Another bucket'o'weeds

The recent rain has done two things. Spurred the weeds into growth, and softened up the ground so that it's easier to pull them out.

So, like recently, it's all hands to the weeds.

My tool of choice for digging them out is a three pronged thin fork with downward facing tines. It's easy to loosened up the soil around the weed in question and then grab it and pull it out. So I've been gradually working my way around the wood chip paths and goat paths between the beds digging out the errant growths. Mostly they're weeds, but on occasion I have found strawberry runners leaving their confines and trying to escape to adjacent beds. The definition of a weed is any plant that is growing in the wrong place. So out they come.

I've lost count of how many buckets were emptied. but there always seems to be more to do.

We're still getting courgettes. And Tomatoes. And we've now started to harvest the apples form the tree before they all fall on the floor. Of course we have to eat the apples by using a knife to cut them as they all have a maggot inside. There is only one thing worse than biting into an apple and finding a maggot inside.

And that's biting into an apple and finding half a maggot inside.

Sweet Sweetcorn

Looks like once again we were slightly late picking the corn.

We've trying a different variety this year, as in previous years, although they have done really well, the corn is not really suitable for eating directly. But they did produce excellent pop corn. They still do, as we have loads of the popcorn left.

But this year it's a little more organic and it did really well. We've already had some of the corn and it is really tender and sweet. But today when we went to the plot we noticed that the stalks were dying off so it's time to fully harvest them. However a lot of them appear to have rot or insect damage.

The ones on the right seem pretty good. Maybe just a little damage. The ones on the left have significant issues. So these ones we will dry and try to use for next year.

We also are still getting loads of courgettes (of course) and we also grabbed some of the runner beans and Tomatoes. The red toms are from our mass of Tumbling Toms, but the yellows are rogue plants which appear to have sprouted from last years attempt at growing Ildi. And to top it off we harvested our first three chilli fruits grown this year (still more to come) and some less maggoty apples.

Now, does anybody have a good corn chowder recipe?

In a bit of a pickle

A while back I started counting the number of courgettes that came from the plot. The old "Courgette Tally". Well I'm not sure how many that I've collected this year, since I neglected to start counting right at the beginning, but I am drowning in them. We've had them fried, souped, grated, baked, and now I've tried pickling them.

And we still have loads left. I tried de-hydrating some a couple of years ago, that didn't go so well. Well, that's to say the drying went OK. It was the re-hydrating and cooking that failed. I just ended up with a slimy mess that tasted foul. So it would seem that the best way is to keep them is by turning them into another product... hence pickles.

But we still have loads to give away...

Our potatoes kind of finished early this year. Maybe it was the heat? But I pulled the main stalks off a couple of weeks ago, and today I finally up-ended the bag to see what was inside. Plenty there, but they were kind of small.

Still better than nothing. But we still need to keep on top of the weed situation. Turn your back for two minutes and there are a thousand more weeds to pull.

Guess that this winter I'll have to get most of the beds covered... I just need to get enough weed membrane from somewhere. Somewhere that I can go shopping that is, because as it stands at present, I can still only go home and the allotment. Not allowed to go anywhere else until I'm vaccinated.

2020 has been an "interesting" year so far.

Bucket'o'weeds

The plot is doing well. Of course most notably the weeds are doing better if the number of them is any indication. So we went to the plot early today (to avoid the heat) and started pulling.

We have a wild area at the back of the plot, which was supposed to have been turned into a seating and picnicking area this year, but a certain pandemic meant I couldn't get the materials that I wanted. So once again it's been left to go wild. Perfect place for throwing all of the resulting weeds, after all no green thing should leave the plot. It'll all compost down.

So we emptied loads of buckets into the back. I lost count, I think I did about 4, and The Wife did about 5 or 6. Anyway, it seems like we've hardly made a dent in the totals in the beds. But things do look a little tidier.

And we have yet more courgettes. Can't give them away fast enough.

...and sweetcorns, and beetroots, and tomatoes, and potatoes....

Soon we'll get round to apples. The tree is creaking under the weight of them, but they're still rather small, and also, sadly, rather moth eaten.

And somewhere hidden in the Crown Prince patch are a few CPs growing there. Considering that we almost lost them all due to a late frost then I think this is rather remarkable.

Anyway, time to avoid the heat and head for the hills. Also known as home.

(Incidentally, have you noticed how bad the new UI for Blogger has become. It's now "optimised for mobiles" and because of this they have completely forgotten the usability of the system. Where before it was easy to select the tags for your posts, now you have to scroll down a huge list to select them. You can't type them in or pick from a condensed list any more. 

They have also blocked you from uploading images in the old interface. So you're now forced to use the new system it you want to include images in your posts. And any images you do upload no longer auto-scale. So now you have to upload images fro the New Interface, switch back to the old one to add them with the scaling, select them by choosing the option "from this blog" and scroll down to the very bottom - that view should really be reverse date ordered - to add them with the scaling.

This is very badly thought out. As somebody who works in the tech industry I find it appalling.)