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.

The last of the onions and potatoes

Every few days we are harvesting lettuce, runner beans, dwarf beans and courgettes but we are not taking so many pics of these for the blog as it is simply more of the same! I did take a pic of today's harvest since it included our very first iceberg lettuce:

The variety is "Iceberg 2" grown from the Headed Mixed Lettuce pack of seeds from Mr. Fothergills. I also harvested the last of the Rijnsberger onions grown from seed. These are generally smaller than the Sturon grown from sets. Last weekend we dug the last of the potatoes so there are a few bare patches appearing in the allotment now:

Hopefully we will be getting some manure in a few weeks time which should give the plot a boost for next year. There are still lots of things on the other side of the plot though:

In the foreground you can see the leeks Autumn King 3, some of which are ready for harvesting. The two butternut squash plants (between the the two mesh tunnels) have reached epic proportions and have a lot of fruit on them:

I counted about 10 decent sized fruit plus a few more developing. They are all a little bit smaller than shop-bought ones so I might remove a few of the riper fruit to try and encourage the others to get a bit bigger. Under the Enviromesh we have some chard and more lettuce:

And more lettuce in the raised bed: