Souvenirs

The best holiday souvenirs: packets of seeds. Yellow French beans, two types of lambs' lettuce, and a curly endive. The lambs' lettuce I'll sow now, but the rest will have to wait. There's not too much heat left in the Scottish summer, and the daylight hours are declining.

Also in the precious hoard brought back from France: a French gardening magazine, some linen tea towels, boxes of herb tea, and some garden-themed napkins. Unseen, two pots of my friend Christine's plum jam, made from the plums that rain down on the terrace around her beautiful home in the Basque countryside.


Sadly, only two bottles of wine from Chateau La Galiane, thanks to the weight restrictions on Ryanair. Next time, it has been decided, we'll travel by car. We want to return to the Bordeaux area, and to be surrounded by vineyards and unable to take advantage of them would be heartbreaking. Our precious bottles survived the flight and are now resting before being brought out on a special occasion.

I can't believe that we visited a vineyard and that I didn't take photos of the vines. We had a personal tour and wine tasting at a small family vineyard, arranged for us by our hosts at La Maison de Soussans. It was so interesting, and I was concentrating so much on the process that it didn't enter my head to break into the flow by taking my camera out. I only remembered right at the end of the visit, when I took these hasty shots. Not all chateaux are vast, turreted affairs. Chateau La Galiane was a lovely house, geraniums at every window, and its size in keeping with the acreage of vines. The chateau is named after an English general who commanded his troops in this area during the English occupation of Aquitaine in the 15th century.




Tomorrow, some photos of French vegetables! Then it's back to my own, which are struggling a bit in this damp, cool summer.

Compost activity

This is what happens when you leave a compost bin undisturbed for several weeks. Ants and their eggs. Boy did they move when we opened the lid. Eggs were grabbed and hurried off to safety.

We're curious to see what we'll find tomorrow when we take the compost bucket along.

And at some point we must get round to using some of the compost. It's very strange - the compost bins seem to have become self-contained entities. We add stuff, stir it around occasionally, add some more, but the connection between finished compost and spreading it on the plot seems to have got lost somewhere. Does anyone else have this experience, or all you all growing super veg as a result of your frequent compost spreading?

Edited to add that we're off on hols - exchanging damp and lush Scotland for hot and dry France. I intend to visit a few gardens while we're there. My husband doesn't know this yet.

Jam tomorrow

Lucky that I laid in supplies of jam sugar when we were north last week. Moray is a great jam-making area, with raspberries and strawberries grown commercially in the Laich of Moray (the coastal plain), and many gardens with their own supplies. Jam-making is THE summer occupation, to the extent that jam sugar vanishes from the shops at peak periods. I bought up sugar to make jam from my Dad's raspberries, but then decided that it would be so long before they were ripe that I would export it back to Edinburgh.

Today was our first visit to the allotment for 2 weeks, what with having been away preparing for my Dad's return from hospital, and then being busy with other things on our return. It rained all day yesterday, and is forecast to rain from tomorrow for the rest of the week. We discovered blackcurrant bushes bowed down to the ground with the weight of ripe fruit, and luscious red berries in profusion in the strawberry bed.




If it does rain tomorrow, I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing than stirring a bubbling pot of blackcurrant jam in a warm kitchen.

Poor neglected allotment blog. Life has just got the better of me. I've taken photos every time we've visited the plot, but haven't had time to post them. But at least the plot is looking presentable, if hardly overflowing with produce. One of the reasons I started this blog was the offence I took at an article in Garden Organic's magazine asserting that it wasn't possible to maintain an allotment on a part-time basis. The author didn't represent the stance of the Garden Organic organisation, I have to say, but I was certainly offended by his views. So here we are, part-time allotmenteers with next year's jam supply coming along nicely.

Can I point out our traditional allotment recycling? The white baskets holding the strawberries once held flower arrangements (my Dad is a great sender of flowers for my birthday), and the clear plastic container was a salad drawer from our old fridge.

First Aid

I'm pleased to report that in the couple of weeks since this notice was posted on the site noticeboard the fox's limp has improved considerably. We haven't seen the cubs yet, but we're hoping to if we get along to the plot one evening. That is, if the rain stops.

(SSPCA = Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)

Still Growing

When I get discouraged about amount of time I have to spare for the plot at the moment, it's good to look back at progress. Above, the shallots and garlic on 16 May. Below, 9 May.


2 May:

2 months ago in March, with the demised red clover waiting to be dug in.


So that's good. But then again, things are getting rather shaggy round the edges. Whoa! When did that central path take over? There's a Big Dig looming.

If you like rhubarb

then you might like this recipe. I made it last week and it was a qualified success in my family of rhubarb refuseniks. It's from Lindsey Bareham's column in The Times newspaper.

Ricotta and rhubarb pie (serves 4-6)

400g rhubarb
200g ready rolled puff pastry
flour for dusting
1 egg
100g ricotta
1 juicing orange
3 tbsp caster sugar
fromage frais, creme fraiche or yoghurt to serve.

Heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Put a baking sheet on a middle shelf. Dust a work surface with flour and roll the pastry until it measures approx 30 x 20 cm. Halve vertically with one piece slightly larger than the other. Lift the smaller sheet of pastry onto a second baking sheet lined with baking parchment. Whisk the egg. Paint a 2cm border around the pastry. Thickly spread the ricotta within the border. Cut the rhubarb into 4cm lengths. Pile the rhubarb over the ricotta. Zest the orange over the top and add juice from half the orange. [Sprinkle sugar over the rhubarb if desired] Swing the reserved pastry over the top, gently lining up the edges. Run round the edge with a fork to seal. Pain the pastry with egg. Make a central hole and etch a pattern radiating out of the hole. Dredge thickly with caster sugar. Bake for 25 minutes until th epastry is flaky, golden and sugar-crusted.

Observations:

It needed - really needed - sugar on the rhubarb. We discovered this only on eating the pie.

We (my daughter and I) forgot to paint the pastry with egg before putting it in the oven. We were listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack and reminiscing about when she played the theme tune at the joint Scottish/Italian Suzuki week with students from the Suzuki School of Bologna. And lots more chat besides, so it was understandable that we forgot a little thing like following the recipe. It looked okay, though. The etching was very artistic. I didn't take a photo. I thought asking my family to eat rhubarb pie was one thing, but taking a photo of it was pushing them too far.


The 'harvest' of two weeks ago. The purple sprouting broccoli is over now, alas, but the rhubarb keeps on going.

From my deckchair - May

A neglected blog doesn't mean a neglected allotment. At the moment I'm TBTB (Too Busy To Blog). Work is nearly all-consuming, and the bits of life it doesn't consume take up the little that's left of the day. Today, however, on a hard-working day at the allotment, I managed to relax in a deckchair for a few minutes and enjoy looking around. Above, our neighbour's well-tended plot and a line of wallflowers beside the standpipe.

Below, gigantic flowering rhubarb.


Our potatoes are through, with all but this tallest one burnt by frost. How did it escape? Perhaps far enough on to have tougher leaves.


Looking north, which is where our weather has been coming from recently. Bright, cold days and occasional frosty nights.


I've missed what's been going on in gardens and allotments of fellow bloggers. A 3 day weekend would be good, as would another 12 hours in the day.