September - Mini Harvest

Had my own little mini harvest so thought I'd share the picture! Spuds (Rooster, and a few left over Maris Piper from last year), Carrots (the ones the carrot fly didn't ravage!), 2 different types of scalloped squash and kohl rabi (not bad roasted). Nom!

The rest of the harvest of Potatoes. I feel OK about this amount, much more reasonable than last years epic harvest of doom that we never managed to eat through.

Garlic! Pretty good I think, nice pale pink cloves. I seem to have picked pretty varieties of everything this year! These went into the ground last autumn, to be honest I think I left them a bit too long as they had sprouted extra cloves about the outside, I broke these off and they are in a bowl in the fridge to be used first.

My tomatoes did not ripen *sad face*. There are still a few tomato plants languishing outdoors but as an experiment, these ones, who were taking up space in the main vegetable beds have been ripped up and suspended upside-down in the sun in the extension. The Internet tells me this will allow the goodness to drain down the plant and they will ripen. I remain sceptical, but...who knows! Worth a go, and if not there's always Fried Green Tomatoes!

I have cleared out all the spend summer veg. Still in the ground are scalloped squash, pumpkins (planted too late I think, they look a bit sickly), Parsnips, Onions, Kale, Kohl Rabi, Swiss Chard a Salsify or two and some Cauliflower (purple!). In this month go Broad Beans, Garlic, various winter salad leaves, Toughball Onions, early Spring Onions and possibly some other stuff I have forgotten. The land with nothing on has some field beans as green manure.

Finally, Nigella seed heads removed before they open and self seed all over the place again (nice yes, but a bit in the way). I think I will suspend them upside-down in a bag and collect the seeds.

Summer 2011

I have been remiss at keeping the blog updated this summer, too much going on, you know how it is. Anyway, I thought it was about time I did a catch up post since I do have pictures.

The summer went well for peas, having planted several patches where last year there were root crops growing. I bought a roll of plastic netting this year for support, which worked a lot better than the string (if a lot less eco friendly).

This year the Blueberry plant I got using my Tesco Club Card vouchers had fruit! (I got it last year). Only about 5 in total but they were tasty and I'm hoping for more next year.

A free home collected packet of wild flowers I got when I bought some Yarrow seed on eBay had languished in the seed box for over a year, so I took an oblong plant pot and scattered them over. How beautiful they were, poppies and all sorts.

Last year I was not fast enough at pulling out the huge amounts of Nigella (Love-in-a-mist) I had sown, and the seed heads scattered a huge amount which germinated this year and produces a carpet of flowers, I hadn't the heart to pull them up so I let them grow.

These are Asparagus Peas, they look a lot prettier than they actually taste, You eat the interesting looking pods before they reach 3cm. Personally I hate them, they are furry...bleuck! Never again! Shame as the little red flowers are lovely.

The Summer squash grew quite well, this is what it looked like when it was small.

I don't think I have a picture of the Salsify when it was flowering, but you can see a similar picture of what mine looked like like here. When the seed pod opened up it looked like a giant dandelion head.