Anyone with an allotment?

I love a kitchen gadget but what’s the difference between this and cooking the tomato’s and then blending them?

Blending tomatoes for passata? Burn the heretic!
Separating skins and pips means your passata lasts forever and is a much nicer consistency.
We normally roast our toms then push through a sieve with a spoon. Overall process takes hours depending on how many kg of toms we’re doing.
With the machine it was a 2min dip in boiling water then straight through the machine. Yielded twice as much as the sieve method and took minutes, not hours. Also way less mess.
I hate kitchen gadgets and have a tiny kitchen(no toaster, no microwave etc). Even though it’ll only be used a couple of times a year as far as I’m concerned it’s already paid for itself in its first run.

Olive trees arrived. They’re really happy and healthy and got a few small fruits on them. Gonna plant them about 4-5ft apart and make a nice low trellis to train them across. Want to keep them low and out the wind.

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First lot of goth toms (indigo rose) have ripened

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Harvested the first pink banana squash, also picked the ripe chillies to make jam. One lot are a complete mystery as to what they are as they're definitely not the plant I ordered!

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Nice haul!

Pretty banging salad from the plot today.

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Looks delicious!

😋

Absolute unit of a courgette today as well. They really struggled this year and all withered long before they got this big.
Had chef friends over for a bbq. Should have taken more pics.

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A small harvest but it checks out. The Tomatoes are tasty.

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Did you end up getting a new outdoor cooking setup in the end?

i spent this morning covering mine up until Spring, i got a load of paving stones for nothing so Im laying a patio there which will be my last task there this wretched season

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laying a patio

Interested in what this will look like

I can see tonnes of sources of free slabs but all the 60x60cm concrete council things. Those fuckers weigh like 40kg each. I'd be concerned about even putting a big haul of them in the car, let alone carrying them up to my plot

i was worried about weight, the allotment is five minutes away, i did two a time. Took a while

Great idea

Fucking love the passata-tron.
Another 2litres tonight :)

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I reckon this construction crane would be able to drop serious tonnage of manure directly into my plot...

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^ speaking to a colleague the other day, whose husband decided he needed cow manure to put on his garden. Went and made a deal with a local farmer, a trailer-load for £50 or something.

Farmer turned up with a full construction-style tipping trailor and dumped it all on their drive. The pics showed it towering above their front door. Apparently it took two days to shift.

Brilliant!

4 of us plotholders did that a few years ago, I had to shift 1/4 of it meaning 30 barrows (£15 cost) pronto after it arrived. I did it first thing as the same day I had an xc fixture in the afternoon and that proved to be sub-optimal race-day prep...

What is the standard process for fresh manure? Dump it on the compost pile for the winter to mature? Dig it straight in to the soil? I was told it's too acidic to go straight on as a mulch, so I would be wary of mixing it in to any active beds or am I being too cautious?

Does anyone else have end of season inspection? Got one coming up which I’m expecting to fail due to excessive invasive weeds.

Seems counter intuitive to spend effort on weeds now since (hopefully) winter will clear a fair portion of them.

I’ve managed to grow a fair bit this year as a newbie but the thought of the dreaded email makes me want to give it up.

Just cover the worst bits with weighted down tarp & tell them it's prep for next year?

I thought it had to be composted first due to risks from water runoff.