What have you done on the plot today?

[RJ]

I picked about 5 tubs of raspberries, froze 3, gave 1 away and ate 1 over the weekend.  Thanks Reg - freezing on a tray is great.
Not so good for strawbs though - when defrosted the inside turned to mush.  I'll have to eat them fresh, or make jam or something.

'Fraid I can't help with the strawberries - mine have always turned to mush when I've tried freezing them.

Mash/liquidise with cream and sugar before freezing.  Remove from freezer after an hour or so and re-mash with a fork and return to freezer until set.

Strawberry ice-cream.

More on the way, but nice to begin the harvest, after a very late start.

We started late too.  Plenty of salad and I had chard and spinach with my pasta tonight (steamed in a colander over the cooking pasta, then chopped and mixed with the pasta with garlic and chilli flakes flashed in some olive oil; cheese and black pepper on top).

I'll need to spend some time over the weekend weeding and thinning some of the plants that bolted during the not-quite-a-week I was away either side of the weekend.

Spuds look good, beans pretty poor.

[Kathy]

Time to see how it has fared after a fortnight away. Everything's looking a bit overgrown, the tomatoes have made a takeover move on the carrot patch, and some butternut squash seedlings have mysteriously sprouted in the potato sacks (presumably from the home-compost).  Fortunately the neighbours have kept everything well-watered and eaten all the ripe fruit so that no mould has developed (apparently it made a nice summer pudding), and I'm hoping I should be able to get some beetroot and beans to go with dinner tonight.

[Julian]

Picked yet more courgettes.  They're taking over the universe. 

Went and talked nicely to the tomatoes about plz turning red and being nommable.  They've been green but there for *ages* and I want to pick some.

Finally got chemical on the blackfly ass.  Soapy water was doing nothing at all.  Got a faceful of spray in a gust of wind and felt a bit queasy for a while.

Seeded two nasturtiums to plant next to the beans to attract the blackfly off it to avoid facefuls of poison in future.

Made a little brick plinth for our new water butt to stand on

This gardening stuff is going rather well.  What else can I plant?  There is room between the leeks and around the beans, and in between the cauliflowers.  I was thinking about planting some little things like radishes but I don't know if I'm too late...

[Hot Flatus]

  What else can I plant?  There is room between the leeks and around the beans, and in between the cauliflowers.  I was thinking about planting some little things like radishes but I don't know if I'm too late...

Rows of perpetual spinach.  Dead easy.

[DuncanM]

Every occasion I've had the time to go the the allotment in the last week, it's rained.  Busy yesterday - nice day.  Today - rained almost all day.
I've got probably 3 hours of digging to do before I can plant out the spinnach and broccoli, and they need to go out asap.

[Jon P]

Definitely not too late for radishes - you can plant most other things too, even carrots; turnips, beetroots, salad etc

That's assuming it's not going to rain every day for the rest of the summer and the beans, courgettes and toms are just going to rot ... 

[Hot Flatus]

I had the small first crowns off the broccoli/calabrese, picked off to encourage side shoots.  It tasted fantstic and stayed a deep dark green colour.  Runner beans are starting to go mad, but first row of sugar snap peas are finished and new row is about a week off. Have eaten all my early spuds and so waiting for the next lot to be ready.


Seriously, though liz, bung in a few rows of perpetual spinach.

[Julian]

I'll try that - sounds good.  Perpetual spinach and a shot at radishes, here we come. 

[Kathy]

Finally got chemical on the blackfly ass.  Soapy water was doing nothing at all.  Got a faceful of spray in a gust of wind and felt a bit queasy for a while.

Me too (having first made sure that the ladybird and various pollinators were all elsewhere).

Pulled up a lot of weeds, picked some beans and the last few peas, salvaged some strawberries before the woodlice ate them (I didn't know until this year that woodlice like strawberries, but believe me, they do), planted a dozen or so carrot seedlings out...

[juliet]

I got back to the UK well past the planting season for most things - Marna got a few tomatoes going for me but the rest of the balcony was sadly bare.  Planted a handful of various things (rocket, some kind of red lettuce stuff, pak choi, sorrel, mizuna) and it's all coming up beautifully.  So any of those should be worth a bash. 

Just went down the allotment to get rid of the unpleasant stuff in the compost-container, and harvested a load of blackberries.  The glut is about to start... Sadly I mostly missed raspberry season   Nothing else doing all that well this year, bah. 

We planted some thyme seedlings last week and *some* of them seem to be settling in, so thumbs crossed... 

[DuncanM]

I picked a handful of French beans.
The ones that got transplanted a month or 2 ago look good, but the ones that were transplanted recently don't look so hit.  Ah well...
I did a tiny bit of digging.  Need to do lots more...

