Merry Christmas One and All!

Well, we have made it to the end of the allotment year with a polytunnel that still has a cover on it! We were very glad of it, because we did some entertaining today, and the weather would have made it very difficult if we'd been outside.

Today was our last official allotment session this year, as Tracey has a training course next week, so we invited folk over to have a "fuddle" with us to celebrate the Festive Season, and had a delicious meal with our main volunteers and some of the Access to Nature group from Framework.

The polytunnel was looking lovely, as Helen and Phillipa had given it a good tidy up, and we had the lovely decorations created by New College volunteers to put up. We brought the picnic tables into the tunnel as well, so we could seat 12 in comfort, which was great as we got eleven!

The decorated polytunnel, thanks to New College Nottingham

As always, we made it a "cook and eat", using some of our pumpkins and onions to make a risotto, which went down very well (you'll find the recipe a bit further down). Rosie brought a fabulous blue cheese quiche which also used some of our spinach. Helen and Dan brought cakes and mince pies, Ellis contributed sausage rolls and crisps, Phillipa brought fruit and the Access to Nature group brought quiches sausage rolls and nibbles as well, so we had a great spread.

Thanks to all who could make it, and to the many others who have helped us during the year. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Sitting down to a festive feast.

If you would like to try pumpkin risotto, here it is:

INGREDIENTS
1 Onion
Pumpkin / butternut squash
Rice
Vegetable Stock
Sage
Olive oil / organic butter
Strong tasting cheddar (so you need less cheese for the taste)

Finely chop an onion and fry until it softens in a little oil or butter. Add at least 4 times as much pumpkin as onion by volume, also finely chopped, and fry until the pieces start to loose their edges. Add 1 cup of rice (we used basmati) and 2 cups of vegetable stock (we used a low-salt version), and some finely chopped sage leaves to taste (we reckon about 5 big leaves per cup of rice). Cook until the rice has been boiling for 5 minutes, then turn it off and cover the pan in tea-towels to finish cooking in the retained heat - this will reduce the energy you use to cook the food by about a third. After about 15 minutes, grate some strong cheddar and stir into the risotto to taste (we used about 4oz per cup of rice).

Merry Christmas One and All!

Well, we have made it to the end of the allotment year with a polytunnel that still has a cover on it! We were very glad of it, because we did some entertaining today, and the weather would have made it very difficult if we'd been outside.

Today was our last official allotment session this year, as Tracey has a training course next week, so we invited folk over to have a "fuddle" with us to celebrate the Festive Season, and had a delicious meal with our main volunteers and some of the Access to Nature group from Framework.

The polytunnel was looking lovely, as Helen and Phillipa had given it a good tidy up, and we had the lovely decorations created by New College volunteers to put up. We brought the picnic tables into the tunnel as well, so we could seat 12 in comfort, which was great as we got eleven!

The decorated polytunnel, thanks to New College Nottingham

As always, we made it a "cook and eat", using some of our pumpkins and onions to make a risotto, which went down very well (you'll find the recipe a bit further down). Rosie brought a fabulous blue cheese quiche which also used some of our spinach. Helen and Dan brought cakes and mince pies, Ellis contributed sausage rolls and crisps, Phillipa brought fruit and the Access to Nature group brought quiches sausage rolls and nibbles as well, so we had a great spread.

Thanks to all who could make it, and to the many others who have helped us during the year. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Sitting down to a festive feast.

If you would like to try pumpkin risotto, here it is:

INGREDIENTS
1 Onion
Pumpkin / butternut squash
Rice
Vegetable Stock
Sage
Olive oil / organic butter
Strong tasting cheddar (so you need less cheese for the taste)

Finely chop an onion and fry until it softens in a little oil or butter. Add at least 4 times as much pumpkin as onion by volume, also finely chopped, and fry until the pieces start to loose their edges. Add 1 cup of rice (we used basmati) and 2 cups of vegetable stock (we used a low-salt version), and some finely chopped sage leaves to taste (we reckon about 5 big leaves per cup of rice). Cook until the rice has been boiling for 5 minutes, then turn it off and cover the pan in tea-towels to finish cooking in the retained heat - this will reduce the energy you use to cook the food by about a third. After about 15 minutes, grate some strong cheddar and stir into the risotto to taste (we used about 4oz per cup of rice).

