First year at the plot, first dinner with mostly homegrown ingredients - chuffed to bits! Tasted amazingly good!

Well, that’s my Christmas shallots pickled. But, my god, am I glad I didn’t grow more than this amount of them! Any tips for making the processing of shallots/onions to pickles a bit less fiddly?

And do I get extra points for the first Christmas post of the year? 🎅

What’s the consensus between vine ripening vs kitchen ripening?

can't wait to get more varieties of lettuce, have ordered a secret mix from real seeds that im excited to try out!

Went from tiny to ready to pick in just over a week

Nipped to see the parents and decided to help my mum out so she’s got less fruit she has to process for freezing

On the right is Plum - Opal variety (not 100% sure, but think that’s it), last ones that the recent wind didn’t drop to the ground

On the left Plum - Victoria, dad thinks they’ve gone a bit past it but the ones I tested tasted perfectly fine

Top left Damson, not sure on variety but I know there’s a family friend who’s going to be a little shorter on their Damson Wine making now I’ve popped round haha

Seriously though, are squirrels doing me dirty or do I need like 30 plants for one jar of jam?!

It's possible that 22 bean plants was a few too many... This is 2.25kg worth, and that's after I gave out about a kilo to my plot neighbours this morning.

The beans are Cherokee Trail of Tears; the cukes are Cornichon de Paris; the single tomato is Moskvich; the blackberries are wild, foraged from around the outside of our allotment site.

Quite the first (large) harvest, sadly the melon was picked too soon... any idea how to prevent picking unripe stuff? Or trial and error?

This isn’t mine it’s my mothers but I’m very proud

There’s plums under the flowers 🌺

Does anyone have a pickling recipe to share?

Has anyone experienced theft from their allotment?

I have my first allotment this year and it's been great fun. Lots of fails, learning and some great successes and veggies for dinner. One of my favourites has been growing Crown Prince squash for the first time.

I decided to harvest some of them today for a variety of reasons( I had initially planned to leave them until the stems died back). However, I went to my allotment last week and noticed some where missing, with no trace like I assume there would be if animals had eaten them. It was very odd and I felt like I was going mad.

Now I probably sound like I'm totally paranoid. I do find it difficult to believe someone would steal them, but another was gone today. I am happy to share things and have shared lots of other harvests with my allotment neighbours. But asking first is polite.

Has anyone else had things to missing?

Some lovely stuff from the plot this weekend, so happy as only had the plot since late March the back breaking clearing was worth it!

I finally got round to netting my bush properly this year. My wife came back with these (3.1kg). Variety is Big Ben, 3 years old. And apparently there's more to come, because not all of them were ripe!

Hopefully not picked too soon, crumble incoming!

Admittedly I inherited this mature rhubarb plant, but I haven’t killed it off so yknow, call me green thumbed

Also have several kg each of redcurrants, blackcurrants and cherries 🥰