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Category Archives: allotment

Harvest Swap, A Posy and A Poem

We pulled more Sweetcorn today and gave a couple to Sue-next-door in exchange for some of her beans grown on her allotment.

There was a neighbourhood wedding at the weekend, the whole event being in the garden and the field behind. Today our neighbour brought us one of the pretty  table jam jars of garden flowers.

Looking for a poem for today in my  “A Poet for Every Day of the Year, I found one that appealed to me under today’s date.‘What’s the Railroad to me?”,”I’ve included the introduction too as I really enjoyed learning about Thoreau.

 
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Posted by on August 31, 2026 in allotment, friendship, garden, nature, poetry

 

Six on Saturday – Food and A Poem

Six on Saturday – Food and A Poem

We gave up our allotment earlier this year and handed it on to a lovely young family who are having fun down there but we are still growing vegetables at home in our raised beds and in our new greenhouse.

The Sweetcorn is doing well, enjoying the heat we think. It’s very tall and there are a number of corn cobs developing with tassels beginning to show.

Sweet Corn and a volunteer Gladioli

Sweetcorn cob with tassels

We are growing the squash with the corn as I read about in Braiding Sweet Grass by Robin Wall Kimmerer who shares her knowledge of indigenous wisdom.

Patti Pan squash

The Curly Kale is doing well and somehow seems not to attract the Cabbage White Butterfly.

Curly Kale

The Kalettes are growing strongly and despite some caterpillar damage seem to be doing okay.

Kalette plants

We love Leeks.

Leeks

The Courgettes are very slow but we have had two so far and there are two more on the way.

Courgettes

As last week, if you want a peek over other people’s garden walls then please pop over to our host, Jim from Garden Ruminations where you find links to many more wonderful garden enthusiasts from all over the world.

In my clearing out, I came across a book I’ve not seen for a while, Medieval Gardens and thought this poem perfect for today’s blog:

Latin 9th century.
Walafrid-Strabo: Hortulus (De Cultura Hortorum)

 

 

 

 

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Happiness Calendar, Community Roots and St David’s Day

Today the allotment is no longer ours but our fellow allotmenteers from the last few years came to visit Community Roots to hear about no-dig and to learn all about the garden. It was a very damp and fascinating morning which was greatly enjoyed by everyone.  Here are some of them after the tour and after having worked in the new orchard.

It’s St David’s Day and here are more daffodils to honour my Welsh heritage. My Mum’s father was Welsh. They really were nodding in the breeze and the rain as I took the video through the window.

 

Spaceman, Flowers and Cathedral

We loved the Spaceman in the Lemon Street Market in Truro today.

In one of the shops were these lovely felt flowers.

I love Truro Cathedral in all weathers but on a beautiful sunny Spring day like today, it’s even more lovely.

Today is our last official day  with an allotment. From tomorrow it will be cared for by a lovely young family.

 

More Weeds, Pumpkins and Dahlias

Today our weeding has been at the allotment. Over the last three months we have been unable to look after it properly and the weeds have filled the paths as well as the beds. My job was to clear the main path. My lovely Mr S worked on the beds this afternoon. Photos later

Weedy path

Path after an hour of weeding

I walked around the plots afterwards and found produce and flowers.

We should plant some dahlias for next year, lovely colours for the Autumn..

 

A Poem, Weeding and Raspberries

A friend of our son’s. Deasy Bamford,  shared a poem she wrote yesterday and she has given me permission to share it with you. It touched me deeply.

by Deasy Bamford

We have volunteered a few times at The Ladder in town, painting the inside, helping with the planting of the garden at the back and today the volunteer force were called in again. There has been scaffolding up for a long, long time as the roof has been being repaired and weeds have had a field day! A whole bunch of people turned up and tidied everything up. I did one small patch and here are the before and after photos.

We picked the last raspberries from our allotment this afternoon.

 

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Purple Beans, Recipe and An Old Utensil

Yesterday, our lovely neighbour brought us some beans from her allotment. They were a beautiful purple colour but, we were warned, maybe a bit stringy. I decided to use my own recipe  for Runner Bean Soup and made a wonderfully tasty lunch. It pleases me greatly that my recipe is so well used. If you google Runner Bean Soup, it comes up on the first page. Interestingly,  my photo of my soup is used on the Jamie Oliver recipe!

Because of the stringiness, I put the soup though a sieve and used my Mum’s old wooden pestle to push it through very easily. The result was a lovely creamy soup though, sadly, not purple. Sorry, we ate it before I could take a photo!

 

 
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Posted by on September 20, 2025 in allotment, Food, friendship, Kindness, Postaday2025

 

Yucca, Spider, and Bee

I think this is a Yucca. We see it across the road and today, on the way to the allotment, I got my photo.

On the wood of the cage that protects our raspberry crop, was this rather magnificent spider, an Orb Weaver, I think. Apparently the females are twice the size of the males so iIm thinking this is a female as she was 1.5cms. I this is a male the female must be enormous!

It was good to see a bee still collecting nectar.

 

 

Flower, Eclipse and Silver Lining

I went to weed the leeks at the allotment this afternoon and found this pretty self-sown flower growing on our patch.

I hope some of you have managed to see the eclipse/ Blood Moon this evening. Today’s clouds disappeared so I spent half an hour looking East but we are too low down here,. However, the clouds turned pink for the duration so it was just out of sight below the horizon. I shall hope to get a photo of the full moon, the Corn Moon, later this evening.

Looking West a few moments later, the sunset was quite subdued  but I do love the silver lining and the tree silhouette. .

 

Sturgeon Moon, Supper and Onion Crop

Last night’s full moon was glorious!

A delicious salad supper this evening of fresh Roots tomatoes, little gem lettuce, Puy lentils and feta cheese with a drizzle of balsamic glaze.

We have the smallest onion crop ever so in a way this doesn’t really qualify for ‘beautful things.’  Two weeks ago, our onions were looking wonderful, all ready to be lifted and left in the sun to cure but with all that’s going on at home, I haven’t been down to get them. While she was here, Daughter no 3 came down to the allotment with me do the lifting and to help weed and pick raspberries but we were shocked to see all the onion stems black and crispy and when we lifted the onions they were squishy. We looked it up and it seems they have a mould called Aspergillus niger and that they shouldn’t be eaten! All we have are the few weedy ones that were grown in a separate bed. After the disappointment with the broad bean crop, we are feeling somewhat short of enthusiasm. I’m very pleased that I lifted the shallots a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

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