A Busy Weekend

It's pretty much a wrap. The season is quickly winding down and has now come to a halt, generally speaking.
It was an odd season in terms of the weather and how it all went, but there were some wins along with the losses.
I am not going to recap the seasons' traject, but I will tell you a little about this past weekend.
It had two parts, actually: there was the work and there was the annual years' end display.

The work consisted of the cleaning of a couple of plots. The last of the Kohl Rabi was harvested and then the bed was weeded and min-tilled. It was raked level and then Borrage was sown.
Strawberry plants have been transferred from the mother bed to the new bed. I am having to do this piece-meal because the roots are slow to develop this year and I do not want to transplant them until there is a reasonable root ball present.

The last of the blueberries were harvested, bringing the total weight gathered this season to 12 kilos-- a record for me.

I twisted twenty three ears of corn off in total this weekend. We ate three directly, whilst in the lottie. The rest we took home and processed.
Just look at this nice ear. They were all like this one.


I shucked them all at once.


I wrapped four whole cobs and froze them in bags without blanching them. The rest were blanched.


Once blanched my partner cut the kernels off the cob and I made bags of 300g and they were placed in the freezer.


There were other little odd jobs like re-staking the blown-over flowers and watering in the greenhouse as well as spot cleaning here and there across the lotties...but the other big thing was the 'do' in the clubhouse. It was the years' end harvest show for the members.
There was alot of planning for this and quite a bit of work done by two persons primarily. The sad thing was that not so many people participated this year. I would say about half. :-?
I don't know what it is with the members these days--We have a number of new members, and perhaps they do not yet have the "family feeling" because it does take time to get to know one's neighbours, granted. But some of the older members did not contribute this year either.
It's sort of a strange thing--it seems that more and more folks are "encapsulating". That is to say, just doing their own thing and that is it. They do not seek contact or make aquaintance with their co-members.
It's a shame...however there are still enough of us that think 'social' and so, there were enough displays for the tables and as always, plenty of coffee/tea-drinking and the resultant talking and reached 'din' levels.
The last day the wine was broken out and those present got even more jovial. hahaha

Here are a few pics of some of the displays:
An overview.




Then various individual displays:




This lady always does things that are very "handy-crafty".






...and then ours. Those onion strings were a curiosity for the members, as they either keep their onions in a drawer ot plait the foliag.:


A closer look:


...and I am delighted with my huge Kohl Rabi:


Finally, this clever entry from one of the members.


It has to do with archaeology on the allotment. Everyone at one time or another has dug up some old relic from centuries gone by.
So what he did was use this clever "lead-in" or "lead up to" technique with small pics and text showing examples of old things found in the litties, in Holland and in the world.
He showed flint, old metal things talked about bog mummies and dry Egyptian mymmies... then the unpainted, rectangular box down low--he made a slideing top, and when one looks inside the box there is a mummified rabbit!

What happened is that back last year or so, there was a terrible rabbit plague on the allotlemts, and at that time everyone was fencing-in their plots and sealing the draughtways underneith their sheds with chicken wire to keep the rabbits out and away from their veg and blooms.
Well you probably guessed it--apparently he had sealed up a couple of the beasts under the house and they died.
When he tore down his house to make way for a new one, he found the dried remains of two rabbits.

 

Hyiyah Toni,
Here is a close-up foto of the quilt. I apologize that it isn't sharp, but you can get an idea can't you?

Actually you are supposed to use things that come off your lottie; however, this couple said that they did their work IN the lottie. Hahaha (( ))

I won't let the borage grow during the winter. What I will let it do is get about knee-high then I shall lift it and lie it flat on top of the soil to protect it during the winter.
(before lyoing it on the ground, I will add some manure and min-till the ground first,. that way in the spring the borage will have composted and the ground will be all nice and soft and ready to plant in.

Glad you liked our display. I enjoy doing them and I enjopy talking to folks.

 

great pics and produce as usual sjoerd! i remember those you posted last year. that Kohlrabi is huge!!! and the onion strings...i should bump up that thread you made where you gave instructions as to how to make them. it won't be long before ours will be ready to string.

 

TONI-- 2-3 months is plenty of time for the borage to get big enough. Good luck with that.

BUNKIE-- Thanks alot for your nice comments. Yeah, that ole Kohl Rabi is giant. I am having trouble deciding whether to freeze it in or give it to the Food Bank. hahaha.
Good luck on making the onion strings. They sure are handy.

 

It is very hard for me to believe that your garden season is over!! Does that mean that there is nothing left there at all? I'm still waiting to be able to harvest a lot of the things in my garden.
I love Netty's Amaranthus

 

No Netty, the season is not OVER, over...the serious veg and flower growth is over. There will still be a few things to harvest and a few flowers to see for a few weeks yet, but the real work is over now, and what is left are the dregs, so to speak. I can sort of take it easy and I do not have to go every day now.

I did take some pics back when things were really hopping, so that I will have something to post from time to time. I did not have time to post everything back then because of the harvesting poo-ha. That really did take all of my time and thought.

I am pretty happy that you will still have alot to harvest yet--I am quite looking forward to seeing your pics as the bounty begins to roll in.

I will tell Netty that you were admiring her flowers. She will act all shy and be pleased that someone liked them.

 

What a pleasure to see everyone's bounty. Wow! Oh, first I have to comment on your corn -- yum do I love corn. That looks like it just pops when you bite it. Now, back to the displays. Of course, yours is my favorite. I don't know what Kohlrabi is at all. I hate to say I don't even recognize the look of it... great! A new thing to learn! Someone made a display of lovely purple flowers (maybe dahlia?) in a blue-green vase. Beside it there are two bright red-orange somethings -- what are they? Are they gourds of some sort?

I always like to hear and see things going on at the lottie.

 

Your display is lovely, and very appetizing. (I need to go and eat!) I remember the photos from last year, and I can see that the displays are fewer this year. But they are pretty.

 

DAISYb--That corn sure does pop and squirt when you bite it! It is so tasty.

That Kohl Rabi is not very common here, but I like the taste of it. It is in the brassica family.
The flowers that you spoke of are indeed Dahlias. The orange things next to the flowers are what we call "calabasa" sorts, or (Sierkalebas)--which means they are decorative, not for eating. They may well be in the gourd family, because I believe that the Latin name is Curcubita.
The smallish round one in the back and right, is a type of edible pumpkin (but not the Halloween type).

Thanks DROOPY, I'm glad that you liked the displays. I am amazed that you can recall the display day from last year. Well then you can remember how many there were then.
When I look back over the fotos, I get this terrible urning for some freash corn.....tomorrow then.

 

The corns look fine though. Hope you didn't suffer to much of a loss though. Funny summer this year, but depending on your set up, you can still get a few more going.

 

OK, back to the kohlrabi... I'm going to look for some at the organic veggie market since I'm now curious. How do you cook it? Or do you cook it, for that matter?!

 

I cook it like broccoli, cauliflower, etc. (with or without a nice sauce) or use it as one of the components in a stirfry.
I do not find that it has a strong flavour at all, so it blends well with other veg and meats.