Rhubarb muffins

As always, the first thing ready to eat this year was the rhubarb.

For a change from the usual crumble I baked rhubarb muffins.

I used this recipe: http://purelyfood.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/best-blueberry-muffin-recipe.html and just substituted blueberries for rhubarb. Turned out well.

My Artichoke

Last Autumn, my allotment neighbour gave me a cutting from her globe artichoke plant.

I'm now obsessed with its size. Hers is a very large bushy plant and while I wasn't expecting to get a crop from it at least till next year I was still hoping for it to be more than just these three leaves.

Unfortunately she is not mine

but isn't she lovely?

Catching Up

Although it's been a while since I wrote about it. I have actually been working on the plot.


Over winter I started clearing out the blackcurrant bush at the side of the plot as it has got pretty wild. I've still got a bit to tackle next winter, just now I'm letting it fruit.

The weedy gap i the middle is the bit that has been cleared so far.

I now have even more to weed though. yuck!

I'm not sure what the plant that is growing wildly on the right is but it covers up an old shed that a plot holder from the past had.

It might be quite exciting when I get round to clearing that out.

No one likes weeding I'm sure but with my soil it's just removing huge layers of soil as the roots and grass are so stuck in it and the soil is so dense. I wish I had the    means to put raised beds in at a faster rate than I am just now. They make so much difference.

my accidental kiln.

After  had cut down this bit of bush I had a lot of wood to burn. It took several attempts to get a good fire going but I discovered that burning the old broken bench (varnished) got a good fire going. When I next visited the plot it was clear just how high the clay content of my soil is when I saw the colour of the earth round where the fire had been.