Lovely Free leaf mould.

Well the weather here wasn't too bad today, we had some drizzly rainy spells but they didn't last long so I was able to get up to the allotment to do a couple of jobs .

I looked on our local 'Freecycle' website and someone was offering 30 box plants that they had pulled up from their front garden which once formed a hedge. I went along and collected only six as they were larger than I imagined, some up to 2 feet wide and 2-3 feet high. We (Austin helped me) planted them along our boundary border on the allotment, so I now have a full grown box hedge, some parts are a bit bare but hopefully will grown again. The roots are very good and I added blood, fish and bone, plus manure to the planting holes, which should help them settle in and grow in their new home.

We then emptied the leaf mould bins that we had put all the leaves in from last Autumn and it was the most amazing lovely black crumbly stuff you have ever seen. It has made an enormous green garden bag of the lovely leaf mould. It should have been watered a bit more often during the summer, as there were some leaves that hadn't rotted enough nearer to the top, so I will leave it all in the bag for a bit longer. I also have two sackfuls at home in the garden which are doing well.

I collected two more bagfuls of leaves the other day and intend to collect more over then next few weeks. There are masses of leaves all over to housing estate which the allotment backs onto, lovely free leaf compost.

It's hard to imagine that this pile of leaves will turn into the lovely stuff below.

Lovely free leaf mould.

The curd that never got made !!

I was very disappointed this evening as I had gathered everything I needed to make some pumpkin and ginger curd, but although the pumpkin (pictured) looks ripe enough and sounded hollow when tapped (supposedly a sure sign it's ripe !!) when I cut it open to roast it it was quite green looking near the skin. I de-seeded it and got the pumpkin cut into quarters anyway, and proceeded to bake it until the flesh was soft, but it really didn't look good and had a greenish tinge, SO into the bin it went and no curd got made today. I'm hoping the other pumpkins are ripe enough. I would love to know why this one wasn't.



Some chillies have dried for winter use. I have lots more drying, they look so colourful.