Ruby Red Race

At the allotment, everything is growing like crazy, including the weeds. I have been focusing on gathering our growing hoards of soft fruits. The Strawberries have provided us with a great crop. the Red Currants have also had a good year and I have deployed nets to thwart the birds.

Our Summer Raspberries are going great guns; the superbly tangy Loganberries (a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry), which I planted last year are ripe right now. The juicy, sweet Tayberries, a slightly different cross between a blackberry and a raspberry are just ripening too.

It's like a delicious red race and there is so much bounty and so little time that I tend to simply pick as much as I can of everything and lob it all in the same box (or my mouth). Those that make it home are made into family favourites Clafoutis or Summer Pudding!

Cherries in our garden are also ripening on the trees and it is always tempting to eat them early when they are red but it is better to wait until they turn black, as long as you can keep the avian hoards at bay.

This year, at the allotment, I decided to create a wild-flower garden patch by collecting seeds from poppies, cornflowers and other things that took my fancy last year. It has been a real success and is already looking absolutely lovely.

Foraging Book New Kindle Version

We picked a massive amount of delicious Raspberries, Redcurrants, Blackcurrants and Tayberries from our allotment. The rustic fruit-cage doing its level best to prevent the birds snaffling our soft fruit.

We made Raspberry milkshakes and I also predict a seasonal super fruit favourite, Summer Pudding.

Meanwhile, on the foraging front, Cherries are ripening on the trees and the early trees are already fit for picking. Plums are getting very close too and we will arrange a Plum Picknik very soon, so keep a keen eye on this blog.

We are also delighted to announce that our lovely book, the Urbane Forager: Fruit and Nuts for Free, is now also available on Kindle at the very favourable price of just £4.99.

The more traditional paperback version is still available from all good bookstores (probably some bad ones too), as well as all the normal online outlets.

I also have a couple of spiral bound and laminated field-guide versions, please contact me personally if you would prefer one of these.

This lovely book is packed full of beautiful photographs, seasonal information, recipes, identification sheets, and good advice on how to find, harvest and prepare fresh, free, fruit and nuts. Order your copy now and get ready for the first flush of fresh free fruit of the year!

Plum Picking

When we first arrived at our current house, about 5 years ago, I was disappointed by the fact that the front garden had previously been replaced by an ugly concrete parking slab. The whole concept of converting gardens into parking for cars is anathema to me and I was determined to reclaim some of the original front garden. Eventually we found the resources to build a low wall, fill it with earth and plant some nice flowers, we also planted a small Cherry tree in the midst of the lush shrubbery.

This year our endeavours were proved worthwhile and we were rewarded with a decent harvest of very large delicious cherries, just as the other trees in the neighbourhood were running low on stocks.

Our allotment is also bearing fruit. The Tayberry bush was coming through with masses of huge flavoursome goodies, which I had to virtually fight the children over. The Blueberries are looking good too.

I have finally found time to bottle my batch of Elderflower champagne. I only hope that I have left it long enough, I don’t want a repeat of last year’s kitchen based fountain feature! I corked and caged the recycled bottles quite securely. It started off an opaque opal white but in a few days it soon settled down to be crystal clear.

During my lunch hour walks, I spotted a true abundance of plums and, upon closer inspection, it was apparent that some were already ripe. The purple/red fruit literally fell into my palm as I touched them, so I grabbed a couple of handfuls and scoffed them as I explored further in the area.

I have checked out the local trees, and I will shortly organise a Plum Picking Picknik. This will possibly be combined with a collaborative jam/chutney making workshop. If this idea sounds like the sort of day you would enjoy, keep a close eye on the Urbane Forager blog as it is likely to be announced at fairly short notice! 

Abundance at the Allotment

Our inaugural year as allotment owners is finally bearing fruit (and vegetables) and it is doing so with a great abundance.


The Rustic Fruit Cage, Beans, Sweet Corn, Beetroot and Onions

We have now got bags of early potatoes, and onions. We have gathered small amounts of peas and broad beans too.

Courgettes

The courgettes of various colours and sizes seem to be popping up on a daily basis. The little yellow ones are especially nice sliced (raw) and inserted into sandwiches. The Head Chef likes them lightly salted with Olive Oil but to me that’s too much faffing about.

