MILL LANE ALLOTMENT ASSOCIATION IN FLINTSHIRE
Our Allotments in Flintshire
Our Info section
This section will feature hints, tips, advice, recipes and all sorts of things from members. We will feature recipes throughout the season looking at what is available now and how best to use it. We will have monthly planting guides with suggestions on what you could be planting and when you can expect to harvest the produce.
Veg of the Week
Potatoes
July 27th - Aug 2nd
What a choice! Chipped, mashed, raosted, boiled are what we all think of to begin with but.................
How about slicing your spuds and par boiling, cooling them off quickly in a colander under the cold tap. Use a mandolin (carefully!) to very thinly slice one of those onions featured last week, alternatively very thinly slice with a sharp knife..
Layer up sliced potatoes and onions in a deepish roasting tin or casserole. Take some salted butter fromthe fidge and cut nuggets from it. letting them fall over the layered veg. Then grind some fresh salt and black pepper over evrything, finally pouring some full cream milk over it all (use single cream for very special occasions!)
Put in the bottom of your oven an hour before the roast is due to be ready and let it cook.
New potatoes crushed with some horseradish or mint. Maincrop spuds will be due soon and the emphasis moves towards mash with butter and milk.
STARTING YOUR VEGGIE PATCH
The first and perhaps most important piece of advice is.......... don't try to do it all at once! Allotmenteering is about enjoying your time on your plot! The ground will be there tomorrow, take time to have a chat with your neighbours, ask questions if you are not sure of anything. You need to remember that we all have different ways of doing things and we all have an opinion on what to grow and how to grow it. So give us an opportunity and we will let you know our own take on the best tomato, cucumber, potato pea or bean. Preferably this happens over a cup of freshly brewed tea or coffee made on our camping stove in polytunnel, greenhouse or shed!
PLANTS & VEGETABLES
The paragraph to the left really says it all. We all have different favourites but as I have the floor and I am editing the pages today you get my selections!
I will be sowing beetroot direct into the soil this weekend, for pickling in the autumn as well as using the small beets, leaves and roots in salads as we thin the rows. Boltardy is a favourite on our site and seems to do consistently well.
Some swede will be going in as well, ready to harvest late January to accompany that fantastic winter food HAGGIS along with the last of my stored maincrop potatoes.