A year on the allotment: September 2016

I'm a little behind with posting my September update. I am now training to become a Teaching Assistant and started the associated college course three weeks ago. The last time I was in that particular college was *cough* twenty years ago. As I head towards my 40th birthday this December, it's good to set my sights on a new career path and keep my grey matter ticking over.

So, in between college work, a school placement and my Shared Lives work, my poor blog is getting neglected. Sadly, I don't have as much time for the allotment either, but things are winding down on the plot now, so I wont stress about it...

September was all about harvesting and sunflowers. Last year I blogged about our huge sunflowers, which were short but had flower heads like dinner plates. This year our sunflowers grew to over ten feet tall, but had much smaller flowers. Throughout the Summer our sunflowers have been covered in bees. You can see the beautiful pollen dusted all over the flower head, no wonder the pollinators love them.

We also dug up the last of our potatoes. The last bed to be harvested completely took us aback. We have never grown such big potatoes. We did put lots of coffee grounds onto that particular area, so maybe that helped. Magoo, as ever, loved digging up the spuds and was flabbergasted by their size.

The allotment has kept us in spuds throughout July, August and September. In fact I only had the need to buy our first bag of shop-bought potatoes last week in early October.

We also did really well with our courgette harvest. We had so many and if you turned your back for five minutes they morphed into marrows overnight. One particular large example doubled up as a Snozzcumber when Magoo went into school in fancy dress for Roald Dahl day

When they weren't doubling up as Snozzcumbers, I like to roast our allotment courgettes with peppers, onions and homegrown herbs. Once roasted I mix the veg with cous cous and drizzle with plain yogurt and sprinkle with fresh mint.

We're now clearing the plot and covering the soil ready for Winter. We still have some parsnips, sprouts, butternut squash and celeriac to harvest on the plot, so I'll be back in a couple of weeks for an October update...

Before I go, I thought I'd share one more photo. Magoo took one look at our huge allotment potatoes and decided to decorate them with pieces from her Mrs Potato Head kit...as you do :)

I'm always looking for new ideas for our allotment. I've put together an 'Allotment Inspiration' board over on Pinterest. I love connecting with other pinning fans, so it would be great to connect with you over there...

This week I'm linking up with these lovely blogs...

"How Does Your Garden Grow" over on mammasaurus.co.uk

"HomeEtc" over on www.thetwinklediaries.co.uk