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.

 

 

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.

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.

 

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.

A Week Away

We’ve just spent a week away in Suffolk enjoying the countryside and some fine weather too. The warm weekend of the 08/09 extending into the beginning of the week.

At the weekend we visited the National Trust property at Flatford Mill where Constable produced some of his most well known paintings such as the "Hay Wain". Surprisingly the scene hasn’t changed very much since he painted "Willy Lotts Cottage" way back in 1821.

　

　

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.

Autumnal Morning

For the last few days we’ve had some fine weather with plenty of sunshine and mild throughout most of the day. This morning however had a distinctly autumnal feel to it as the temperature overnight fell to a chilly 8.4°C and it took a while in the morning to warm up.

Last autumn I bought a rhubarb crown of Stockbridge Arrow and it spent last winter in the greenhouse in a large pot.

The crown didn’t look too good at the end of winter and it was almost discarded as dead until this tiny shoot appeared at the beginning of April. Since then the crown has grown well through summer and was planted out into the allotment today.

It will probably need a couple of years to establish itself before any stems can be harvested

　

Experimental Overload

At last we have a spell of fine settled weather with the forecast suggesting it might well last into next week. Monday and Tuesday were pleasantly mild and dry with plenty of sunny spells.

 

One of the beds doing well down on the plot is our over winter brassica bed.

 

This bed is a mixture of cabbages, broccoli and cauliflowers all intended to produce early next year when fresh vegetables are a little bit scarce. Early in the season when the bed was dug over I experimented by planted it up with a green manure crop of Phacelia. This was dug in just as it was coming into flower in early June.

 

Not content with experimenting with the green manure crop we decided to use a weed suppressant at planting time to cut down on weeding and hopefully give the brassicas a better start by not having to compete with any weeds.

 

This is how how brassicas looked on the 05 August just after been planted out. They’ve certainly grown well through August and are looking like we might be in for some good brassicas. It’s the first time for several years I’ve grown my late brassicas from seed, relying on bought in plug plants as an easy option so this was the first part of the experiment.

 

I guess it’s probably a combination of several things that’s help produce some good plants. Now they just have to go on to produce some tasty cabbages, broccoli and cauliflowers.

A Good Weekend Weather Wise

September has started off well with a couple of very nice days. A bit cloudy first thing but quickly clearing to leave a couple of mild, sunny and dry afternoons. 　

For Sunday we had booked a trip on "The Waverley" taking a trip along the famous Settle to Carlisle Railway line. We were pulled by a preserved steam train. It’s a pretty severe test as the line has some of the steepest gradients on England’s railway network as it tackles the climb up to Ais Gill high in the Pennines.

This is the view crossing the famous Ribblehead Viaduct part way up the climb to Ais Gill. By the time we arrived in the Border City of Carlisle it was a lovely sunny afternoon.

Of course our steam engine has to make the same climb in reverse as it heads back across the Pennines to Leeds and its final destination of York. Before tackling the climb it needs to fill up with water which it does at Appleby giving everyone a chance to stretch their legs and enjoy the late afternoon sunshine.