3rd prize pumpkin
A very unexpected bonus last Saturday when Mike, one of the allotment wardens, pulled up and handed me an envelope. Inside was not the expected summons to pay the next years rent but my Hundredweight pumpkin at 40 inches diameter had won me third prize in the largest pumpkin competition judged that morning. Luckily for me Dennis was not allowed to win more than one prize or his would have taken first, second, and third! I understand Mike himself had won second.
My wife Joan has already made pumpkin pies and pumpkin soup that was perfect yesterday.
I’ve been too busy to do much on the allotment lately let alone add anything to the blog but here are a few recent goodies.
Cauliflowers
I was very pleased to get these caulis since everyone told me how hard they were to grow. They were given to me by our friends Barbara and Jim as 6 plants ( all the year round ) so I put them in to the only space available at the time along with the lettuces. The cabbage whites had a field day as you can see. One failed to grow at all, two grew but the centres were eaten before forming, one I picked but froze and when it was taken out a week later it looked disgusting but the one here on the left was perfect in a cauliflower cheese on Monday night. I’m hoping we catch the other before it goes off.
red and white onion strings
Just to prove that the winning onions were not a fluke here are some of the Red Baron and New Fen Globe I strung up in the garage. About 5Kg each string and all the smaller ones are in hessian bags. As I wrote before, the White Prince were hopeless.
cucumbers
Last but not least, here are about a dozen of the cucumbers (Marketmore) that have such flavour and texture compared to the shop ones.
I’ll save the cornfield for later.
