Tuesday 30 August 2016

Good and Bad on the Plot

Sunday wasn't much of a day weatherwise as it turned out to be cloudy all day although any rain held off and we managed an afternoon visit to the plot. Bank Holiday Monday was a much better day with almost unbroken sunshine all day. we decided to stay clear of any Bank Holiday traffic problems on the road and spent the afternoon at the allotment.

Our main crop potatoes are now all lifted although there is one small bed with some potatoes left in. They are the stragglers of the tubers we bought back in spring so I don't have great expectations regarding the crop from these potatoes. On Sunday I lifted the last two rows of our main crop which consisted of a full row of 10 Vales Sovereign and a mixed row of Vales Sovereign and Winston potatoes.
Vales Sovereign
Our row and a half of Vales Sovereign a variety we are growing for the first time this year produced an excellent crop of good sized potatoes weighing in at 13.4kg. There was a little bit of slug damage but the worst culprit was wireworm damage. It still left plenty of undamaged tubers and I've found from past experience that normally potatoes with wireworm damage will keep well for several months and that in decent sized potatoes the damage can be cut away leaving plenty of usable potato.
Winston
The four roots of Winston yielded some decent potatoes too weighing in at 4.5kg and as I've come to expect with this variety some wireworm damage. All in all I'm happy with the crop and if Vales Sovereign passes the taste test I'll consider growing it again next year. Once all the potatoes were dug the weed control fabric was put back in place over the freshly dug ground and it will be left in place over winter.
Besides digging up some potatoes we harvested our greengages as well.
If you look closely at the above photo you will see seven greengages in the bottom right hand corner. That's our greengage harvest for the year from two decent sized trees. There were a couple of fruits that we left on the tree which had split and been attacked by wasps. I think it could be described as a crop failure. Maybe next year will be better.

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