Hello again. Yes I know my last post was in August and here we are nearly at the end of September. Well there's a couple of reasons for the radio silence.
Firstly, most of what you do in September is harvest. In a good year there's veg coming at you from all angles.
Below is a typical weekly harvest from the plot - beetroot, broccoli, carrots and sweetcorn.
But you can add to that tomatoes, butternut squash, onions, courgettes, chillies, potatoes and runner beans all ripening and ready to harvest during the month. And that's not to mention the cucumber glut going on back in the garden!
The other reason that I've been quiet is that we've actually managed a week away on the south coast. Now keeping an allotment and greenhouse going is a pretty full time commitment, and for me, that means in the summer attending at least once a week and, during hot dry periods, more frequently so as to keep everything alive by regular watering. So when the annual holiday arrives (and that's sometimes a couple of weeks in normal non-Covid-19 world), the plans you make to cover for your absence (by asking neighbours or fellow allotmenteers to do some emergency watering for you) together with what the weather actually decides to do, can have a big impact on the ultimate success of your harvest.
The advantage of going away late summer is that pretty much everything is established in the ground and the weather can often provide all the watering you need from the air! Well we were away for just a week but, for one of the warmest and certainly driest weeks of the summer and, having decided to rely on leaving everything 'soaked' the day we left in the hope that the moisture would last the full week, I was a little concerned at what I would find when I returned. I'm pleased to say the tactic of the later break worked as well as I could have hoped - everything was well enough established to survive the drought whilst we were away, albeit erratic watering such as this may result in a few split tomatoes later in the month!
The first major jobs whenever you return is to water and hoe, as although there might have been a drought, weeds manage to survive such inconveniences remarkably well. Especially my old friend the bindweed which had pretty much smothered my spuds. There was therefore no alternative other than to add a second priority job to my list which was to dig up the lot - that's the bindweed and the odd potato.
Now I said in an earlier blog that I was concerned that the longer in the ground I left the potatoes, the more the risk of underground eating going on underneath the soil I might find. Well I was right...and I was wrong. The 'earlier' varieties of potato certainly look to have suffered as you can see below.
I don't think I was getting more than a handful of small spuds per plant. Not a good return. But as I reached the good old King Edward maincrop potatoes, the whole picture changed (below) and I was getting at least a dozen spuds per plant (including some decent large ones) even where the top of the plant had long gone - perished by a combination of bindweed and searing heat. Enough to last us till Christmas I reckon.
September has finished with a cold snap and some strong winds. Strong enough to finish off the runner beans, which themselves have done pretty well with about 6 freezer bags full of blanched green beans for use during the rest of the year.
And we have a lot of produce still to look forward to... all the brassicas for a start, sweet potatoes and a few squash...and plenty of carrots. I'll be doing a review of everything I've grown this season, good and bad, later in the year. Until then, I'll just keep eating it. Cheers.
#spanishstuffedmarrow #patatasbravas #homegrown #harvest #allotment #vegetables #september #growyourown
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