Decorating in the rain

Today, if you were outside, you will have noticed it was very, very cold. We noticed because we were out in it this morning, working with volunteers from New College Nottingham who came to help us decorate the allotment for Christmas. They produced a wonderful array of art work for us. Some was aimed at helping birds - seed-decorated cards that we've hung in the hedges. Some was aimed at stopping pigeons eating the crops - painted CD's that will flash at them.

A great design - all made from bird seed set into vegetable lard

Another of the wonderful bird-feeder decorations

They also painted some totem poles for us which look amazing. We only managed to install 2 of those because of the weather, but they have given the place a great atmosphere.

Painting more poles in the polytunnel

Preparing a hole for a totem pole

Tamping in the pole

A finished pole with its creators.

The group had hoped to add some extra touches to the raised bed paintings that their predecessors had done earlier in the year, but the weather was against us, so, undeterred, they got down to work and helped us to finish weeding the last of the beds and to harvest the parsnip crop, now it's had a good frosting.

Some of the NCN volunteers help our regulars to finish clearing the growing beds.

Lifting parsnips

In return, we provided the willing workers with homemade Christmas biscuits and freshly made pancakes. Being us, we made the pancakes with pumpkin instead of milk, and lots of cinnamon, but sneaking in the veg didn't put anyone off, and each batch that Helen finished cooking was whisked away by eager hands.

Well done all. Thanks to the decorating team and also to the regular volunteers who were brilliant and helped clear up in the cold, heavy rain at the end of the session. We look forward to the New College team returning next year to finish painting the beds, when we hope to have the clay oven back in working order so we can thank them with pizza.

Getting the fruit cage ready for winter and some natural pest control

Fruit cages are useful things when the bushes are full of fruit and you don't want the birds to get the fruit before you have a chance to get to it yourself. They are less useful when it's winter. The main problem is that if it is very icy or there is snow, the net at the top of the cage can get too heavy and either break the cage or break itself. There is also the issue of pests building up in the cage, because the birds aren't able to get in to scratch around under the bushes.

Both these problems are easily solved by taking off the top of the cage for the winter and spring. This lets the birds do their de-bugging, and also means the top net is safe.

So - the team set to and managed to get the net removed from the cage. We also took the opportunity to prune out the old growth from the blackberry/raspberry hybrids and loganberries that we've planted around the edge of the cage, as well as giving the whole thing a spruce up. We weeded - some of the weeds were pretty impressive! Then we put compost around all the bushes, and topped up the wood chippings to keep down the weeds.

It's all looking pretty good now, and we hope that it will stand the weather because we've shored it up with line and wire to make sure the structure doesn't fall apart in the wind. We'll put the top back on around April.

Rhubarb, rhubarb!

We all agree that one thing an allotment needs is a good rhubarb patch. And we didn't have one, so we were delighted when we were offered the money to pay for 3 plants for us as a thank you from a visiting group.

Tracey went off to Cool Temperate Nurseries at Cossall, to get advice from Phil Corbett who runs the place and has been great in supplying us with soft fruit bushes that work well in local conditions. He supplied us with a very early rhubarb, and also a mid-season and a late one, so we should have plenty of choice once they establish.

The team worked really hard to get the beds well dug over and improved with compost to give the rhubarb a good start, so we have high hopes.

Polythene vs. Chickenwire?

So - you have a polytunnel that, for some reason, some passerby sometimes decides to de-skin. When they do this, it costs at least £130 to re-skin it, along with a lot of lost time which should be spent doing gardening and improving the allotment.

Now, we've heard from several people that putting chickenwire over the top of the polytunnel will help protect it from being slashed, and that the bits need to be held together by ties. We had a think, and worked out that we couldn't tie the wire together by putting it on afterwards, so we cable-tied it all together and then attempted to roll it over the top of the polytunnel....

Well - it didn't work! The chicken wire dug into the plastic and we had to abandon before we did the vandals work for them. We've left the wire in a roll but we hope we'll get some advice soon, so we can finish the job. A word of praise for the volunteers who didn't run off shouting in exasperation when Tracey called a halt to proceedings.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Well - here goes... We began the process of re-covering the polytunnel today (or should that be re-re-covering?!)

