Celebrating seasonal, homegrown, and wild food
The courgette glut is a well-known phenomenon. Every year I know it's coming, and every year I continue to be surprised by how many of these incredible vegetables can be produced by a single plant in a very short space of time. We have about 5 courgette plants on our allotment and I would say [...]
Reflecting on the couple of years since we first got our allotment plot it feels like we've really had everything thrown at us so far. From cold snaps and late harsh frosts to the recent record-breaking heat waves, and from periods of drought to the pretty disastrous flooding our plot suffered last year, each have [...]
We are finally enjoying our first successful year of growing carrots. We were able to harvest a handful in our first season, but didn’t yet have enough growing space to get very many. Then last year we didn’t harvest any at all due to the flooding of our plot and the destruction caused by what [...]
I've mentioned our apple glut quite a bit over on Instagram, but we've also got a pear tree that has been just as abundant. I have plans to make plenty of chutney, and perhaps to freeze a few, but I love to preserve them in a flavoured syrup too and enjoy them with some ice [...]
I last posted about our allotment in this update back in April and that feels like such a long time ago! At was at the start of April that we had our offer accepted on our new house that we finally moved into two weeks ago. Since my last update we've had a very cold, [...]
Radishes are one of the quickest foods you can grow, from seed to plate in just 4-5 weeks, and they are a great spring food with their crisp, crunchy texture and hot, peppery yet fresh flavour. I've gone from hardly liking them at all to considering them a bit of a wonder-veg. Now is the [...]
Oh February... This time last year was wet, our plot was flooded in places, but generally only where we still needed to build raised beds. The temperature was largely quite mild, and there was no snow to speak of in London. Oh how times have changed as we're granted yet more - ahem - learning [...]
Green tomatoes at this time of year are unlikely to have enough daylight hours to ripen, but that isn't a reason to despair! Green tomatoes are entirely edible and I really enjoy their fresh crunchiness. Every year I make a green tomato chutney using the tomatoes that are left on the plants too late into [...]
The courgette glut has been coming thick and fast for the past few weeks and we've been harvesting more than we really know what to do with from our four courgette plants. They've been huge too - more like marrows. Courgettes are one of our allotment staples as they don't require too much intervention to [...]
Growing our own potatoes has been another first for us this year. We started early in the season "chitting" our seed potatoes on windowsills in our flat until they were growing little knobbly bits and ready to plant out at the first opportunity. We waited with bated breath as I worried that perhaps I'd jumped [...]
Plot & Lane 