Huzzah! 1st BBQ of the year (and some jobs)

Sunday was allotment day for me over the weekend. Saturday was spring cleaning day at home. I am prepping for visitors so I've been busy with jobs whilst I have time. What lovely weather we had this weekend. Sun, and just the right amount of heat. Bliss!

Here's a snap of my chitting 'Rooster' potatoes. Not too many but I'm looking forward to eating these. I had planned to plant them out but I didn't get time in the end. A job for another day.

I checked the seed progress about the allotment and spotted this teeny tiny pea making an appearance. Currently it is the only one but I am hoping others will follow its lead. This shoot is about 1cm high!

The four pics below show the flowers I planted in some of the mini-beds I now have. I wanted something pretty I could cut and take home to my flat. I am particularly looking forward to the Ixia.

This photo shows the mini-beds. The 3 on the right are where I planted the flowers. Nearest to us is two rows of Ixia, the middle one is Gladiolus in the centre (maked with 4 little sticks), with the mixed annuals and Californian poppies around the edge. The furthest bed is the Dahlias. There are currently 12 mini-beds dug. There will be 15 soon. I was thinking this would be a nice size to work with, about 1m x 1.5m. Makes everything a little less daunting! I need to plan what will go in each bed but I reckon some more flowers could be in order, even mixed in with veg.

We had a fire. With MASSIVE flames!

Then, as the weather was good, I had my first lottie bbq of 2010. My friend Claire was chef. We made use of my big bbq as a stand for a mini one. Less bending down. Already it is asparagus season so I picked some (bottom right of the photo, on the shelf) and steamed it with a little water in foil parcels on the bbq. SO tasty. I love asparagus, me :) You can't get any fresher than that.

We celebrated with a bottle of bubbly, just because we could. I love this pic of Nick watching the cork fly into the stratosphere!

So, this is the tasty meal - veggie kebabs, fresh bbq-steamed asparagus, salad, bbq prawns and bbq-steamed salmon with lime and coriander. Yum! Trying to be healthy you see.

After dinner we released some pigeons... (!)
'Bob' the plastic pigeon, and his new friend 'Boo' went into the ground.

And Nick's bike got attacked by an alien! It is actually a left-over parsnip he found. I am sure it tasted revolting. :) He must've looked odd with this wedged on his bike as he cycled home.

So, they are all the snaps I took but I also popped in a 2nd trellis for sugarsnap peas next to the normal peas and cleared more dead raspberry canes away. I also planted the honeyberry, goji berry and blueberry I got from Suttons, but the pots were full of slugs and the plants look sad, so I am not holding my breath they will make it. Claire weeded the asparagus and Nick did lots of digging.

I hope you had a great weekend and the weather was kind to you too.

My first bbq

So, I built the bbq yesterday. Today I had my first bbq meal on it. Check out the wee beastie!

I forgot to bring the bbq tools with me so my friend Gary had to improvise...!

Yes, that was last year's Xmas tree.

Here it is aflame!! hehehehe!

And here are some of the delicious bbq goodies and salads. Raspberries and icecream again for pud!

Jam and whatnot

The raspberries are out in full force now. The other day I picked 1kg easily so now I have 7 jars of raspberry jam! Next time I am going to try some tray-bake recipes and cheesecakes, etc. Got to freeze the surplus too. Can't let good raspberries go to waste.

I gave some raspberries and sweet peas to my neighbours as they're lovely and always very helpful. I got some lettuce and rocket in return so this was last night's tea - a salad with black peppercorns, goat's cheese and sweet chilli sauce. Yum!

I followed that with raspberries and vanilla icecream. A very cheap meal! And so tasty too :)

When I went down the allotment yesterday @ 5pm - too hot in the day - I planted out some leeks and dwarf beans. I pulled out some peas as they weren't looking healthy. I also did LOADS of watering! Need to get some tomato food for my tommies and re-net the broccoli as it has grown too big! Spotted some frogs in the pond too which was good to see. Hopefully they're feasting on my slugs!

I also built my new bbq and one of those mini greenhouses, the ones like a wendy house. Not sure how long it will last but thought I'd give it a go. Need somewhere to grow my seedlings as the tommies in the shed are huge now, so no room for seedlings in there! Bbq-ing tonight :)

Some shopping and my 1st allotment meal

Well, it blooming well rained ALL DAY here. Boo @ that! I was all psyched to dig but that didn't really happen. So, horror of horrors, I HAD to go shopping again! Terrible. I hate shopping... ;) So, I did the b&q/homebase run and checked out allsorts of things I might/might not get. They have lots of veg plants on special at the mo and as I got my lottie a bit late (and I am on hols for 3 weeks!) I may invest in some of these and save some of my seeds for later/next season. I did buy a few things - some compost for potting seeds, a plastic trug-type thing kinda like a flexible bucket. I'm sure it has a proper name! It was another bargain - about £3.50 where I have seen them elsewhere for about £6. It was reduced for some reason but looked fine to me. Lovely colour blue too. I also got sucked in by a 3 for 2 on garden refuse bin bags. There is way too much to compost once I sort out the allotment so I thought it was a wise investment. I will have to make a few trips to the tip I think! Speaking of compost, the first piccy in this post is of 'Captain Compost', my new kitchen compost caddy. Don't ask me why I have given it a name!!! I was also looking at bbqs. I think an allotment party or two is definitely in order. Pimms o'clock and all that!!

I did do practical things at the allotment once I'd dumped all... sorry, put away nicely(!) my new purchases in the shed. My new plants needed a good water. Got to keep them happy before they find new homes. Still need to plan where I want things. Must remember to measure out the plot next time I am down there on Saturday. I also bought a big pot to confine my garden mint and planted that this evening. I don't want mint going everywhere as it spreads like nobody's business!

On my way back to the car, when it was virtually dark, I decided to pull up some of my veg for tea. I grabbed some spring onions (which I had previously thought were onions) for tea and some parsnips which I will have tomorrow I think.

Don't they scrub up well?!

There's nothing quite as tasty as home-grown food.

And here is what I ate. Spring onions fried in olive oil, scrambled egg, seafood and a little soy. Yummy!

Oh, I also found some rhubarb on the plot. I think it is mine! It is on the path border but it looks like it is mostly on my plot. Wahey!