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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Dan and Ellis feeling a little chilli... |
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| 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.
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| Banishing the couch grass from the rhubarb bed - or at least trying to! |
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