Storms are regularly being mentioned in weather forecasts and I read reports of thunderstorms and heavy rain. So far none have headed our way. Still, the most that the weather gods will offer us is light drizzle or, as I have heard it referred to, nuisance rain.

Early in the week, in preparation for the downpour, I decided to lift one lot of onions. The tops had dried and I didn’t want to risk the onions being soaked.

They were the second lot of onions to be planted and the resulting bulbs are much smaller than usual. I’m not too bothered about that as our usual sized onions are often too large to use in a meal for two and I end up freezing half anyway. I can always use two onions if I need to.

The onions were safely gathered and we awaited the downpour but it didn’t arrive. Cloud formation kept looking promising but only a bit of drizzly stuff was deposited on us.

The bed of onions that I planted first still had some green leaves but the tops had fallen over so the onions weren’t going to do any more growing. To help them dry off, I decided to uproot them. These onions are much more normal size. I did wonder whether leaving them to dry out on top of the soil would signal the rain gods to teach me a lesson and deliver a soaking but it didn’t. I gathered them in later in the week but, as they haven’t dried off completely, I will spread them out in the garden to finish the drying process,  unless of course it actually decides to rain.

Martyn was hoping for some rain to soften the ground and make digging up potatoes easier but he was out of luck. At times a pick axe would have been a more appropriate tool than a garden fork for ‘digging’ up the potatoes.  As I have mentioned previously, we weren’t expecting much in the way of a potato harvest but we were quite pleased with our haul. The photo below is just one day’s harvest.

The overall yield was down which is hardly surprising given that the plants had very little moisture since they were planted. The tops didn’t grow much at all and soon died down. Then the tubers had to form in concrete-like soil. The potatoes were clean and damage free and had not been subjected to frosts or blight so we reckon that we are probably not far off what we would usually expect from our total usable harvest although the potatoes are smaller than usual.16 August – Potatoes, onions, cabbage, courgettes, carrots, French beans, blackberries and raspberries

Last week, actually saw our largest harvests.

We think that the apples are Discovery but as we inherited the trees we can’t say for sure.

I gathered some seed pods from some Kent Blue mangetout and  Ne Plus Ultra peas.

Seeds were sent to us by our YouTube friends – Bill and Val. The peas didn’t get a fair test this year, although we liked the few mangetouts that were produced. We’ll be trying them again next year using our own collected seeds.

Until last week, the only carrots that we had lifted were Amsterdam Forcing which have only produced baby sized carrots. Last week we lifted some Flakee which are a much more ‘normal’ size.

Details, including varieties and yields, of our harvests are posted here

On our usual walk in the parkland at Nostell, I was struck by how autumnal some trees are looking. The ground is littered with leaves and some trees are actually changing colour.

The cygnets are becoming more independent and straying away from their parents and siblings so a group photo wasn’t possible.

I guess that it won’t be too long before they leave the lake and strike out on their own.

Ruby is really patient when we stop to take photos and knows when to hang back and wait. 

She had a new experience last week when we took her for a new harness. She wasn’t impressed when her old harness was removed so that she could try on a new one. I did wonder whether she thought that we were going to leave her. When she has had to stay with the vet, we take off her harness and the vet pops on one of their leads. She couldn’t get out of the shop, still wearing her new harness complete with price label, quickly enough.

I don’t think she was impressed by having a price on her head.

Finally, how did we make use of our harvests last week?

I used, some of our cabbage, onion, tomato and potato to make Ethiopian Cabbage.

I also made a turkey pasta dish that used some of our courgette, onion and tomatoes. It also used an aubergine and yellow pepper but the recipe has disappeared from the internet so I can’t post a link.

We had lots of ripe tomatoes so I made a batch of pasta sauce to portion up and freeze. It was a case of using what I had available so celery, carrots and mushrooms were added to our tomatoes, onions, garlic  and courgettes.

I made a chicken dish loosely based on this recipe. Our vegetables that were used were, onion, courgette, cherry tomatoes, garlic and mint. I used the same ingredients but cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and sautéed everything together in a wok. I cooked the couscous in chicken stock and mixed in some chopped mint.

Finally, as always, keep safe and well

As usual, I am linking to Harvest Monday on Dave’s Our Happy Acres blog.