First Sweet Corn

Monday started off a sunny autumnal day but clouded over and drizzled late morning and into the early afternoon before clearing up to become dry and sunny as the day had begun.

We were just about out of fresh vegetables so a trip down to the plot was needed. It was drizzling a little when I set off. Besides needing some vegetables it was my first visit since last week’s heavy rain so I was interested to see how our crops had managed.

I was pleasantly surprised as we had lots of raspberries ready for picking. I’d assumed these would be damaged by the heavy rain but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Both our red "Joan J" and yellow "All Gold" had plenty of large undamaged berries a bonus at this time of year especially after the bad weather of last week. "All Gold" obviously got the message that it was heading for the compost heap if it didn’t get its act together. I think it’s earned a reprieve.

 

I picked our first two cobs of sweet corn for the season. When picked the cobs looked OK but would we have lots of sweet corn kernels inside.

I decided it was about time to see if our carrots "Flakkee" had performed as well as "Early Nantes". I lifted about a fork’s width and a bit. The soil was wet, claggy and sticking to the carrots so although it goes against my better judgement I gave them a quick wash under the tap to see if the carrots were nibbled or damaged by carrot root fly.

Satisfied that they were in good condition after their quick wash I gave some beetroot a quick rinse too as that came up caked in soil. It’s much easier to remove the worst of the soil under the tap at the allotment than in the kitchen sink.

 

We had the sweet corn for dinner and it was delicious. One cob had been very well pollinated and one not so well but if all our cobs are as good as these at least we will have some sort of harvest from the plants this year.