Well isn’t it a difficult year for gardeners and farmers? Any rain that is falling just wets any bare earth as it isn’t heavy enough to penetrate any plant top-growth. To deliver moisture to plant roots we have to rely on the watering can.
One crop being prioritised is a couple of rows of peas. Pods have set and I want to give them every chance that I can to swell. I gave the bed at least ten cans of water. This was delivered without the rose directly to the roots.
The potato crop has, through necessity, been neglected when it comes to watering. In some ways, the potatoes have been advantaged by the weather. The early shoots didn’t suffer from any late frosts and the dry conditions meant that neither blight nor slugs have been a problem. All these advantages, however, have been negated by the severe lack of water. No sooner had the tops of the potatoes started to grow than they began to struggle and die down. As the tops feed the tubers below ground, it was with some trepidation that, Martyn started to lift the potatoes.
So far he has lifted seven varieties of potato. The yields were very variable and many of the tubers were very small but will still be usable,
Heidi Red and Alouette were this year’s trial potatoes. The Heidi Red seed potatoes were poor so we only planted about four of them. The roots had grown lots of tubers but they were very small. Despite that, they were interesting as they have pinkish flesh and we will grow them again next year. This year hadn’t really been a fair test.
So far Rudolf has produced the best results. The small number of Charlotte potatoes were from a rogue root growing amongst the row of Nadine.
The variable results underline the advantage of growing several different varieties. Martyn has posted a video showing the lifting of some of the potatoes here.
So far the carrots that we have lifted have been very small, however as they are undamaged, we don’t need to peel them and they are delicious eaten as baby carrots.
The shallots hardly produced any tops and many of the bulbs are tiny. I’ve been wondering what will happen if I was to plant the tiny bulbs. There are, however, some decent sized bulbs, with the Longor variety producing the larger bulbs.
As well as harvesting and, of course watering, we have done some tidying, I tidied up the strawberry plants that were planted from last year’s runners. They haven’t done much growing but had still managed to produce a tangle of runners. These were trimmed off. The more established plants will have the runners removed later.
The strawberry bed was treated to fourteen cans of water which I hope will give the plants a boost.
As a bonus, I found a punnet’s worth of delicious strawberries.
I also tidied the leek and onion bed. The onions are going to produce smaller bulbs than usual this year.
We have been very busy harvesting.
We didn’t expect to have many plums this year, so were pleasantly surprised to have more than we had anticipated.
The later planted garlic was a disaster so it’s as well that the autumn planted garlic did well.
The pea seeds that were harvested are a couple of varieties gifted to us by Bill and Val. One is a mangetout.
Tomatoes are now ripening in both our garden and allotment greenhouses. The varieties come in all sorts of sizes.
More details of our harvests are posted here.
As you might expect courgettes featured in many of last week’s meals.
I made some mini turkey and vegetable meat loaves. These used some of our courgettes and onion and were served with freshly harvested cabbage and potatoes. If I made these again I wouldn’t make them in muffin tins. My tins are loose bottomed but even then the meat loaves were tricky to remove.
I made a chicken and courgette korma which used more courgettes, onions and homegrown coriander. This was served with some of my homemade courgette and onion bhajis.
I also made a sort of orzo risotto which used more courgettes and home grown garlic.
My post wouldn’t be complete without the obligatory cygnets photo.
Finally, guess who photo-bombed my shot of the lake at Nostell.
As always ’til next time stay safe and well.
Once again I am linking to Dave’s Harvest Monday post over at his Our Happy Acres blog.
Absolutely fantastic harvest given the weather. You have enough spuds to last for months. Loving the cygnet and meals.xxx
We hope that the potatoes will see us through, Dina although we may have to fit security alarms to them.
I am always so impressed with your harvest. I am pretty despondent about there not being any berries this year. We had an early hailstorm and there isn’t a gooseberry, raspberry, Juneberry, or thimble berry anywhere. This led to us having a late night visitor last night. A bear! We don’t have bears, but I guess we do. Poor thing has nothing to eat but birdseed. I put that away so it will probably be my garden tonight. The size of your potatoes is usually all I get. I don’t think our season is long enough. I hope you get rain soon.
You certainly get more than your share of wildlife Bonnie. Ella needs to stay close.
Your korma and risotto dishes look lovely to me. It’s always interesting to see how others use their harvests. I don’t envy all your hand watering, as I know how tiring and time consuming that can be.
The hand watering is hard work, Dave but good exercise
You still seem to be getting a decent harvest this year despite the lack of rain. None in the forecast this week, and I’ve read that the water companies who haven’t yet imposed hosepipe bans are being urged to do so.
The proposed ban has now been announced, Jo which will be a shock to some.
I’m not sure where I am now! Glad to see your allotment is still there! It’s tough all around now, and this is the first year I’ve not had a harvest. Long story, but the hired help did more damage than good and I had to abandon all plans. We go on a hosepipe ban 19 August. Surprised not happened sooner.
Hi Deb, We’ve made some changes since you last visited. Oh dear sorry that your help didn’t work out.
Yes, I’ve been worrying about the effect for farmers as well. I watered my strawberry plants (which were new this year) yesterday, just to keep them going a bit. My elephant garlic was reasonable as it was earlier and avoided much of the drought. Things are suffering now though and the containers looked quite bad after a week away, in particular the figs and twisted willow. I may give up on the willow as it’s always very thirsty, so it simply might be the wrong thing to be growing now. I summer pruned the apples yesterday and they have lots of dried leaves. Hopefully reducing the new growth will reduce the stress on them.
Willows do like lots of water don’t they CJ? Our containers are the most colourful parts of our garden at the moment. Really they are the only areas in the garden except for the greenhouse that are being watered.
Sue, your harvest is growing day by day. I liked your Casablanca potatoes, they are white and large. I love these potatoes fried with tomatoes. Your onion beds are amazing – you’ve tided them perfectly. I can imagine the work you have done. I liked the risotto orzo, it looks delicious.
The onions are giving up now Nadezda after this last hot spell. They are smaller than usual but usable.