More fruit & new faces...

What a summery, sunshiny weekend! What a shame that it’s about two months too late…

At this time of year, it is mostly picking & clearing – I remember the same from last year, & being concerned that it was all ‘take-out’ of the plot with not much ‘put-in’ – of course this is just the other side of the coin on which ‘sowing & weeding’ is written.

When I arrived on Saturday, the first thing I wanted to find out was if there were any blackberries around the back of the Club building – I’d spent a lovely evening on Thursday out with Jane & E picking blackberries over by Hillwood Farm, however the evening was rather more notable for the country walk & chat rather than the quantity of blackberries, & if I want to make wine, then I need 4lb, rather than the 1¾ which was the evening’s bounty.

I found myself rather wishing that I hadn’t scoffed all of last weeks raspberries that I had from cheery Brian & Pauline & kept them to add in – & wondered if they still had plenty to go round…?

In the event, there weren’t any blackberries of note behind the Club building, but I did see Brian & Pauline who were busy painting their bench & small shed, & in exchange for half a row of my CARROTS (gonsonheimer), they invited me to help myself to more of the raspberries. Hurrah!

I was busy picking when Jane arrived, & shortly afterwards, her husband Paul & the dog. After introductions, a guided tour of Brian & Pauline’s plot for Jane & some further raspberry picking, the three of us moved back down to our plot & had a real harvesting session, starting with a taste test of the various bean varieties (this was before I read today that ON NO ACCOUNT should you ever eat raw beans as they contain toxins – I’ve not spoken to Jane since but trust that they are both ok!).

It was lovely to meet two returning allotment holders who came by to say hello – having recognised us from our photos here. Mike & Chris live a few doors down from Jane, & they used to have two half-plots at the Hill years ago – they’ve been on the waiting list & have now been offered the front half of one-arm-David’s plot down the bottom next to John Badger.

Jane & Paul went off laden with plenty of SWEETCORN (tender & true), RUNNER BEANS (reg-next-plot), FRENCH BEANS (tendergreen) for shelling & some SQUASH (pomme d’or), & I finished by pulling up the rest of the FRENCH BEANS (early warwick), taking the pods home for shelling - to be used in stews over winter & for sowing next year - along with some runner beans, BARLOTTI BEANS & some ripe tomatoes which I then made into salsa.

The rest of the green ones, showing signs of blight, all wanted picking off too, but that was a job for another day…