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

Crafting is my Therapy #8 + Posca Pen Giveaway

Welcome to the eighth “Crafting is my Therapy” blog link-up. A big thank you to everyone who linked up in August - I know it can be a busy month with holidays, days out and making the most of the sunshine...

I have to hold my hands up and say I haven’t sewn a single stitch in August. I had all sorts of plans and ideas, but the school holidays defeated me on the sewing front. Not that I’m complaining, we’ve had a great time. Lots of trips to the beach, playing in the park, picking fruit and veg at the allotment, sunny (yes, sunny) camping trips…I just haven’t had a moment to sit down and stitch!

Having said that, we’ve still had a crafty Summer with lots of colouring, painting and drawing. One thing we have loved is crafting with our Posca Pens. They draw on pretty much any surface you can think of…glass, stone, wood and plastic to name just a few. We put our Posca Pens through their paces and you can see my review post here.

Posca have also kindly offered us a set of their pens to giveaway this month. Simply link up with a craft related blog post and you could be in with a chance of winning...

Have you created anything crafty this month? If you sew, knit, crochet, paint, work with ceramics…please join in and share your blog posts.

The focus of this linky is crafting for pleasure, basically taking some ‘me-time’ to unwind in our busy lives. It doesn’t have to be a finished project, we love seeing work in progress, planning posts or tutorials too.

Grab the Crafting is my Therapy badge:

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.meyouandmagoo.co.uk" rel="nofollow" title="Me You and Magoo"><img src="http://i1061.photobucket.com/albums/t474/pouchbags/crafting_is_my_therapy_blog_badge_ONE_zpszefd7734.jpg" alt="Me You and Magoo" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

I co-host Crafting is my Therapy with Jennifer Jain. She writes the popular craft blog Jennifers Little World

Jennifer hosts our Pinterest group board. Would you like your blog posts to be seen by over 700K followers? Craft Bloggers linking to #craftingismytherapy are welcome to join our board. It's a great way for your posts to reach a wider audience...

The “Crafting is my Therapy” linky will open on 5th September and stay open for the whole month – giving you plenty of time to get involved.
– You can link up with maximum of three posts per month, old or new.
– Grab the linky badge or link back to our blogs on your post.
– Please share the love and comment on other people’s posts.
– If you could share your post and the linky (using the hashtag #craftingismytherapy) on any social media channels that would be great. This will help us to grow the community. We will retweet all your posts via Twitter if you mention us (@pouchvintage/@JenniferJain )
– And finally, if you would like to follow me on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram, you’re more than welcome! Jennifer Jain’s links are here too: Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook.

An InLinkz Link-up

Giveaway Entry Rules:
– One winner will receive a pack of Posca Pens described above.
– The winner will be chosen at random from eligible entries to the linky this month.
– In order for an entry to be eligible it must be a relevant post, it must mention the "Crafting is my Therapy" linky either by text link or using the badge. It must link back to one of the hosts. The linky will remain open until 11.55pm (GMT) on Friday 30th September 2016.
– If the winner does not respond within 28 days we will redraw and reallocate the prize. There is no cash alternative. Invalid entries will be discounted.