13th September 2022 - Autumn Proceeds, The Rains Come But The Harvest Continues
The rains have come (or at least some rain) and the soil is wet / damp. Now is the time to see whether the potato idea / concept has paid off. Have we been successful with the potatoes? There was definitely decent growth above ground but that doesn’t necessarily translate into plenty of potatoes under the ground. Anyhow… starting at the bottom, we’ve removed a couple of the planks, now let’s take a look.
Picture no. 2, the harvest - that’s pretty good for the small area that we have uncovered. If that continues for the rest of the 4m x 1m x 60cm then a very good crop is on the way. There are signs that some of them have been bored into by some beetle / worm / slug or other, but plenty left for us too!
The next picture shows how abundant we are in these harvest days. Plenty of tomatoes left on the vines, but we are now concerned over whether we have got this dreaded blight. We may need to strip the vines of the tomatoes, ripen off what we can and burn the vines as we did last year. The good news is that we have had plenty of tomatoes thus far, and there are many more to pick, as can be seen. We’d better get the jars ready though because it looks like green tomato relish is going to be back on the menu.
The melons have been "harvested" and the ground cleared. To be honest, if the melon isn’t almost good to go, it probably never will be now. Pretty dark by 7pm these days and just a week away from the Equinox (day / night the same length) so we then enter the days of decay into the winter rest period.
So the melon pallets are gone, the rubbish is cleared away, the white door (future lid for a new cold frame) moved to its destination and things taking shape all by themselves on the new plot.
We have decided that this marked out area will be the destination for the manure (the years we get it). The front section will be for flowers and the bit next to the door etc. for vegetables. We can leave some manure on this area anyway, and distribute the rest across plot 1 and 2.
In the next picture a different perspective of excavations. It Looks like we are building a mosaic path adjacent to the small wooden cold frame box.
And yet another perspective of developments. The amount of ground available to weeds and thereby mow/maintain, is reducing as we dig up large sections to continue down the road of our vision. We are also reviewing the fruit possibilities for next year. The raised bed squares (4 of them) will be located where we want the trees to be (small fruiting trees, not huge ones). The raspberries and blackberries around the gooseberries need to be trained up stakes. We can sort that whilst we are working on tidying up these paths, once we get into winter and everything has died back.
A bit further down, you can see that the foliage on the other batch of melons is now dying back. I think the weather has put an end for the melons… There are some which look ready, but we’ll see how they taste… we can wait a bit longer. The cabbages are doing well under the net. Will they have time to grow into heads? The jury is out, but no problem leaving them.
The foliage on the potato patch has been completely removed and dealt with. It was dying down anyway but with the signs of blight and the potential to infect the tomatoes, we took no chances. We’ve also thinned out the foliage on the swedes which were getting infected with the white mold that has become prevalent on the courgettes. Otherwise the “Haven” is looking like a green paradise!
The carrots are doing well behind the white netting, we also planted another batch beside them. It is notoriously difficult to get nice straight carrots. We feel that might be our outcome again this year as the soil here is not ideal, some stones, a little bit hard etc. Next year we will create better conditions and hopefully we’ll get a more beautiful result. Same for the parsnips.
Looking upwards on plot no. 1, so much colour and abundance, wonderful to see. Plenty to harvest still. The red cabbages under the white netting have become monstrous. Cauliflowers are also growing well, although I think we’ll need to get them in earlier next year. A neighbour grew some huge cauliflowers this year that were ready in June / July.
Another view of plot no. 1 from the other side… we’re loving the abundance of dill, coriander and chillies growing closest to the camera here. There are so many green tomatoes on the plants that, given time, would turn red, but there will come a time (soon) we think that we might have to strip the plants if blight takes hold once more.
Roadside, check out the Passiflora! Remember earlier in the season we were wondering whether it would do anything this year? Well, the answer is right here. It’s almost completed its takeover of the second trellis around the corner. We have other vines to harness here including Jasmine, that are yet to establish themselves, we might need to get quite ruthless on the pruning next spring time! Those orange blobs are actually Passiflora fruits, however they are empty… we’re investigating! It appears that in order for these fruit to become "good", there needs to be another Passiflora near by for cross pollination.
Looking onto the terrace: abundant Marigolds here, but the Alyssum is now dying back… as are the Mallows. But they have all had a good run this year, a delightful show which the bees have absolutely loved.
Meanwhile in the polytunnel, there is not much room for us! A large number of peppers now exist but we fear little chance of them actually turning red. A little late again, we must start even earlier… possibly Feb. 2023. Plenty of tomatoes still, and if the Marigolds get any bigger we definitely won’t fit in there!
