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To be honest I think we picked a better day for our visit than when Constable did his painting or perhaps he just used a bit of artistic licence. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. If you wish to refresh your memory of Constable’s “Hay Wain” it is pictured here.

On returning home I’d expected a garden greenhouse full of ripe tomatoes but it wasn’t the case. I was struggling to find a couple of ripe fruits for a sandwich.  Perhaps there’ll be more ready for harvesting in the plot greenhouse.

Saturday 15 September 2012

Not a Bad Afternoon’s Work

The weather was much better on Saturday with plenty of sunshine and the gale force wind of yesterday had abated.

It was off to the plot in the afternoon to see just what we had to harvest after a week away although things had already got off to a good start as we picked a couple of peaches “Avalon Pride” from our tree in the garden.

Although our tree set lots of fruit many have turned mouldy on the tree before ripening but we still have a few ripe fruits which are now perfect for eating.

On the plot we spent the afternoon harvesting and managed quite a haul. Nothing had really suffered from any attention over the last week and we had lots of vegetables and fruit to harvest. The tomatoes in the plot greenhouse had ripened well unlike those in our home greenhouse which think green is the new in tomato colour. We managed just over two punnets of strawberries “Flamenco” especially welcome at this late stage in the season along with lots of raspberries, blackberries and apples.

Full details of our harvesting for the day can be found here.

Sunday 16 September 2012

Green or Yellow - Which is Best?

Sunday was mild but we only had a few short spells of sunshine followed by some light rain late into the afternoon.

Like you do I’ve been following the current blog postings and comments discussing the pros and cons of green v yellow courgettes. To be honest it’s not something I’d given a lot of thought to and I’ve always assumed little difference between the two. So I did a little digging into my harvesting records to see what they revealed.

Unfortunately I can only really refer to this year’s records as in past years despite my best efforts our green varieties of courgette plants often seem to get mixed up and at harvesting time it can be difficult to tell one variety of green fruit from another. This year we haven’t got that problem as we limited ourselves to just two varieties only Jemmer (yellow) and Zucchini (green). Then along came a packet of free seeds of Tondo di Piacenza which I couldn’t resist sowing but as it’s a round green variety it can easily be identified at harvesting time.  

All the seeds were sown at the same time, in the same compost, given the same treatment, potted on at the same time and planted out on the plot on the same day. Now it gets a bit more tricky as there’s and extra plant of both Jemmer and Tondo di Piacenza whilst one Zucchini plant succumbed to the cold wet weather.

So here’s a list of our harvesting up to and including Saturday 15 September.

Now we’ve done our best to pick fruits on a regular basis and not allow any courgettes to grow into marrows which they have a tendency to do at an alarming rate.

That means we’ve harvested a staggering 170 courgettes weighing in at 42.5kg of which we’ve eaten, frozen and given away lots resulting in very few going to waste. I reckon Tondo di Piacenza has been our star performer and we’ll be giving it another go next year. Given there’s two less Zucchini plants than Jemmer we’ve not got that much difference in performance between yellow and green types.

So there’s a completely unscientific set of results but certainly for us it shows that this year we haven’t had much difference between these two colours of courgettes.

Monday 17 September 2012

Late Chelsea Chop - for Broad Beans!

Monday wasn’t too bad a day. It was cloudy for most of the day but we didn’t have any rain so I managed to cut the grass at home and clean out the pond filter.

Most things survived whilst we visited Suffolk last week. However our broad beans Bunyards Exhibition sown in modules 08 August grew rather too well or more to the point a bit leggy. They had been left outside in the cold frame to grow on a little before being planted out in the plot as an experimental early crop.

The tops of the plants have grown through the netting which covers the cold frame in an attempt to stop birds creating havoc by pecking around in the plants. I’m not sure what will happen if I take the tops out of the plants, will they produce side shoots or perhaps send up new shoots from the bottom of the plant? The tops of the plants will be damaged in any case when they are extricated from the netting so I suppose I’ll find out. I do want to plant them in the plot at any rate just to see if they can survive the winter weather without protection.

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Grapes Come on Stream

Tuesday wasn’t a particularly pleasant day despite some reasonable amounts of sunshine. It was a cool breezy day with squally showers. It was one of those days where it could be sunny and rainy at the same time.

I picked the last two peaches “Avalon Pride” which have amazingly ripened outside in such a poor summer. To supplement the peaches I picked our first bunch of “Himrod” grapes from the home greenhouse. Very strange that the grapes have ripened when we’ve only picked a couple of red tomatoes from this greenhouse. I’m not complaining though as both grapes and peaches tasted delicious.

Wednesday 19 September 2012

Bad Year for Onions

Wednesday was another cool day with some decent sunny spells and a bit less breezy.

A couple of weeks ago Sue had eased our onions out of the ground and they had been left to dry out on the plot. The forecast for the next couple of days is for some wet weather so I decided complete the harvesting job by collecting the onions to keep them dry for storing over winter.

We’ve had doubts all summer about how well our onions were growing. They certainly didn’t like all the wet weather. We grew 5 varieties of onions all from sets, Snowball and Setton from normal sets and Hyred, Hytech and Marshalls Fen Globe from heat treated sets. Snowball and Setton were started out in modules back on 14 February with the heat treated sets following on on 15 April as soon as they arrived. Once planted out in the plot initial growth was good.

This is Setton in early July beginning to grow away well after transplanting into the plot. But the rain and poor weather took its toll and the end result is a pretty poor crop of onions.

The worst result came from Hyred which is a crop failure having produced nothing larger than the sets that went in. Snowball a white onion is probably the next worse as the bulbs seem to be starting to re-grow  and don’t look as though they will keep in store for very long. Setton, (probably benefiting from an earlier start), produced the best crop of decent looking onions but even then I’d expect better in a normal season.

The table below compares last year’s and this year’s crops.

Last year we had trouble storing onions over winter and decided to grow an extra couple of varieties to be sure of having enough onions to last us until spring. Just shows how this gardening is always unpredictable and no two years are ever the same.

Onion Harvest 2012

Thursday 20 September 2012

Picking Pears

Thursday morning wasn’t too good. It was dull and cool but it was a little better in the afternoon.

As the afternoon wasn’t too bad, I decided to pick the pears from the garden. It took about 2 minutes, in fact it took as long to photograph and weigh the pears as it did to harvest them.

This is it our completed pear harvest just two pears from 3 allotment trees and the tree in the garden. The two Conference pears weighed in at 341gms. How different it all appeared back in April when the trees were in flower and the fruits just setting.

Then came the summer that never was and the fruitlets never made into full grown fruits apart from the two which I’ve just harvested. Gardening can be a little bit disappointing at times but hopefully next year will be better. Isn’t it strange that we managed to grow more peaches than we did pears?

On a different note. Do you fancy helping out on a research project being undertaken at Sheffield University. If you keep any sort of records about your fruit and vegetable harvests you may be able to assist in their research. Have a look at their web site and see if you can help.

Friday 21 September 2012

Cold and Wet

Friday was cold and wet with rain on and off through most of the day. It was cold too with the daytime temperature just making it to around 10°C.

As you can see it was actually warmer overnight with the temperature falling quickly around dawn. The give away is the rapid fall in temperature in the evening resulting in the coldest September night I’ve recorded of 3.3°C.

On a positive note Saturday has started bright and sunny with the promise of a decent day so I’m hoping that I can finish lifting my few remaining potatoes this afternoon before we get any more wet weather.