It already has the feel of autumn. Everything looks tired, and leaves are beginning to litter the ground.
The allotment certainly looks autumnal, and our thoughts are turning to next year. It seems to me that the seasons are shifting.
Another week has passed with no rainfall, and another week has passed with no improvement to our water supply. At least now, with many beds having been cleared, there is less watering to be done.
Martyn has now dug up the last of our potatoes. Despite having had very little natural, and no watering can delivered moisture these produced a reasonable crop of potatoes.
The previous week, whilst weeding the strawberry bed, I noticed that the plants had produced lots of runners.
Next year, we intend to plant a new strawberry bed, so I decided to pot up some runners to give us a start.
We have a dozen each of three different strawberry varieties, and I managed to pot up eighteen runners of each variety. Some had produced some well-developed young plants.
The plants have been popped into the garden greenhouse to overwinter.
I removed all the unwanted runners and any dead leaves. The soil was loosened and the bed well watered. All it needs now is a top dressing of mulch.
Also sitting in the garden greenhouse is a tray of sweet Williams waiting to be planted on the plot.
We often leave sweet Williams to flower for a second year, but this year’s plants were not worth saving, and the bed was severely overgrown with weeds, including a mass of bindweed.
The bed hadn’t been watered, and so we knew that the soil would be hard. We decided to give the bed a good watering before any attempt at clearing it.
After a good dowsing, the bed was left for a day, and then we dug out as much as we could. No doubt pieces of bindweed will remain to grow another day.
Martyn roughly dug over the bed, and we watered it again.
The following day, the lumpy soil was broken down by running the tiller through it.
Now the bed is ready to be planted.
Whilst I was on weeding duty, Martyn managed to roughly dig over a couple more beds, which will be left in the hope that the winter weather will break down the lumps.
Beds where crops had been watered are more amenable to digging than the beds where potatoes had been grown.
We are harvesting a few things each time we go to the allotment.
Although many of our vegetables have been small this year, the tree fruit has done really well both on the plot and in the garden.
24 August – Tomatoes
We grow tomatoes in both the plot and the garden greenhouses, as well as outdoors in both locations. I often forget to mention tomatoes harvested from the garden. This year, we have mainly grown cherry varieties.
At the weekend, when we were at the allotment, I heard some bird sounds that I didn’t recognise, and looking around, I saw two young pheasants strutting up the road. We often see a pair of pheasants on the site, and apparently, they have raised three young.
Apologies for the quality of the photos, but I didn’t want to get too close, and they were also moving rather quickly.
Finally, I made a vegetable biryani using our tomatoes, onion, garlic, peas, carrots, potatoes and cauliflower
I also made a turkey dish using our onion, garlic, and cabbage.
That’s all for this week, so until next time, as always, stay safe and stay well.
Again, I am joining Dave’s Harvest Monday on his Our Happy Acres blog.
It’s been such a hard year on allotments and gardens Sue. No wonder everything is looking stressed. Like you I have a good yield of apples, pears and tomatoes 😃 My French beans have struggled. I hope that you get some rain very soon – it looks as if it’s opn its way everywhere. I was most happy to see that we had some overnight and then we had a shower this morning.
We are only really getting showers, Anna. Nothing like what we need to replenish the soil.
It feels like autumn here too this week, but I’m guessing it won’t last. I’m getting the fall crops planted though.
We only plant winter onions and garlic to overwinter, Dave
For not having rain you managed to get things out of your plot. The potatoes look great. I never have much luck with them. I love your strawberry idea and need to do the same. I can’t bring myself to buy new strawberry plants every year.
I was surprised how many runners I managed to pot up, Bonnie