The autumn onions are continuing to grow well so I have removed the wire mesh covering. The two varieties of ordinary garlic a have shooted too but the elephant garlic is still dormant. As it seemed the elephant garlic was the main target of the marauding clove stealer, I have left the mesh over the garlic. I also noticed that some onion sets which were overlooked when I harvested the summer onions have produced shoots. I wonder whether these will eventually produce anything worth while?
7 & 8 October
This was probably our last large harvest of the year from the plot although there will hopefully still be a steady stream of fresh vegetables over winter. These will be supplemented by the harvest already stored or frozen.
We have now picked all the apples and gathered in the squash. There is more about our squash harvest on my blog here. The tomatoes are continuing to ripen although with a drop in temperatures maybe this will come to a halt and mean we will have to harvest some still green fruits.
I’m also still managing to pick enough sweet peas for the house and the stems are surprisingly still long and straight.
The over wintering brassicas look to have fallen victim to club root and it is unlikely that we will manage any sort of harvest after having planted really good young plants. We do try to plant club root resistant brassicas but have yet to find a club root resistant variety of broccoli. We managed to harvest some resistant cauliflowers and the sprouts seem to be forming. There are also some fairly huge cabbages which could be harvested at any time soon.
The autumn onions are already beginning to shoot so I’m hoping that the winter won’t be too unkind to them.
15-20 October
I had forgotten about the saffron crocuses planted last year when they managed to produce only one flower. They were left in their pot on the greenhouse where they have decided to regrow.
The potential for frost encouraged us to gather in any remaining fruits. We still had green tomatoes on the vines in the plot greenhouse but these have now been picked off and will have to continue with any ripening away from the plant.
The much anticipated quince harvest proved a disappointment as most of the fruits had bitter pit and were unusable. Read my blog here for more information
The medlar in the garden has produced its largest crop since being planted but we probably won’t use the fruits as they have proved challenging.
Another disappointment was the miniature kiwi Issai which managed to avoid spider mite this year but only produced miniscule fruits.
21 - 24 October
The peppers have now been picked off the plant and frozen. We didn’t have a large crop and not all had ripened fully but those will be useable as green peppers. We really need to make a concerted effort to look after our pepper plants better as they suffer in favour of the tomatoes.
Other plants that we need to pay more attention to are the grapevines planted on the plot. To be honest they were planted with little hope of any grapes. Secretly though one of the vines - Boskoop Glory had been producing fruit hidden under the mass of foliage only to be revealed when I decided to prune it back. It had lots pf bunches of grapes which unfortunately were very small. The bunches should have been thinned and some foliage removed to allow access to sunlight. I’ll try harder next year.
The everbearing strawberries have now been trimmed and tidied. The other varieties had this treatment earlier once they had finished fruiting but as the everbearers were still giving us a sprinkling of fruits these were left.
I’ve also rescued the native primroses as they were being smothered by weeds.
Our ‘rustic’ compost bins have been sorted with the rotted compost being spread on one of the beds and covered over by weed control fabric. Hopefully the worms will continue to break down the compost and help mix it into the soil. Read more here.
The annual flower, especially the cosmos are continuing to provide a bit of colour on the plot and mixed with the few remaining sweet peas give us cutting material for the house. The bees are also enjoying the late food supply. Although they were late to flower they have come good in the end. Light plays on the petals to create some lovely effects.
Some activities are described in more detail on our blogs - links below
