Wednesday 08 October 2014
What a Bounty
Wednesday was a day of sunshine and showers. The early morning temperature had fallen to 4.2°C giving us another cold start to the day. Despite the showers I’d decided it was time I picked our quinces after last week’s test confirmed that they were ready for picking.
Wandering down the allotment path to the shed I noticed that some of the leaves on this spare squash plant that hasn’t yet been cleared away to the compost heap look to have suffered some frost damage. I’ve always suspected that temperature on the plot falls a little lower than the temperatures I record at home.
It had been a little bit breezy lately especially after a very calm September and I thought a combination of the breeze and rain might have knocked some of the quinces from the tree. Unlike our apple trees there weren’t any windfalls to pick up. Planted in 2010 our Meeches Prolific variety has made a lovely weeping tree about 2.0m high with a similar spread. As you can see from the photo it was covered in quinces this year. It’s the first year it’s had a “proper” crop.
There were a few fruits that went straight to the compost heap but the rest looked to be in excellent condition as far as I could tell. These three bucket fulls amount to just short of 16 kg (35 lbs).
These aren’t available to buy in the shops so it’s an extra special crop. As we’ve never had so many before storage has never been a problem we’ve had to consider. I think they should store well into the winter. Advice on the RHS web site is shown below:
“Only undamaged fruits should be picked and then stored in a cool, dark place on shallow trays. Ensure the fruits do not touch and do not wrap them. Allow them to ‘mellow’ for six and eight weeks before use. Quinces are strongly aromatic so avoid storing with other fruits. They will keep for two or three months.”
I’m not sure I can wait two or three month or even six to eight weeks. Perhaps I’ll try some straight away and maybe keep a few to see if they improve with age.
Thursday 09 October 2014
Exposed!
Thursday was sunshine and a few showers. We almost managed to fit in a dry afternoon at the plot but a heavy downpour forced a hasty retreat.
Our carrots this year were sown on 21 April 2014. For the last few years we have sown them through large slits in weed control fabric. This method definitely takes much longer to get the carrots sown than the conventional method of simply sowing carrots in drills. What’s more for blogging purposes it doesn’t make a pretty picture.
All sorts of bits and pieces of timber along with a few plastic boards are employed to hold down the weed control fabric. Not a pretty sight is it? (We have now developed a neater method using canes). Then of course we have to cover the whole area with environmesh to protect from the dreaded carrot fly. The area looks a bit tidier once this is done.
The carrots are left to germinate without much interference from us. They get some water if the weather turns dry. Some seedlings were eaten by slugs but luckily we spotted this and resowed more seed. By the middle of June the seedlings were well established and growing well although there appeared to be parts of some rows that had suffered from poor germination or more slug damage.
Any weeds managing to grow alongside the carrots have been removed a couple of times through the summer. Eventually it’s clear that the carrot tops have filled the space available in the carrot tent. Nevertheless the environmesh tent stays in place.
It was late August before we decided to harvest a few carrots. Our Early Nantes had done well and produced some decent sized roots even if they weren’t up to passing the supermarket shape test. They certainly passed the taste test. Now the carrot harvest is in full swing.
These Chatenay Royal dug this week have again produced some large very tasty roots. But now our carrots have been exposed and their protective tent removed.
Carrot flies aren’t about in October (are they?) so the environmesh tent can safely be removed. It makes the carrots much easier to harvest too. The carrots won’t be left exposed for too long though as towards the end of the month they will be getting their winter duvet of straw. They’ll be left in the ground all winter and we will harvest them as required hopefully protected from the winter elements by the thick coat of straw.
Friday & Saturday 10/11 October 2014
Tree Fruit Harvests Over the Last 4 Years
I decided to stew some of our quinces with sugar to make a sort of quince compote. It’s the first time we’ve had enough fruit to consider using them on their own without apples.
This is the first couple of batches stewed and awaiting containers so that it can be squirreled away in the freezer. Having tasted this gorgeous stewed fruit for the first time it’s strange it’s never become more popular. I’m assuming as it can’t be eaten raw that’s a bit of a draw back. Perhaps the ornamental quinces and their rock hard fruits are something others remember and decide to stay well away.
With our quinces harvested that’s completed our tree fruit harvest for this year. We might still have the odd medlar to pick but as we are still searching for a favourable way of using any of this fruit I’m not going to include it in my tree fruit summary. The table below is a summary of our apple, cherry, greengage, pear, plum and quince harvest over the last 4 years.
I think it’s clear from the table that we have good years and very good years usually managing to harvest a decent crop of fruit although we can’t be sure exactly what fruit it will be. Amazingly our ‘ancient’ apple hedge made up of old cordon apple trees, which are full of canker and other nasty looking problems, produces a reasonable crop each year which is more than can be said for some of our newer trees. Our plot grown pear trees owe us a good crop, especially ‘Delsanne’ with a crop of only 1.4kg over the last 4 years. The other big disappointment is our cherry “Summer Sun”. Each spring it produces masses of flowers and looks very pretty, promising a bounty of cherries which never materialise.
Sunday 12 October 2014
A Coldish Start to the Month
Sunday morning was cold and misty but the sun did manage to break through soon after lunchtime but it didn’t do an awful lot to lift the temperature which reached a maximum of 13.2°C. In general compared with the last five years this October is off to a rather cold start with only 2012 been colder.
Although we’ve had some decent sunny spells in the first part of October, we seem to have had our fair share of dull wet weather. However, compared to recent Octobers this month hasn’t got off to a particularly wet start with only 18.0mm of rainfall up to midnight on Sunday.
Monday morning has started off dull and drizzly so we might soon catch up on the monthly rainfall totals. It’s forecast to rain on and off all day but by mid morning that total’s increased by only 0.4mm.
Monday 13 October 2014
Wet Without Much Rain
Monday seemed dull wet and damp all day but the rainfall only came to 2.4mm even though it rained all day.
Our photos of our visit to RSPB Old Moor have now been added to our web site and can be viewed here. Golden Plovers had arrived in their hundreds but kept well out of close up camera range so all our photos of them were taken on maximum zoom.
Tuesday 14 October 2014
Claptons Galore
Tuesday was a repeat of Monday which was another wet day without any rain. We had heavy cloud cover all day making it the dullest day of the month. The temperature hardly varied all day with a maximum of 11.0°C and a minimum of 10.1°C.
We needed some fresh vegetables so headed to the plot to replenish our supplies. In the car it was one of those days were the slowest intermittent wipe of the windscreen wipers isn’t intermittent enough and the wipers have to be turned off between sweeps. Due to the poor weather we’d no intentions of doing anything else on the plot other than harvesting some vegetables.
Our brassica crop this year got off to a bad start when all our early crops succumbed to club root back in autumn 2013. Since then we’ve done pretty well, especially with cauliflowers, which can be a bit tricky at the best of times. These two are good sized heads weighing in at over a kilogram each. These were sown on 02 June and planted out on 11 July and have produced an excellent crop following on nicely from a crop sown on 06 April and planted out on 18 May. It’s meant we’ve had a steady stream of cauliflowers ‘Clapton’ to cut from the end of July all the way through into October.
We managed a decent harvest for the middle of October. Even the sweet peas and raspberries had managed to give us another harvest that we weren’t expecting.
The sweetcorn is now a little past its best but this was the last picking of any decent sized cobs. The carrots are St Valery and the beetroot is Crimson Globe. All our harvesting records are kept here.