[docsquid]

I've now got two large buckets full of quite large potatoes from our earlies which were well ready for digging up.  That represents about 1/3 of the expected crop as I have a whole lot more growing down at the woods in both a raised bed and in a patch of soil earmarked as an allotment patch. 

We've also had a good crop from the runner beans and there are masses of them growing now.  Garlic has been harvested as the tops had keeled over and were dying off, and the shed stinks of garlic because I've laid it out to dry.

Plus I've picked a huge courgette which was doing its best to turn into a marrow.

So, dinner for the next few weeks will involved *insert main dish here* with garlic, potatoes and runner beans.

MMMMmmmmm

[DuncanM]

I picked some more beans, and did a little weeding and digging (like 10 minutes).  Docsquid has reminded me to check my garlick though.  And if I can pull it then I need to do less digging, so that's a win/win.

[Hot Flatus]

3 or 4 hours weeding, trimming tidying up.  Had broad beans for lunch, now tucking into saute potato, kale and rosemary omelette.

Just discovered a row of tatties that are ready.  Now going out to spray some chems on the brassicas as I'm sick of picking off eggs and caterpillers.   Next year they'll be covered in fine mesh or fleece from the off

[Julian]

I've largely been tying our tomatoes to anything stable.  Bloody gale force wind down here at the moment. 

[Wowbagger]

Dez is currently preparing for pickling a basin-full of shallots that he grew.

[Quisling]

Today I made half a dozen jars of apple jelly.

Yesterday, I did some hedgerow shopping and picked up a jumbo carrier bag load of walnuts.  I've just got them drying out now.

[Flying_Monkey]

This weekend I mostly raked up cut grass and leaves - the disadvantage of having an acre of land (which is still all lawn until we dig a lot of it up next weekend!), is that it takes ages to do this. I'm not expecting any sympathy though...

On the plus side I discovered that we have large numbers of green and brown frogs in residence and the squirrels (both grey and black) were going crazy bouncing about all over the place, mainly gathering and burying conkers.

[Palinurus]

Not been to the plot today but I have just made a soup out of my borlotti beans.

They dried nicely outside in their pods during September (practically no rain).

[Si]

had my first home grown cauli last night - yummy.

also pulled the first leek of the season - buggers had those little brown grubs in again (onion flea?) but if you poke the grub out and don't tell anyone that it was there in the first place they seem fine when cooked.

The tidying starts this weekend: remains of beans, courgettes, strawberries, turnips, peas, calbrassi, etc all to be pulled and chucked on the compost ready for the autumn dig over.

Only problem is that in my rotation scheme spuds follow the sprouts and swedes and it's these that stay in longest , preventing digging untill early spring - would rather do it before so that the grown can get properly seen too by the frost 

[Flying_Monkey]

I seem to have acquired a second-hand rotovator.... and raspberry canes and redcurrant bushes... oh, and maybe also chickens for next year! 

[Flying_Monkey]

Today I have been rotovating. It might be easier than digging over the 15 square metre veg plot we have planned, but it is still bloody hard work, especially as we are starting from lawn, and the soil here is heavy clay.

[mr endon]

I doubt that's going to be satisfactory. Converting lawn to veg growing really requires double digging, with inverted turf buried at the bottom of each trench or used as the basis for a compost heap. Double digging also gives the opportunity to feed/improve the soil, especially as it's clay; mixing in barrowfuls of stable manure/seaweed/compost as you go along.
3m x 5m should take a day, maybe two tops, and getting it right at the start will save time later.
Assuming you don't expect to get all your acre producing veg immediately, cover areas you're coming to later with carpet offcuts to kill the turf. And if the plan is to get an acre of veg going asap then ignore all advice about double digging, and rotavators, and get a friendly local farmer to come and plough you over to start with.

[Julian]

I've pulled up all the summer plants.  All that's left is the leeks.

The five raised beds we've got have been more than enough for the two of us, so I'm abandoning plans to convert the other half of the garden into veg too.  I'm on the lookout for easy flowering plants and I've potted some herb seedlings, although it might be a bit late to have them growing outdoors.

[docsquid]

I've finally ordered the greenhouse and various accessories (not staging - we'll build that out of old pallets).  It will live at the woods.  When it is built I will have six mini-raised beds in it for various fruit and veg and the rest of the greenhouse will be for trees/saplings.  There will be four raised beds outside the greenhouse and of course our orchard of 8 apple trees, 3 plum trees and 8 cobnuts.

What with the chickens, we should be almost self-sufficient