Dan and Ellis remove the batons attaching the old, damaged plastic to the tunnel structure

We decided it was worth the risk, because we've worked to make the fences and gates more secure, and hopefully the plastic-pincher has got themselves a fair selection already. We can but hope!

There are some issues... First, though we love Mike Gosnall dearly, and found his help covering the tunnel the first 2 times very valuable, we kind of thought we might have got the idea of how to do it now, so we've had a go on our own. Secondly, it's not as warm as it was the last 2 times we did this, and that might be a problem, as it makes it more difficult to stretch the plastic over the hoops and can mean it then gets baggy. We're actually going to stretch it more when we finish it next week.

Mostly finished polytunnel - not yet fully stretched though

Anyway, we tried and we've managed to create something that looks a bit like what Mike helped us do, but we'll see what it looks like next week, assuming no-one has "modified" it for us by then... Well done to Helen, Dan, Ellis, Mel and Craig who helped do the job.

More cooking in the dark

We had another visit from the Killisick group tonight. Because they meet in the evenings, we need to think of things to do in the dark, so this time we did a session on "Fire and Feeling" - with the group working together to light a fire only using matches and a small amount of paper apart from the wood (which they did very well).

We had also set up a "feely trail" which the group got round very well, although it was cloudy, which meant it wasn't quite as dark as we'd hoped because of the reflection of the street-lights on the clouds. Still - a bit of fun and a chance to try out some other senses.

Then we returned to the fire to make popcorn and apple pancakes, washed down with hot chocolate. It also gave the group a chance to have a chat about some issues before they went home.

A big thank you to Ellis and Mel who helped set up, and special thanks Ellis, for staying until the end to keep Tracey company.



Eco Note:

The aim of the fire, and using it to cook on, was partly to start a discussion about using renewable energy, as the wood we use was all cut from the site, and we aim to only use our own wood, from our coppiced willow, as this will keep growing, making our cooking carbon neutral. One of the group raised a very interesting question - "what about the matches?" He has a point, especially as Tracey has a flint and steel which should do the job quite nicely, so in future, we will aim to use that instead. We will also have a go at making char-cloth, as this is great for lighting fires, and a good use of really worn-out cotton clothing.

Time for the big clean up, and a visit

This week, we made a start on getting the beds ready for winter. This year's spent growth needs to be taken out and composted, and then we'll top-dress with the remains of the municipal compost.

We began on Wednesday with the polytunnel which needed a really good clean out to get rid of fallen fruit and all the caterpillars. We also had a huge horseradish plant that had emerged too close to the tomatoes to be pulled out before. Helen just got her spade and that was the end of it - very impressive! She and Ellis did a fantastic job clearing the polytunnel beds and then raking them to remove all the rotten tomatoes that were on the soil. They also found enough green tomatoes to make a batch of chutney.

Helen and Ellis did sterling work clearing the polytunnel.

We also had some visitors from the Deaf Wellbeing Group. Lucy, Andy and Jude came along to see the site and the potential to do some volunteering here. The group mainly use sign language to communicate, so this could be a great learning opportunity for us too. Even on this visit, as we now know how to ask in British Sign Language if someone wants tea or coffee, and if they want milk. We're also hoping the group will be able to give us a BSL contribution for our multi-lingual garden translator information.

Lucy translates the names of unfamiliar herbs for Andy and Jude

Our visitors enjoyed looking at the remaining crops and learning all the names of the plants in our well-stocked herb beds, and are keen to come back soon. We're looking forward to it and we hope that they enjoy the lettuces.

On Thursday, we were joined by Dan and Mel, and did more clearing. We lifted the first parsnips of the season. Tracey is hoping to turn these into something delicious soon, along with a good crop of chard and spinach. We also harvested the lemon verbena and the tarragon from the herb bed, and lifted the lemon verbena so we can try to get it through the winter alive.

We've been offered some free chicken wire to armour the polytunnel against knife attack, so if the weather doesn't get too cold or windy, we might manage to recover it next week. Fingers crossed and watch this space!

