Prepping a Soft Fruit Bed, and Baked Beans

14 February 2025 (Friday)

Despite having said to Vanessa that I was going to have a “me day” today, I end up doing quite a bit of work at my desk in the morning for both For Earth's Sake and the Great Green Barn.  I have to say, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment with the amount of work that is needed for both of these businesses. It's fair to say that it's been a pretty heavy week, with a full on start to it with the long day's photo shoot, and my mind has been very much on work work rather than my own work and Richard's work. I think I've also been a little bit irritable - there's a lot going and major changes, so maybe this is understandable, or at least I convince myself of such!

I'm still getting used to Richard being at home, and had another jump scare today when I was doing something in the kitchen; Richard came along and started chatting to me, and me not realising he was there I jumped out of my skin. I'm not sure if this is simply because Richard’s around more and telling me what he's doing, or whether it's my own state of mind with the amount of work that I've been doing over the past week, and when I think about it over the past six months or more too.

There's no doubt about it, when I’m working on a project I want to make sure that it’s going as best as it can, though the client always calls the shots.  Despite advice to do something one way or another, or how posters could be displayed, at the end of the day the client has the final say in what happens when, where and how.  Over the years an old saying has often come to mind… "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.”

And, as I type this, I realise that both of us (I mean Richard and me) could really do with a break of some sort or another, just the two of us.  We don’t regularly have holidays, and the only far flung place we’ve ever visited is Bali, and even then apart from a few nights at Poppies in Kuta we were sharing a raffia bungalow or small thin-walled house with another couple and their young daughter.  When we go to Wales it’s so far been with another couple, which is always lovely, and then when we go to Richard's family or would travel to my mum and dad, again we always stayed with them.  So basically over our 30 plus years together, all our breaks have been with friends or family.  At the ages of nearly 59 and 39 (Richard's youthful age, of course!) I think we deserve a few days away somewhere on our own.  Will need to mull this, as of course there’s an expense to this and financially times are tight (as usual), and with Richard having left work who knows what’s to come.

After lunch, and a quick blast of Hart to Hart, I get down to the plot to do a bit of potting up of something a plot neighbour’s given me.  However, as per usual my plan changes and I decide to get on with weeding and mulching the small soft fruit bed.

Now by this time the pink sky of morning had become a glorious blue with dotted fluffy clouds and loads of sun.  It really was quite glorious and to be down at the plot doing work in sunshine, chatting to fellow plotters and getting jobs done was just an absolute joy.  I noticed there was still a load of woodchip left from a delivery last week, and decided I’d get on with the small soft fruit bed, which had needed a decent weed for some time (for which read many months!).  The other soft fruit bed, the large one, has become rampant with couch grass and will need much more than the few hours I have at the allotment this afternoon.

So, I got on with the job. Getting a few more wheelbarrows of woodchip from the pile, setting them to one side as I started on the weeding that needed to be done. Again, this is an area where there's quite a bit of couch grass so I went in with my hand fork and weeded the bed thoroughly, gently teasing straggle rooted creeping grasses and getting deep under dandelions to lift as much of the tap root out as possible.  As I was getting into my stride a plot neighbour came over and started talking to me, it soon became clear she wanted a chat, in which it transpired she was wanting a cultivated black berry, like the thornless one her plot neighbour had.  Fortunately I had a spare one in a pot.  I propagated it last year, along with several others.  Now though only two remained, some had been gifted and others sold to raise allotment funds at our annual Gate Sale.  As one does in the generally sharing environment of an allotment site, I gave her one of the two I had remaining, and of course, I can do more cuttings this year to take with us to our new home, whenever that move may be.

Once my fellow plotter had gone on her way I carried on with the weeding.

When the bed was clear of weeds I could see clearly where the raspberries were coming up.  Down went thick cardboard, cutting through the sheets with a sharp garden knife where the raspberries were coming up, so they could grow through the hole without interruption.  There are other raspberries in the ground that weren't visible and once the cardboard is fully wet those growing tips should easily push themselves through to the sunlight above… assuming we have a good sunny year this year!

I then covered the lain cardboard in a fertile mulch that we got from Equigrow last year; it was part of a bulk order of all our plotters who wanted to take part in the purchase.  By doing this we get well priced compost in bulk, albeit bagged as it’s so much easier to divide and sort.  I then wheeled in the barrows of woodchip to put on top of the mulch. I still need to prune the jostaberries at the far end of the bed.  And after I’d put down the compost I decided that if I was going to film the prune the stems of the jostaberries would show up against the dark compost better than against the light coloured wood chip, so I will add wood chip another day once I've done that segment of A Week at the Plot.

After further chats with various plotters, I made my way home and as Richard was going to do a Live at 6pm I decided to make some Instant Pot Baked Beans to have as our supper after the Live had ended. As per usual, the baked beans were delicious, and we had them with cooked brown rice and some chunks of cucumber.  

With the sun out today, it felt as though spring is just around the corner though as we know in the UK, a false spring is regularly just hiding out of sight!
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Recipe:  Instant Pot Baked Beans on YouTube.
These can be made on a stovetop or in a casserole in the oven.  If doing this, soften your onions, carrots and veggies first, add the beans and all other ingredients, bring to a simmer and then cook for an hour or so on a stovetop or at 160c for 90 minutes in the oven.  As moisture is trapped in an Instant Pot if cooking on a hob or in an oven check you have enough liquid in after 45 minutes, adding more if necessary.

Weather:  Sun!  A golden orb in the sky which really did lift the mood. It's still chilly at about 4°, though in the sun it feels like 10° or more

Breakfast:  Porridge, bran sticks, and a spoonful of honey.
Lunch:  A freezer soup of some type, hummus, pitta, carrot, cucumber.
Supper:  Lidl Vegan Cumberland Sausages, Lidl Skin on Fries and Lidl Baked Beans!