April - Spuds Planted & Rhubarb Crumble

Half way in April we have made a ginormous progress on the allotment - it has been unseasonably warm too.  Some of the weekends have been +20C and more and we have had two weekends in a row of sunny allotment-friendly weather.  We spend almost five hours digging over the soil and planting last Sunday (10/04) and good few hours yesterday (16/04). We will be taking a break over the Easter, but plan to plant peas, sweet peas (flowers, for those who don't know), beetroot, carrots, lettuce and more during the Royal Wedding weekend.  Major project will be to develop a small area for picnics as at the moment there is nowhere to sit down.
So what have we done so far in April?  As on the 10th of April - about half of our (over 200m2 allotment is weeded out/planted in. Potatoes planted out on the 20th of March started coming out and I covered them with more loose soil to encourage more potatoes forming.  These were Desiree and Maris Piper.  I hope that planting potatoes in this staggered time-line produces a continuous crop and not too many potatoes in one go. 

Last year I planted a small lupine flower at the footpath end of the allotment.  This spring it has tripled in size and I hope there are more of those wonderful purple flowers to come.  Daffodils have finished flowering and I am glad that I managed to cut a few of those for home - lovely, lovely scent!  Onions planted in March have grown about 20cm and carrots have started coming out.  So far there is no sign of pumpkins or zucchinis (courgette).  I have watered all vigorously as the soil is very dry - hardly any rain at the end of March/start of April.

We planted (in order of rows): some basil (cheap seeds form Lidle) and dill one row of each amongst last year's parsley, which is still growing strong; mixed row of potatoes (Arran Pilot and Desiree, potatoes fell out of chitting trays and we could not figure out which is which);  a row of dill (had dill from seeds collected last year and half from new seeds bought - interesting to see which one grows and how fast!); a row of Maris Piper; two rows of Desiree and finally one more row of King Edward.  The last few rows of potatoes were planted in the soil we did not use last year, so it looks much better and much less sandy.  And finally, at the fence end of the allotment, I made a little pile of sand and compost and planted five National Trust pumpkin seeds we received in the mail. I don't think there is anything particularly historically significant about these seeds...

The biggest issue with weeds has been dealing with bind weed.  It appears like a small innocent plant on top of the soil, but has large root system that chokes and kills the surrounding plants.  This has been the only instance when we have used weed killing spray.  Ordinarily we do not use any poison whatsoever - we even dig out dandelions and other large unwelcome weeds.

We collected parsley and rhubarb.  I made some lovely fresh rhubarb compote to go with vanilla ice-cream and last night tried this rhubarb crumble variation:


Rhubarb Crumble
In a medium sized deep 1L baking dish (we use ceramic so nothing sticks) place about three or four large chopped rhubarb stems. Cover with crumble mixture and bake for about 20 minutes on 200C in a fan-forced oven. 

Crumble Mixture:  
1/3 cup brown sugar, 
1 tsp baking powder, 
1 tsp cinnamon, 
100g unsalted butter, 
75g plain flour, 
1/2 cup rolled oats 

Mix sugar, baking powder and cinnamon add flour and then crumble in butter with fingers. Stir in rolled oats. (I don't have a photo of the finish product as it was too tasty!)

Yesterday (16/04) we finished planting out all the seed potatoes we have!!! Yay! At the end of the allotment, next to strawberries, we planted a row of Desiree (12 spuds, numbers for our own record), King Edward (12) and a mixed row of five Arran Pilot and seven King Edwards.  Below photos show how we measured out the distance and dug in little sticks to where the potatoes are to make weeding easier.  Also, we added a little string around the sticks where we planted half potatoes.  Some of the larger potatoes, which had multiple shoots were good enough to be cut in half.  We though this was quiet unorthodox, but after a chat with some of the other allotment holders - turns out, this is quiet common.  Anyhow - at least we will know if this splitting is any good.



Also, yesterday I noticed that potatoes planted on the 27th of March (Arran Pilot and Maris Piper) are coming out too. 

End of March

This is a much warmer and sunnier March than we expected and we have managed three consecutive weekends of hard labor in the allotment.  By hard  labor I mean up to 3 hours of weeding and planting each weekend.  Last weekend we weeded an area of 4 x 4 meters.  Found a giant earthworm too - several of them, around 30 cm long each! 


We planted two more rows of potatoes Arran Pilot and Maris Piper, a row of mint (for fruit salad and chocolate desserts) and an area with four mounds of pumpkin and four areas for zucchini (courgettes for the locals).  Pretty impressive for one weekend and the whole allotment instantly looks more manageable and less like a vast wilderness.  Arran Pilot is a first early potato, successful in all soil conditions including light soils.  Planted in March they should be ready by June - one step further to a more self-sufficient household.  Here is a great link for the various potato varieties: http://www.allotment.org.uk/vegetable/potato/potato-flavour-type.php


It is fascinating to see the rhubarb leaves come out of the ground and open up.... The below photo was taken over a week ago and last we checked several of the leaves had opened.  Rhubarb is best eaten until June, so I hope there is enough for several desserts + some for freezing.

About raspberries: I don't think they had been trimmed in years. Winter meant the dead crop had to be reduced, and then brutal decisions about keeping only half-a-dozen of the strongest stalks per bush. Doesn't look like there are any shoots left for next year - fingers crossed! All three rows now look much neater, and more open to let the air flow. Was fascinated to see each plant had lots of ladybugs hiding in the crevices - tried to relocate as many as possible to the newly trimmed plants. Long term project will be to set up wire fences to support the crop. But that's a low priority now. Key was to remove last year's fruiting stalks and any that had white flaky bark (dead).

It was hard to do anything with the soil as it was dry and dusty.  It has been at least a fortnight without rain - alas rain came today and saved us from running around with watering cans - nice!  It has been warm and cherry, apple and other trees are blooming - together with the ridiculous cheeriness of the birds it's all a bit dizzyingly nice!


Finally, we did not walk away empty handed.  Collected a bunch of thyme, parsley and wonderfully fragrant daffodils.

Rhubarb Tart

Although, rhubarb season is over - here is the recipe for my mum's rhubarb tart. I froze a few kg of sliced rhubarb and hope to make another tart soon - although it will not be as good as using the fresh rhubarb.



For the base you need:

• 60g butter
• 40g sugar
• 100g plain flour

On top of the base:

• 3-4 rhubarb stems
• 1 tub (350ml?) single/pouring cream
• caster sugar
  
• vanilla sugar ('vanillin zucker' photo below - vanilla sugar from Germany)
  
• cinnamon

Base: mix together using hands until the dough is smooth and uniform - it will be a little crumbly and will break a bit, but that is how it is suppose to be to make a very crunchy base. Leave the dough to sit for 1/2 an hour and then roll out. Turn the edges up, to make sure the glaze does not escape.


Arrange sliced of rhubarb - cut in little circles and arrange them in a pretty pattern of your choice.


Once the slices are arranged - cover all with a mix of 1 tub of single cream (pouring cream) mixed with some caster sugar and vanilla sugar. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top and bake in about 180-200C for 20min or longer - depending on whether you have a fan-forced oven.


Done! So easy to make - so easy to eat very quickly. I know it might appear a little crazy, this methodical recording of 'making of a tart', but I wanted to record it as I baked it from memory and if I missed a step, mum could correct and improve the technique. I don't take stage-by-stage images of all food I cook!

Rhubarb

Rhubarb! It is a fascinating plant and I am not entirely sure what category it falls into since only the stem is edible. Furthermore, the stem is only edible from early spring till about June. The actual leaves have small amounts of poison, so don't eat those. They are just great for impromptu hats and nice to draw.