More blackberries

I froze the first lot 'cos I'm not exactly sure what I am doing with them.  For the next harvest I'm going for a Blackberry and Apple Crumble.  Apparently very easy to make but we'll see.  

Apples courtesy of Loraine.  Picture of finished bake later on but, here's the foraged ingredients to be going on with. Hope there's enough, I'm not very good at guessing 300g.

The greehouse is finished!!

I don't like using exclamation marks so much, but I'm so chuffed that the greenhouse is actually built that I though a little exuberant punctuation was probably OK.

So, here it is, screwed down to the base and completely glazed (shout out to Colin for the loan of his drill).   

It would have been a complex 3D puzzle anyway but it was made worse by the gap in time from actually buying it to getting around to putting it together.  I had forgotten that a few sheets of glass were needed so that fooled me for a while. A quick trip to Abbey Glass for the last few panes and its done.

Not sure if I'll actually be putting anything in it until next year but I thought this view was rather nice on a sunny October day with a lovely reflection of the rest of the site.

Manure

Bit of a dilemma.  It's manure-ordering time for the Allotment Association so I thought I should get some.  The deal is you get a big pile, leave it for a bit under cover and then it rots down into a nice non-smelly load.  "£24 a load" seems reasonable but then I found out that a 'load' is 4 tons and I haven't really got space to put it.

So, I canceled the order and I have loads of offers for others on the Site to pinch a barrow-full of their 'load'.

It comes on Tuesday and I imagine everything's going to be a bit smelly for a while.

(I didn't think a photo was needed for this item . . .)

Brazil

In Brazil which is all very nice and everything but I can't help thinking that the sweetcorn will be ready.

Blackberries

Coming thick and fast and I'm checking out recipes.  I've decided to freeze this first batch to see how it goes.

Spuds 2: bugs

Nice crop of spuds here drying in the sun.  Closer inspection though and a load have small (1 mm) holes in them.  I cut one open and found a long centipede-type thing inside, brown and a bit horrible.  So I'm throwing those away and find its about a third of the crop,  Nightmare. Could this be the start of the potato famine on Banner Cross Rd?  Actually I guess I could have cut out the creepy-guy and be left with most of the potato,  I'll do that next year if things get tight.

Spuds

Took the chance in between block laying (see 'Greenhouse base wall' post) to get the final row of potatoes up before the slugs get them.

I thought potatoes were going to be a bit boring but there almost the best of the lot.  Plant a few  little seed potatoes back in May, remember the gift from Ron, and then dig up a whole bunch for each one planted.  Had some for Sunday dinner - roast and boiled - the highlight of the meal!

Going to plant a lot more of these next year as well as some 'earlys"