread a whole load of well rotted manure on them all ready for the worms to do their job. Overall it WAS a fast way to turn over the earth for the only time I plan to do it so deeply, but will probably not bother again.



We also put a few of the large slabs that were going spare next to our plot to see how heavy they were for when we run them down the side of our plot and hopefully down the middle too. I can't wait to have paths etc. It'll look great!

Moved the fruit bushes today. 6 raspberries (4 Malling Jewel and 2 that I can't remember what they're called). A huge loganberry and a little blackberry. We also transplanted the gooseberry.
I LOVE how it looks now - how it's been divided from the communal plot next to me. All those lovely berries in Summer mmmmmmmmmm!

View from on our plot.

View from the communal plot.

There I was, pulling up loads of these little baby carrots for tea , when out came this mad mutant whopper! It must've been left over from the first load I sowed that mysteriously disappeared. As it happened the little ones had all been burrowed into by some small annoying creature so the biggie was the one we ate. And yummy he was too!

WE HAVE A SHED!

And what a beauty she is! Not bad for free (bar some nails and coach bolts). Note the new panels at the bottom, seamlessly blending in with the rest of the woodwork. It took us two tiring days at the weekend - one to lay the slabs and one to repair the rotten base and sides, and to put together. It's pretty sturdy though and complete now with net curtains!! FAB! We need to preserve it, but other than a few gaps, it's pretty sound for an old gal.


The beds below are where all our fruit is going. So far I've got strawberries, a donated gooseberry bush (nice bloke over the road and a few plots up), a jostaberry and rhubarb (impulse buys!). I'm also going to move my raspberries, blackberry, loganberry and gooseberry from home to go in here next week (probably!?).

We've got two more beds in the top end of the plot to dig (Beds 8 & 9), one bed on the other side of the compost bin (Bed 12) and finally the beds for the spuds (13-16). Then all the basic structure will be done and we can start to think about paths, etc.

Can't wait (poor Hubby)!

Finally, we had a smashing time on Sat at the Allotment bonfire, fireworks and BBQ. The biggest bonfire I think I've ever seen and tonnes of fireworks (hubby was put in charge of these - bit scary!!). Everyone was really nice (if a little inebriated by the end!) - great fun!

After a chat with the 'sort of' Site Manager about what he follows cabbage/squash with, I have come to the conclusion that I have been making things quite difficult for myself with different 'families' of veg and fruit dotted all over the plot on my first plan.

I was told that I should try to keep all my spuds together in a block and then move this block to another area of the plot each year (made sense). Also I shouldn't follow brassicas with spuds as the lime in the soil gives them scab - (the whole plan shot then!!).

So a good hour sitting in the sunshine while Hubby helped the 'blokes' shift slabs and here is the new plan. Much simpler I think! Took some working out mind you, and couldn't follow ALL the rotation advice (as in following the legumes with the brassicas - just didn't fit), but it seems to work okay (give or take a few things I've already put in the wrong place - onions etc.).

The plot's coming together brilliantly though. I just had a look back at my posts from July and we've really come MILES! Actually looks like an allotment! Still got two beds left to dig in the first half, along with the area for the spuds (that currently has the shed on - so that needs sorting first). And we're dug. I'm all prepared with green manures for any vacant beds though so far I seem to be filling them as they are emptied.

Early July

3 months later

Bob here was supposed to be a family activity - but I ended up creating him all on my own (kids and Hubby not in the slightest bit interested). Still, he seems to be doing his job, I spoke to him twice thinking he was Hubby out of the corner of my eye, and looked up to see who was standing there more times than I can count. Just hope he works on the pigeons (and burglars too!!)

Hubby dug over all the remaining fruit beds ready for the currant and gooseberry bushes I ordered and to move the 'berries' from home into in Nov. We lined to bottom of the trenches with manure and are now going to give it a few weeks before we uproot them from our garden. Can't wait!


At last we managed to eat two of our sweetcorns. One was scrummy (didn't know I liked sweetcorn - cor!!) and one wasn't ripe yet - yuk! The best thing though, is that my daughter loves them - what could be better?