Thursday 18 June 2015

Years 5 & 6 visit the allotments

Today's visit by Years 5 & 6 has been fun, and busy. Some went to Hayley Sansom's plots, and the rest stayed with me. They did a variety of things including preparing and sowing a seed bed, making a bird scarer and harvesting garlic.
Fran also came down for a while and was happy for the children to ask questions and have a chat. Geoff came down too, which was lovely.
The photo shows the garlic crop assembled to dry in the sun at home. Five varieties harvested this morning: Early Purple, Lautrec Wight, Solent Wight, Red Something-or-other which has rubbed off the label, and Provence Wight. Of these, Provence Wight is by far the largest with Early Purple coming a respectable second. Red Whatsit is pretty good too.
I was too busy to take photos at the plot this morning, but plenty were taken by the teachers and their assistants. I'm expecting that they will be uploaded onto the class website so will keep an eye out for them there

Monday 15 June 2015

Preparing for Years 5 & 6

I've spent a lovely two hours this morning weeding, sowing seeds, and making plans for a visit from Claypole school Years 5 and 6 on Thursday. The soil is beautiful following really heavy rain at the weekend, and very easy to dig. So I have marked out two seedbeds for the children to prepare, and identified a range of seeds for them to plant.
Let the fun begin!

Sunday 7 June 2015

Cucina Povera

Cucina Povera reaches new heights with the discovery of a use, at last, for broad bean pods.
I picked the first of this year's crop last night. After shelling them, I was about to sling the pods into the compost when I thought: "There must be something I can do with these".
Happily, t'internet being what it is, a spot of googling quickly identified someone else who had the same thought, and came up with the inspired idea of coating them in a quick batter and deep frying them. In my case the coating was gram flour with black onion seeds and cumin seeds. Absolutely gorgeous.

Lincolnshire Sky

Lincolnshire Sky