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.