Small but perfectly formed...

Remember these tiny lettuces to the right of the below pic planted out on 23rd September?

Due to the mild weather they have actually grown:

Although a bit small, they still provide plenty of salad for sandwiches:

We also have more coming along here of a similar size:

We are harvesting leeks at a steady rate:

The plants are covered in leek rust and I keep removing the worst affected (outer) leaves. Thankfully it does'nt appear to be affecting the quality of the crop too much:

The Japanese onion sets planted out at the end of September are showing signs of life:

And the PSB cage has collapsed:

Arrgghh! The cage was ok last week but we have had some gales in the mean-time. One of the stakes has broken in two where there is a large knot in the wood. Many of the canes that I used to support the plants have fallen over due to the weight of the plants. As a temporary measure I have tried to push the stakes further in and put the netting back over the plants. Hopefully at the weekend we will put in some stronger supports. Despite the fact that many of the plants had fallen over, damage to the plants appears to be minimal.

Gotta get me one of them: azadas

Our allotment neighbour John has a new toy:

which turns out to be really neat for lifting the turf on soil you want to dig - it's an azada or grub / trenching hoe. Essentially you whirl it around and dig it in sideways below the grass roots then lift the turf off, ideally while leaving your shins in tact. Wear your boots! I had a go with this for clearing some turf on an area which is due for digging:

which worked very well indeed, so the ground can then be dug with a regular spade for weeding etc. Could also have used the tool for digging the ground and think I will get one to aid with breaking soil elsewhere. End result after digging in some more manure:

quite satisfactory! We have a chunk more ground to clear so will be good to get one of these to aid with clearing the soil before digging. Amazing thing about the plot is the massive range of soil types across a very small area - in the picture above the spade is in quite nice light soil, but half way between there and the raised bed is heavy clay - go figure... Next job is to continue clearing this area for potato planting next year...

A lovely day

for a spot of weeding and digging:

This autumn we are planning to cultivate the last strip of our allotment:

I made a start by cutting the old raspberry canes down and cutting the grass:

The plan is to dig manure into this patch and plant spuds next year. I also dug up the strawberry plants that were next to the leeks and moved them near the blackcurrant bushes. The old strawberry patch (which is good for throwing pots) will be dug over with some manure. Here are the strawberries in their new (soil improved) home:

Finally, I noticed that something had (very neatly) stripped the skin off this courgette:

I wonder what type of animal did this (a bear perhaps, John?!).

Muck!

Went up to the allotment at the weekend and discovered this next to our plot:

A lovely pile of 1-year old horse manure to spread on the plot; should keep us quiet! The farmer in the neighbouring field delivers trailer loads of the stuff to the site every 2 years. It was recommended that we also chuck in a handful of lime for every shovelful of horse manure. Apparently horse manure increases the acidity of the soil. I'm not sure what the pH of our soil is (must get a kit) but apparently clay soils tend to be acidic.

We are not harvesting as much veg now. The courgettes and beans have finished. I have stripped the butternut squash plants of their leaves so the skins of the remaining fruit can harden off for storage. We are still picking lettuces, small quantities of peas and some leeks:

The middle leek in the above pic had bolted. The flower-spike takes up most of the internal structure of the leek making it largely inedible. Thankfully this is the only leek that has bolted so far. At home I have started to take down the tomato plants and salvage any remaining fruit to ripen indoors. The chillis are still doing well, we have lots of Cayennes drying on a tray:

Today I picked the first Trindad Perfume chilli. Here it is next to an average-sized Cayenne:

The plant is quite compact - less than half the height of a Cayenne so maybe this accounts for the smallness of the fruit? It is a mild chilli so will be interesting to see what it tastes like.

Exterminate!

Our black compost dalek was feeling lonely, and fortunately a colleague had a spare so we have now got it a friend:

This should help when we start pulling down the beans etc. in a couple of weeks. Other than that I have been doing a little weed exterminating and digging in of "soil improver" to prepare the ground for next year's planting:

Should help the digging in future - currently the soil is very heavy. The patch to the top left of this picture needs clearing next for the spuds next year - that will need a lot of improvement! Should help burn off mince pies etc. over the winter :o)

Leek rust and other diseases

Since the weekend leek rust seems to have spread throughout our crop of leeks. These are orange (rust-like) spots and can infect any member of the onion family:

According to the RHS there are no approved chemicals to control it. I just removed the worst affected leaves and hope that it won't do too much damage to the crop. It probably does'nt help that we planted the leeks quite close together.

Powdery mildew is also evident on the plot. Some of the pea plants are affected:

The courgettes (which have nearly finished now) are also affected.

Finally, our lobjoits cos (left of below pic) have yellowing outer leaves:

I have no idea whether this is a disease or not? The lettuce on the right have grown a little bit but it is not likely that they will make it to adulthood with the cooler weather.