Pumpkin Fun

Today was busy for Windmill. One of the major messages that we want to pass on is about sustainability, and pumpkins are often a huge source of waste, so we were delighted to lure groups in with the promise of pumpkins to carve, and then use the chance to show them the fantastic food that can be made from these  versatile fruits.

Our morning group was the Young Carers - children who act as carers for members of their families. We started with a cooking session, and the children helped to make pumpkin pancakes.

The Young Carers team up to make pumpkin pancakes.

Mel and Dan take a turn cooking the pumpkin soup.

Then, the group got down to cleaning out and carving their pumpkins, whilst the regular volunteers created a pumpkin soup, and everyone tried pumpkin pudding (pumpkin pie without the crust).

Starting on the designs.

The finished pumpkin lanterns - ready to go home to be scraped out to make more pancakes!

The children had a great time, and really enjoyed trying out their carved pumpkins with a torch in the darkened shed. We hope we can see the Young Carers again - they were a lovely group and we had a lot of fun with them.

The Young Carers with their pumpkins.

We were due to have a group from Bilborough Family Centre visiting for the afternoon, but the forecast was for heavy rain, and the site was soaking after a night's heavy rain. If the polytunnel had been intact, we would have run the session, but since we've not had chance to re-cover it yet, we had nowhere for small children to warm up and dry out, so we reluctantly decided to move the session to the family centre instead.

Yum - pumpkin!

We still managed to run many of the planned activities, with pumpkin pudding and soup to taste, a trail of pumpkins to find and a chance to find out how huge the world's largest pumpkin really is (1818.5 pounds / 826.6 kg), by finding out how many times your weight would be needed to equal it.

 Lots of pumpkins were carved by keen children and parents, and many recipe sheets were taken away by eager folk who had enjoyed the food, and were now interested in scraping out the flesh of the pumpkins as well as using them as lanterns.

We finished off with a pumpkin story and a promise that next time we'll meet a Bilborough Family Centre group, it will be at Windmill.

When life hands you green tomatoes, fry them!

After yesterday's apple pressing, we had another very pleasant job to do. We collected all the green tomatoes because of the frost, and now we want to try out things to do with them. It just wouldn't be Windmill if we didn't try to eat everything we've harvested.

What shall we do with the green tomatoes?

One recipe that Tracey was keen to try is Fried Green Tomatoes. This is a popular dish in America, but not often seen here. We had a go at it, and had fun cooking in our fire pit for the first time, which makes this the first carbon-neutral food we've made, as all the wood used was grown here too, and comes from coppiced willow that is already growing again to replace the wood that was cut.

The cooking arrangements

We sliced the tomatoes thickly, tossed them in a mixture of flour with onion powder and paprika and then fried them in a little olive oil until they were crisp on the outside and soft in the middle. We then ate them with the chinese plum sauce Tracey made and some finely chopped onions mixed with a little light mayonnaise in Southern US style. They went down quite well, though we didn't manage to persuade Ellis to try them.

A first taste

Dan tries out the condiments

Helen braving the taste test.

There was another  harvest that needed to be gathered. We were quite excited to see what the Beauregard Sweet Potato had managed to produce. It had managed 3 reasonable sized tubers, which we will use in our cooking over the next few weeks. If you are thinking of trying to grow one, don't just plant one from a shop, ask the garden centre for a special plant instead. This is because sweet potatoes like an equal day to night length, and don't do well unless they've been specially developed to cope with local conditions.

Sweet potatoes! 

Sunflowers, blackcurrant sage and lavandula - last bouquet of the season? 

Putting the squeeze on

We still had some apples left and got another chance to borrow the Dig In apple press, so we did some more apple squeezing today. It also meant that Windmill volunteers could really get to know how to run a press and how to prepare the fruit so they will be able to do the whole thing themselves if needed.

Ellis and Helen make a good team using the scratter to crush the apples

After pressing the juice, we essentially just gave it away to anyone who was passing or working on the other allotments. This seemed to go down well!

Pete enjoys a taste of our apple juice.

Hugh liked the juice so much he took some home for later.

Well done to Helen and Ellis, who basically did all the hard work as Tracey swanned around passing out the pressed juice. Jools wasn't able to come in today, so we saved her some.

