Rainy days and harvesting crops

 I've been picking blackberries recently from the lane outside our allotment gate. It looked like I was the first to get to them. Usually I'm late picking them and often miss out. But the lane has got very overgrown this year so I don't think many people are walking that way along the path.

We are unfortunate that our neighbours on either side of our plot as well as another next but one have not been maintaining their plots, so access to their end of the lane is full of nettles and brambles. This is where the fruit is.  I'm hoping we will get some new neighbours soon who will look after their plots as the council do an inspection at this time of year. It would be nice to have some neighbours who we can chat with and who will keep their plots looking reasonably tidy. Whoever takes them on will have a difficult job on as they have been allowed to get into a really bad state.

Picking blackberries always makes me think of autumn. It's the time of year coming up to late summer when we start to harvest a lot of our allotment crops and down on our plot we are getting some good harvests. Our jobs when we go to the plot are more about watering the greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers and picking fruit, vegetables and flowers. If we have any time to spare after that we try to catch up on weeding.

With all the rain we have had recently not much work has been done and we have been dodging the showers. But on better days we've been able to get back to doing important jobs. I have cut down the pea and broad bean plants and weeded the bed. I also pulled up all the onions and put them to dry out in the cold frames. There were an awful lot of weeds in that bed which also has leeks in it. So I spent some time last week weeding them all out.

When I planted up the brassica bed months ago, I noticed that there were some nasturtiums which had self seeded from last year, so I left them there thinking that they would make good companion plants for the cabbages. Unfortunately they seem to have become a bit over friendly and run riot, taking over the bed so much I could barely see the cabbages. So the nasturtiums had to come out. It seemed such a shame to get rid of them as they were so colourful, but I managed to cut a lot of the flowers off to take home. I know the nasturtiums will be back next year as they drop a lot of seeds. Once they were out of the way I could see that I had a few cabbages, some Cavalo Nero kale  and purple sprouting broccoli.  

In the other cabbage patch next to them the cabbages and kale I planted early in the year are doing really well and there were no nasturtiums in that bed.

We've had a lot of courgettes, but I did plant rather too many, so it's been courgettes with everything for our meals. Thankfully they are are now coming to an end and I'm just picking little ones which are quite nice. Now the climbing beans are starting to appear and I know there will be a lot, there always are. In the greenhouses the tomatoes and cucumbers are producing good crops. I have made tomato chutney and soup and we have had lots of salads with chunks of cucumbers. I have given lots of my surplus crops away to friends and neighbours who seemed very happy to receive them.

The blackberries have gone in the freezer and will be used to make apple and blackberry jam and maybe a crumble. My daughter has a Bramley apple tree in her garden and lets me me help myself to the apples. So the rain doesn't seem to have affected any of the vegetables we've grown, but I do wish we could have some better weather.

 

  

After the rain, the harvesting

We've continued to be busy with allotment jobs. I've kept wondering when will we ever get to the end of them. The answer if course is that you never do, there will always be plenty if work to do. 

We have at last got everything in the ground for now which needs to be planted and sown. I am doing successional sowing with salad crops, lettuce, radish, spring onions, beetroot. I have sown bulb fennel again, although I keep saying I won't. It doesn't grow well for me. After planting  kale, purple sprouting broccoli and more cabbage the beds are full. I am looking for space to plant some more leeks in a couple of weeks.

The tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and aubergines in the greenhouses are doing well. There are plenty of tomatoes to ripen and we are already picking cucumbers. I offered a new plot holder down the lane my spare tomato plants but she didn't need any. It was nice to get to know her and her friend and I came away with two melon plants.  With two already very full greenhouses I didn't know how I was going to squeeze them in, but I did and I hope they will be ok. I've never grown melons before, so that will be interesting.

After a really long dry spell we finally got the rain we wanted. The water butts got filled up and it was good though to have a break from allotment jobs while it was raining. Now we are harvesting a lot of our produce, potatoes, lettuce, cucumber, spring onions, kale, courgettes, peas and broad beans. Lovely!

Weeding and harvesting

The allotment is looking very lush and green now. It's really rewarding after all the hard work earlier in the year to see everything growing well. I always have times of uncertainty when I start in the spring, wondering how many plants will survive or will they get eaten by slugs, will we have enough broad beans and peas
( because we love them).

The cabbages and Brussels sprouts are coming along fine. I planted some cauliflower seedlings last week and sowed another row of swede. I did some weeding in the brassica bed  which wasn't easy as I had to crawl on my hands and knees under the netting. I checked for caterpillars while I was under there just in case any cabbage white butterflies had found a way in through the netting. Fortunately not, and all the plants were looking quite healthy. It's surprising what you find though when you when you get down under the netting, there were some turnips ready for pulling which I hadn't seen before. Once I 'd pulled them out I could plant some purple sprouting broccoli and Cavalo Nero in their place.

We are now picking broad beans and peas and after wondering early on in the year if I had sown enough with two rows of each I know that was plenty. I have been watching the onions to see if they were ready for digging up and last week I pulled up one lot which we had planted in one of the raised beds on plot 10b.  The others which are on plot 8 are ready to dig up too and I shall be doing that this week. Most of the leeks were planted a few weeks ago but I ran out of space for the rest of them. Once I've cleared all the onions out of the bed I can plant the rest of these leeks.

The fennel has produced some good sized bulbs. The feathery foliage looks really attractive amongst the rows of vegetables. Now I'm looking out for some good recipes to use it in. We've been harvesting the potatoes now which were grown in bags.  The first ones we planted were Epicure and they have a good flavour.

Earlier in the year something ate the tops off some of the first lot of beetroot seedlings, we think it was a pigeon which we had seen hovering about in that area of the plot.  The second lot I sowed I covered with netting, but the first lot which were nibbled seem to have recovered and we have been pulling some lovely baby beetroots. We always have problems growing carrots as they get attacked by root fly, so we covered them with fleece and were really pleased to dig up some perfect carrots last week. Just hoping that the root fly didn't get the rest of the row whilst the fleece was off. We've also got some growing in deep containers just in case.

So now in August as I look around our plot I feel pleased with it all. There aren't  too many big jobs to do at the moment so we can have a little rest (not for long though!) and enjoy eating our produce.