Friday, March 16, 2007
Bean campaign over
Three beans - removed from bean pudding pot - have now finished the bean campaign. Quite a few up now. Wondering if I ought to water them a bit. The ground is wet enough but with the warm breezt weather after all the rain we now have a crust on top. Will the beans make it through?
Two rows of leaf beet sown this morning - a beautiful warm spring day. The packet says April but I am sure I usually plant them before then and it is very warm. Last year beet did not do very well at all - I think because of failure to water the seeds while they were germinating. Hopefully with more time this will not be a problem this year. More time certainly makes the whole business much more satisfying. Instead of rushing out on Sunday morning and trying to cram everything into a few hours - certainly less than 10 - one can go at it in a much steadier way.
Pulled another couple of yards of leeks. These being hand-me-downs from somewhere up the allotment field. Got off to a very slow start last year being infested with some sort of nemotode (I think) which burrowed into the leaves - but the mild winter and now warm spring has enabled them to recover a bit. For some reason the first year I planted leeks - maybe three or four years ago - I did pretty well. But since then things seemed to have gone downhill. Not very successful with getting seedlings to go and not very successful once the seedlings have been transplanted. In differant parts of the allotment so it shouldn't be a ground exhaustion problem. Again, maybe more time will produce a better result.
Returned to the Epsom market fish stall yesterday - having defected to the man from Hastings who parks up outside the baker at Cheam on Fridays. He claims that his fish comes off the boat on Hastings beach the morning he sells it. Certainly the haddock we had from him was very good. And it had a white creamy texture which the Epsom stuff doesn't have. Notwithstanding, took some Epsom haddock yesterday and baked most of it for lunch. Thin layer of thinly sliced onion on bottom of baking dish, fish on top of that, a tomato for decoration, cover with baking foil, cook for an hour and off you go. In this case with leeks and mashed potato, the former being own grown. BH likes to sprinkle black pepper on the fish. I prefer not. That aside, all turned out very well. Balance of the haddock fried in a little butter with some more onions for breakfast today.
Pleased to find yesterday that the 'Coach and Horses' in Greek Street is still much the same, despite the retirement of long serving management. Slightly less seedy but still an interesting place with good beer.
And very impressed by the illuminated millenium wheel. Looked really good. But whoever designed the thing didn't manage to plant the ropes which hold it up in the ground quite right. A common problem with outdoor sculptures. Sculpture fine but the plinth which connects it to the ground not fine. A problem which is brilliantly solved by Millbank tower which contrives to float slightly above the ground - at least as seen from across the river.
Two rows of leaf beet sown this morning - a beautiful warm spring day. The packet says April but I am sure I usually plant them before then and it is very warm. Last year beet did not do very well at all - I think because of failure to water the seeds while they were germinating. Hopefully with more time this will not be a problem this year. More time certainly makes the whole business much more satisfying. Instead of rushing out on Sunday morning and trying to cram everything into a few hours - certainly less than 10 - one can go at it in a much steadier way.
Pulled another couple of yards of leeks. These being hand-me-downs from somewhere up the allotment field. Got off to a very slow start last year being infested with some sort of nemotode (I think) which burrowed into the leaves - but the mild winter and now warm spring has enabled them to recover a bit. For some reason the first year I planted leeks - maybe three or four years ago - I did pretty well. But since then things seemed to have gone downhill. Not very successful with getting seedlings to go and not very successful once the seedlings have been transplanted. In differant parts of the allotment so it shouldn't be a ground exhaustion problem. Again, maybe more time will produce a better result.
Returned to the Epsom market fish stall yesterday - having defected to the man from Hastings who parks up outside the baker at Cheam on Fridays. He claims that his fish comes off the boat on Hastings beach the morning he sells it. Certainly the haddock we had from him was very good. And it had a white creamy texture which the Epsom stuff doesn't have. Notwithstanding, took some Epsom haddock yesterday and baked most of it for lunch. Thin layer of thinly sliced onion on bottom of baking dish, fish on top of that, a tomato for decoration, cover with baking foil, cook for an hour and off you go. In this case with leeks and mashed potato, the former being own grown. BH likes to sprinkle black pepper on the fish. I prefer not. That aside, all turned out very well. Balance of the haddock fried in a little butter with some more onions for breakfast today.
Pleased to find yesterday that the 'Coach and Horses' in Greek Street is still much the same, despite the retirement of long serving management. Slightly less seedy but still an interesting place with good beer.
And very impressed by the illuminated millenium wheel. Looked really good. But whoever designed the thing didn't manage to plant the ropes which hold it up in the ground quite right. A common problem with outdoor sculptures. Sculpture fine but the plinth which connects it to the ground not fine. A problem which is brilliantly solved by Millbank tower which contrives to float slightly above the ground - at least as seen from across the river.
# posted by Jim @ 5:39 AM 