The Tayberries, Raspberries and Blueberries, all safe in the Rustic Fruit Cage are giving us plenty to nibble on while we slave to weed water and pick everything under the relentless heat-wave.


Tayberries

Rhubarb is growing well, Squashes and Cucumbers are blooming nicely and hopefully, we should get a decent crop of these too.

Nice Weather For Slow Worms

Beetroots are finally flourishing under nets, which seem to have stopped whatever it was that was eating the leaves. The Runner Beans are running up the poles and flowering and the Sweet Corn is looking healthy.

Piles of Potatoes



Allotmenteering

We finally got the nod from the council, regarding our request for an allotment at the Witts Hill site. Lasts year we had helped out and shared our friends patch but it was right on the other side of the city and difficult to frequent as much as was needed.

Allotments are great places for the kids to get used to digging, growing and weeding, they enjoy the freedom and open air. Witts Hill is only a fifteen minute walk away from us, so we set off to see what we had been allocated.

Our space was on a slope at the bottom edge of the site. Plastic sheeting had been laid down by the previous owner, to suppress weed growth but this was mostly shredded to bits by the storms and largely unusable but at least some of the earth was fairly bare.

At our friend’s allotment, we constructed a rustic fruit cage, out of coppiced hazel. It proved quite a success, so we had already decided to replicate this plan on our new plot. We chose a suitable spot and got digging to define the edges and remove weeds, roots and grass.

The children were assigned an area to keep for themselves, they love the allotment and set to work keenly and with fairly few squabbles. The kids are also great for fetching wood chippings and water, not that we have needed much of the latter recently. Cucumbers and strawberries seem to be their favourite crop to plant – perfect for a summer picnic I guess.

Digging grassy ground over can be back breaking work and the official advice is to work in small portions. Many people watch too many TV gardening shows and think that it will be easy; they get a nasty shock when the hard work kicks in and often give up before they get any benefit out of the land. Cold and wet weather can also put off less determined and hardy allotmenteers.

Being walking distance from the house is a real advantage and I soon had the fruit cage plotted out and fruit bushes in the earth. I got some stout Hazel poles and, from a rather precarious perch, hammered them into the corners. Meanwhile, the plot next to the cage was being thoroughly dug over by Sarah who also planted some strawberry plants.

The children were busy planting onion-sets in their own patch and my son also planted his young apple tree; he has nurtured this sapling from a pip. I planted a pear and a nectarine tree that I found reduced and lonely in a store; Sarah assures me that the nectarine will never bear fruit in the UK climate, but it does already have very attractive flowers and the label says it will be provide plenty – so I guess we’ll wait and see.

My other jobs seem to be attacking the mass of bramble bushes and stinging nettles at the bottom of the allotment and collecting enough scrap wood to make a shelter/shed. I’m considering nettle beer and aim to train some of the brambles, so that we can collect a decent blackberry crop this summer. A compost heap is inevitable…

Tough Work All That Digging

On any allotment site, Heath Robinson rules; you really do see the best of British eccentric behaviour, inventiveness, cunning recycling and shear resourcefulness at work.

Rustic Fruit Cage Success

At home, the pea harvest from the compact rainwater irrigated raised bed is going very well. The pea plants are now taller than my children and covered with fresh fat pods; they taste best raw.

However, after a short spell of sunny weather, I thought it was high time I popped down to our shared allotment to check on the progress of the soft fruit in our coppiced hazel cage.

What a lovely surprise greeted me!

All of the Autumnal Raspberries and the Tayberry had shot up. The Summer Raspberries were full of scrumptious ripe fruit.

Strawberry plants were planning to take over the entire floor-space / or possibly the world.

My Blueberry bush was resplendent with a great many bloomy ripe berries, which I hastily picked/ate.

The Squash plants were outside the safety of the cage; they had such a hard time getting started because of the invading slug army. Now they seemed to have finally got a grip and were happily seething all over the plot with gay abandon.

I returned home victorious and contented, with a small Tupperware box of the remaining Blueberries and Raspberries (the ones that I had not scoffed); guiltily licking the smeared juice off my lips before reaching the front door.