Diet, exercise, Hampton Court

So far the diet is going really well. I skip breakfast which is quite a sacrifice, but I have suspected for a long time that the small amount of muesli or banana I eat in the morning could be tipping the balance towards me gaining weight.

There is a NO SNACKING rule which the doctor is very stern about. If you need to snack, he writes, you should just drink water. You need nothing between meals. Your stomach is designed to go a long time between meals and you won't even feel hungry after the first few days. I think this is true. So far I have lost 3-4 pounds and some of it is off my double chin!! A visible difference. He predicts I will lose much more in the first week than I have but I think he must be predicting for men who burn calories faster. Few people burn calories slower than the post-menopausal woman, even very active ones. Went to another exercise class yesterday - arms and weights apart from the usual squats and abs exercises. Very good. The day before was a Hampton Court day.

Both Ichiho and Hilary were there and the tasks were to load the melon beds - the hotbeds - with compost or to move some semi-rotted compost from one bin to another. Chris and I did the first task which involved lots of loading and wheelbarrowing. Really, we work hard at HCP but of course, it's only for a short time. In winter we go home early so it's only three and a half hours of actual work and in summer it's four and a half hours. It can be a long afternoon in the summer.

We moved nearly all this to the melon beds.

Nasty stuff and not composting at the mo - too cold

Unfortunately, we tried to fill three of the beds instead of two but we hadn't moved too much stuff to the wrong bed. It won't take them long to rectify our mistake! Itchiho and Hilary both seem pretty fed up with the hotbeds which they have spent hours digging out. Hilary is getting some horse manure to boost the compost.

This is a pic of the new mound in the Magic Garden where we put some of the spent soil from the melon bed. The magic gardeners are still working hard on their landscaping.

Allotment year 2, post 5 ish

So this year I planted 9 courgettes because I wanted to see if they would survive from such small and measly seedlings and that was 4 too many. Five is the correct number of courgette plants and if one of them dies you still get plenty of courgettes. I took a good many large courgettes to my club. I didn't waste any. I made soup, and I made marrow and ginger jam. A. made chutney. I made courgette cake.

I was completely bullied by the huge number of beans. I planted about 18 plants and one died. That is about twice as many as I needed. I cut up and froze the beans in small portions. If you freeze them in large bags you never use them. I also gave them away by putting a bag of them on the green with a "help yourself" sign.

I planted three types of potatoes and this time I didn't mix them up. I planted one row of Charlottes and harvested them as soon as they flowered; they were nice, apart from the ones that were a bit scabby. But we ate them all while they were young, but most of them had to be peeled.
One row of Desiree was enough, they have done well apart from some scabby ones, and they should mash well.  I also planted some Roosters because the packet of seed potatoes was reduced (roots growing through the mesh. These are lovely round potatoes which hold their shape well when you boil them. They were lates because I planted them as an afterthought.
So apart from the potatoes, courgettes and the beans things didn't go too well. The mange tout did nothing (soil too poor?) So I just pulled them up and eventually I planted leeks in that place. These are growing quite well. When I planted the leeks I also planted two rows of beets. We ate a lot of the young leaves as salad. I eventually pulled up some - they didn't take long to grow. I have never cooked these before but today I roasted some and they were nice. We also had home-grown potatoes and beans (from the freezer).

The raspberry canes produced a decent number of berries but we need a few more so we can collect a couple of bowls full at a time. At present, I am still eating them on the hoof (and very nice they are!)

The strawberries gave us one crop (about 10 bowls) and then put out loads of runners. I have been planting up new plants from the runners but they aren't taking very well.  I need to dig out the whole bed and get rid of the original plants, which are getting too old. That bed is very weedy too and needs feeding which I am going to do.

The rhubarb plants went completely mad and after the thirsty spell, which tested them severely in June, they grew incredibly. We should have a good lot next spring. You shouldn't eat the stems after July because they contain chemicals which give you arthritis and gout!

The other thing that needs doing is the construction of a compost bin, from pallets. A. has collected two good corner posts and some pallets and dumped them behind the shed. He is too busy to do any more. The rubbish heap may have some good stuff in it but I am going to have to burn a lot of it because I haven't the container for making compost.

(Home compost is going well - lots of thin pink worms - if it was a nicer day today I would be out putting the compost around the shrubs.)