Sweetcorn and peas

Today's harvest:

This is the first and last of the sweetcorn. Originally there were 9 plants. Most of them just sat in the soil and sulked. Several plants collapsed and only two or three of them grew sufficiently to produce fruit. Although the tops of these two cobs were a bit nibbled the sweetcorn was lovely and sweet. I'm not sure why they did so badly ... maybe the cold summer is to blame or the lack of nutrients in the soil? I definitely want to try growing these again next year though! Our late sowing of peas is producing plenty of pods, some of which are now ready, so peas will be featuring in meals over the next couple of weeks.

In other news the 4 blackcurrant bushes that dad gave me as cuttings last October have finally been moved to a new home on the RHS of the below pic, along the windbreak:

The soil here has been enriched with lots of well-rotten manure so hopefully this will give the plants a boost and maybe we will get a few blackcurrants next year. Alongside the blackcurrants we will also move the strawberry plants seen in front of the raised bed in this pic:

Once we have moved the strawberries we will be able to dig and manure this area and extend the plot a couple of feet further (the bit covered by grass in the foreground).

Autumn onion planting

Last weekend I purchased some Japanese onion sets from Wilkinsons:

Japanese onions are for autumn planting, originating from the Japanese variety Senshyu. The packet does not say what varieties are included... all I know is they were produced in the Netherlands! Last weekend, Graeme dug over part of the plot between the boundary and the PSB and added some well-rotted manure. Today I planted a 5 x 10 grid of onion sets. There were actually 51 onions in total so one was added onto the end of a row:

It is difficult to see all the onions in this pic as the PSB cage was casting a shadow over the area! Once planted I gave them a drink then covered with netting to stop the birds pulling them up:

Once they are established and show signs of growth I will remove the netting. All being well we should have some onions ready for harvesting next May.

PSB

Our 6 purple sprouting brocolli (PSB) plants that went out under cover on the 4th July have now reached the top of the netting. Time for a new construction:

We used four tree stakes, one at each corner, about 5 foot tall once hammered into the ground. Before covering up I did a bit of weeding and staked each plant. Here's a close-up:

The variety is called "Purple Sprouting Early" and hopefully will produce some lovely florets in early spring. Here's another pic of the PSB uncovered:

In other news we also picked our first (one of the biggest) leek:

This ended up in a chicken and mushroom pie... and very nice it was too! With the night temperatures dipping below 6 degrees I fear for the tomato plants. We harvested a batch of the nearly-ripe salad tomatoes to continue to ripen indoors:

Mostly Marmande plus a few Moneymakers. Finally I have to concede that I am now fed up of blueberries. I picked one last bowlful:

The netting is now removed so the birds can enjoy the rest!

Autumn light

Today the light was lovely up at the allotment, perfect for taking photos. Here is a pic of the sun shining through some pea pods:

Not quite ready for picking yet! Some of the leeks are ready though:

I loved the way the sun was shining on these lettuce in the raised bed:

At the weekend we planted out some more lettuce under netting, in the foreground of this pic:

I'm not sure if they will reach maturity, I guess it depends on whether we get any frosts. To the left in the above pic you can just make out a teepee for the cucamelons. These have sprawled sideways along the ground rather than up the poles:

If you look really closely there are some tiny fruit:

I'm not sure that they will come to anything now though!

The colour green

Green is the predominant colour of today's harvest:

With just 3 gardeners delight tomatoes. There are not many flowers left on the beans so I think these will be finished in the next couple of weeks. Courgette production is also slowing down ... a sign that autumn is on its way! I'm not sure on the variety of the lettuce in the above pic.... it is either a Romaine Ballon (grown from the Mixed Headed pack of Mr Fothergills seeds) or a Lobjoit Cos. Looking at images on google I would say the balance is in favour of a Romaine. The leaves are very long, with a large rib/stalk running through them so will be nice and crunchy in a salad. Here's a close-up of a leaf on the chopping board:

Tomato production down the allotment has been quite poor and most of these are green. We seem to have more success growing them up against our south-facing fence in our garden in grow-bags:

Here you can see Garden Pearl on the left and Marmande on the right. Garden Pearl are meant to be good for hanging baskets although we seem to have grown ours 'cordon-style' (we did'nt pinch out the side-shoots):

Our beef-steak variety 'Marmande' are nearly ready:

Garden pearl have been our favourites - a nice firm tomato, sweet and juicy. Sunbaby (yellow cherry) have also been fairly prolific but not as sweet. Moneymaker is our least favourite. And just because it is colourful, here is a bowl of tomatoes picked this week:

Lots more have been eaten!

Harvest Monday

Today I picked our first "All The Year Round" lettuce:

This lettuce has lovely crinkly leaves and a crisp heart. We also picked a Catalogna lettuce:

which apparently is a hybrid oakleaf variety and is not much different from the green and red oakleaf lettuces that we have grown. Finally, I decided to pick some of the butternut squash to try and encourage the remaining fruits to swell a bit more. These are all the cucurbits harvested today:

The squash are quite small.. probably half the size of a supermarket specimen! The largest one so far is on the right of the above pic, weighing in at just over half a kilo.