Helen finds even more melons than we thought we had.

We also harvested all the shark's fin melons, as a frost was forecast. After the session, we took some of the best ones over to the Chinese Welfare Association. They were delighted to get them, but told us that the ones grown in China are 3 times the size of ours!

The Chinese Community were pleased with the melons and promise us the recipe for making them into soup.

Later this afternoon, Tracey went to the after-school group at the Nottingham University Samworth Academy (NUSA) to finish off pressing the apples and give them some more advice on their new fruit and vegetable plot. The pupils all did very well and although they immediately thought about how big industrial machines would be able to do the work, they were still very enthusiastic about juicing using good old-fashioned human muscle power. We also helped them try out safe cutting techniques, so lots of good learning went on.

NUSA pupils getting the juice going.

Thank you again to the Dig In Community Allotment for lending us the apple press and scratter.

A few more harvest surprises and a new face

Well, we thought that we'd had the bulk of the harvest at Windmill for the year, but the allotment has surprised us again, thanks to the Shark's Fin melons that Anton at the Garden Organic Sowing New Seeds Project sent us. Although these were only planted at the beginning of June, we arrived today to find that the cricket-ball sized melons had turned into, well, melon-sized melons! And we have around 7 or 8 of them. 

Look at that!

We're now thinking of what to do with them. Apparently Shark's fin melon is used in a soup in China and other countries in the region, in place of real shark's fin, as it has a similar texture when cooked, so we can keep sharks happy and enjoy something exotic as well. We're going to contact some local cooks and also the Chinese community to get some recipes and see if they can use some of them.

Wow!

In other news... Dan and Ellis were delighted to find 2 ripe red chillies and a good crop of peppers, and new volunteer Mel loved the taste of our cherry tomatoes, but still managed to pick a lot more than she ate.

Dan and Ellis feeling a little chilli...

Mel gets yet another good crop from the cherry tomatoes

We also began an important new venture - preparing the area where our rhubarb patch will go. We want to really ensure this is weed free before we start, to give the crowns a good chance to establish. Of course this isn't an easy process because the site is full of bricks and topped off with an extra-strong fabric mulch that still wasn't strong enough to beat the couch grass! Still, the gang got on with it and made good progress despite the obstacles. We're looking forward to luscious rhubarb stems over a long season so we will be getting 3 crowns to give an early, a late and a mid-season crop. Yumm.

Banishing the couch grass from the rhubarb bed - or at least trying to!

Apple Pressing and a Trip to EcoWorks

Wednesdays at Windmill are often quite calm and a chance to get things organised. This week was a bit different, as we had a chance to go to a workshop day at EcoWorks in St. Anns, organised by the Federation of City Farms and Community Growers - (we're members, and it's a great organisation).

Ellis, Jools and Helen went to the get-together, whilst Tracey stayed behind as we had a group of children from Mellers Primary who were keen to come to find out about making apple juice.

The small group from Mellers had a great time, first tasting a variety of different apples, then learning useful knife skills in chopping the apples ready for processing to make sure they were clean with no blemishes. They found out that the machine used to cut up and squash the apples before pressing them is called a scratter, and quickly became a good team, working to get the apples through. We then put the press into action and made lots of lovely juice.

Preparing the apples helped pupils with their knife skills

Using the scratter to crush the apples - the pupils loved the name of the machine

The first juice appears

The pupils really enjoyed tasting the juice, and proudly carried off bottles of the extra juice to give their class mates a taste. Thank you to the Dig In Community Allotment who lent us their apple press and scratter.

Helen and Ellis have a go at bread-making at Ecoworks

Tracey then hurried off to EcoWorks to join the rest of the group. They had been finding out about engaging the community and veg box schemes, and after a wonderful home-cooked lunch, we then went on to do some bread making followed by a tour of the allotments which was fascinating and gave us lots of ideas. We had a great time - thanks to the Fed and to Ecoworks. If you'd like to find out more about the organisations, have a look at the links below.


Ecoworks - www.ecoworks.org.uk


The Federation of City Farms and Community Growers - www.farmgarden.org.uk


Dig In Community Allotment - http://www.diginstapleford.org.uk/