Tidying up

On Sunday our family walked up to the allotment with some sheet mulch materials, quickly dropped them off and walked back across the street to the war memorial to attend the Remembrance Service there for half an hour.  Afterward, the daughter and husband had a quick tea and biscuit at the village hall before joining the son and I already at work.

The son and I started by pulling out all the plum tomato plants and their supports;  we collected the last couple of pounds, mainly green but a few orange and red;  these I later blended up with onion, garlic, chili flakes and salt to make 2 L of fermented salsa.  Once cleared away, we laid down some saved waste wool sheets (from the insulated boxes our monthly milk delivery arrives in) and on top of these some cardboard and thick paper feed sacks. 

Once we used up all our cardboard--though it wasn't enough to fully cover the bed--the son and daughter walked up to the stables on site to collect some manure and straw to mulch over the top;  they both have their own wheelbarrows, a big and a small, and they made three trips.  

Meanwhile the husband was busy clearing the old pallets and bits of board at the very back of the plot, sorting out the rubbish from the keepers (mostly rubbish I think).  And I tidied up the paths all the way up one side of the plot and halfway up the other.  I pulled up the old carpet and rubber/plastic sheeting from the paths and put it back down, laying it over the edge of the beds, on top where the grass and weeds were creeping over (I flipped over each piece of carpet too, to smother any weeds growing in it);  I try to do this once a year, as the grass from the beds tries to take over the paths, which the carpet and rubber are there to prevent!  The son and husband had to help with one particularly big piece which we relocated to the back where the husband had cleared away a very grassy space;  which we will leave covered probably a full year at least before trying to grow there again.

We left with a big sack of tomatoes, some more nice big radishes, beets and achocha*.  Later at home, after making and bottling the salsa, I also chopped and cooked all the radish and beet greens (separately);  I've read that radish greens can be made into kimchi too!  But this week we're eating them boiled, cooled/drained/(well squeezed) and seasoned with oil, vinegar and soy sauce.  

*And to my complete surprise, I found two more squashes:  I originally had eight, then ten, and now twelve!