We made one visit to the allotment last week.
We needed some fresh parsnips and leeks and found a couple of tiny cabbages. A video is posted here.
We were really pleased with the parsnips. You may remember that we started the parsnips on damp kitchen roll and ‘sowed’ the seeds once the tiny roots had sprouted, Some of the roots grew longer than we would have liked before we could get them in the ground, so we were concerned that they would develop multiple roots. This doesn’t appear to have happened as all the roots lifted last week had just the single tap root. For some reason, the row along the edge of the bed seemed to suffer from canker. Other than being sown earlier and the position of the row there had been no difference in how they have been treated. It will be interesting to see whether the parsnips growing along the other edge of the bed are similarly affected.
Our plot neighbour hasn’t had any luck with his parsnips this year so we did a bit of a swap. Our sprouts haven’t been very productive so we swapped some of our parsnips for some of his sprouts.
During our visit to Temple Newsam, Ruby met a new animal. A large billy goat was eating grass up against the edge of the enclosure and Ruby was fascinated. When the goat wasn’t looking she moved in as close as she could but as soon as he looked at her she backed off as quickly as possible.
The sound of fast-running water was a constant backing to our walk. At Temple Newsam a series of lakes are joined by small streams. Due to the recent rain, the lakes were full and water was rushing from the lakes into the streams and creating cascades. It’s impossible to capture the water’s noise and speed in a photograph, but a video is posted here.
A heron was lurking in the reeds along the far side of the lake.
Over at Nostell a treat was in store for us. Both adult swans and five of the juveniles were resting on the edge of the lake. We had taken some food on our walk.
As soon as I opened the bag the birds were interested
Ducks came swimming from all directions across the lake. The ducks are mostly mallards which will come out onto the grass and squabble with one another for food, although they have to run the gauntlet of possessive swans. Black-headed gulls and crows join in the melee.
There are some tufted ducks and coots on the lake but they prefer to stay on te water and dive for food thrown into the lake. It can be tricky to take a photo as no sooner have you focused on the duck than it will dive underwater and later come up elsewhere. Now I am concerned over what has happened to the sixth juvenile. Another video of waterbirds feeding time is posted here.
Finally some of last week’s meals that used our homegrown vegetables.
I made a chicken tagine into which went some of our squash, an onion and some garlic.
Into a turkey stir fry went a red onion, some garlic and some French beans from the freezer.
I also made a spicy vegetable casserole that used some of our parsnips, potatoes, carrots, onion and garlic.
That’s all for this week so as always stay safe, well and, in colder parts of the world, stay warm.
Good looking veggies there! So glad all the swans are together and healthy.xxx
We were happy to see them, Dina but know we are wondering about the missing cygnet
Nice job on the parsnips and good that you were able to swap for some sprouts as well. I’m not sure Bertie would be brave enough to approach a goat. He has to be carried past cows on walks, he is terrified. Ideally, he would prefer that we just run away. Fantastic photo of the heron. We had a green woodpecker in the garden for ages the other day looking for ants in the grass. The second time I’ve seen it there. I was very excited.
Ruby is only brave if the other animal doesn’t look at her. She’s the same with other dogs as she missed out on socialisation due to Covi.d She doesn’t like them running up to her. If they wait for her to approach them she is OK. She’s also wary of strangers trying to fuss her. If they ignore her she’ll go to them. She likes to make the first move.
We once saw a greenwoodpecker on the allotments. Plenty of ants for them there. We were excited too.
I’m glad the parsnip experiment paid off.
Great capture of the heron.
In case you don’t post before next week Happy Christmas!
Thanks Debbie