Thursday, September 11, 2014

Allotmenting in September


Today I was working from home, mainly because I'm off to Leeds for the evening later on, and since we have no kids at home today and the weather is beautiful, D and I took ourselves off to the allotment for our lunch break. 


While D was cutting the grass I went around and harvested. This space continues to amaze me. This is only our first proper year of allotment gardening, and we are still learning, but this space truly keeps on giving. Even without any fertilizing, and with a constant battle against encroaching weeds, we've harvested so much here this summer.

This was my vegetable basket today:


So many courgettes, and cucumbers, and beans (the beans have been amazing - we've had buckets of them). There are even a few patty pan pumpkins in there. We've not been so lucky with the carrots - despite the netting there is some damage from carrot fly, and they are also somewhat woody and dry. I will have to read up on how to improve conditions for them.

Once I'd done the vegetable harvesting I went around my Dahlias and cosmos to cut flowers for the house. I love flowers in the house and my aim this year was to grow enough cut flowers that I wouldn't have to buy any for the summer months. The cosmos was slow to start with (lots and lots of greenery and no flowers), although it is starting to pick up speed now, but the Dahlias have been truly amazing. The more I cut for the house, the more seem to appear. When we got there today it was a riot of colour:






I cut most of them because as I said - the more I cut the more the plants produce - and we always find room in the house for a jug of flowers. This was the trough at the end of our short visit:



When we got home I immediately arranged them into various jugs:









Pretty, no? 

13 comments:

  1. Hello Iris! How have I missed your posts? They're gorgeous...the flowers, the handspun and that awesome granny square blanket! You asked about the pattern I had for the KAL blanket I've been working on and I'm so sorry I did not have it on Ravelry. I do now! In fact, it was a pattern I bought at my LYS and lo and behold it was on Ravelry too...surprised me. So, my userid on Ravelry is Saminar and you will find it in my projects with all the info. If you have any questions just let me know. So nice to meet you and I love all your projects and that garden!

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    1. Hi, and thanks for leaving a comment and for the info about the pattern - I'll definitely check it out! it's lovely to meet you too! :)

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  2. What an amazing harvest of veggies and flowers! I also love having fresh flowers in the house! Pretty, yes!! Have a wonderful weekend.

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    1. Thank you! And I hope you had a lovely weekend too! :)

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  3. You have quite the green thumb. Your flowers are big blossoms! And to grow your own food. Amazing.

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    1. Thanks! I enjoy gardening and I love flowers in the house, so I thought growing them myself was a good solution. :)

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  4. Beautiful flowers. I have discovered with gardening that I am quite good at planting stuff, but less good at remembering to harvest it (all my raspberries were eaten last week before I could get there!).

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    1. Thanks Katie, and yes, I know what you mean - I'm a bit like that myself. It's not even the harvesting, it's the eating it all in time. Before we went on holiday this summer I harvested a HUGE load of runner beans and didn't get round to cooking any of them. In the end I had to give them to our neighbor when we left for the ferry!

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  5. Thanks Katie, and yes, I know what you mean - I'm a bit like that myself. It's not even the harvesting, it's the eating it all in time. Before we went on holiday this summer I harvested a HUGE load of runner beans and didn't get round to cooking any of them. In the end I had to give them to our neighbor when we left for the ferry!

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  6. what an amazing harvest for this late in the season......and the dahlias!!! Lovely!!!!

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    1. Thank you - I'm amazed, really, that we are still getting all this produce, and I'm so happy with how the dahlias have worked out. We have a family celebration coming up and I'm planning to have fresh flowers everywhere! ;)

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  7. A beautiful allotment a wonderful harvest there is nothing like growing your own.

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    1. It really is fantastic. I've always loved gardening and growing vegetables, but having a proper space to do so is such a treat!

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