Anyone for pumpkin pie?

Today we made a final harvest from our pumpkin patch. In total we have 33 pumpkins of 4 different varieties. They range from tennis ball size up to approximately 14 inches in diameter. We will be using some of the larger pumpkins to carve at halloween and the rest will be stored for soups, stews, curries and cakes over the winter. This year the female flowers seemed to appear very late in the season resulting in a reduced growing period for the fruits. Hopefully next year this won't be the same and we can grow a giant pumpkin!


We are ultilizing our new greenhouse to cure the pumpkins, along with drying chillies. Pictured below is a few of the chillies that we have dried. We will be using these to make some chilli jelly over the next few weeks.


In addition to harvesting the pumpkins today, we collected a number of marrows. The winds had done their worst to our giant sunflowers. The tallest plant reached 14ft and didn't fair well in the start of the autumn weather. The sunflower heads are drying in the greenhouse. We are planning to roast the seeds and save some for planting next year.


The final crop of tomatoes are ripening. These shall be used to make passata.


All in all our greenhouse is already in good use. Roll on the spring when the main planting season can start again.

Today at the plot we managed to put in 2 raised beds. More pictures will follow as we dig over plot 4 for winter.

Rich pickings....

Today we harvested this fine selection of veg from plot 4. The first of our pumpkins is ripe and the pumpkin patch spreads over an area approximately 900 sq ft. The 2 large marrows are products of our courgette plants, which are so prolific that they seem to double in size overnight. We have a number of summer cabbages. These are a pointed variety called greyhound. Our beetroot has been slow to crop this year, but we are now pulling good size beets. The runner beans, which were not ready for the show last weekend, are now long and straight. The cucumber was a gift from a lottie neighbour. I am hoping come next season our greenhouse will mean many cucumbers of our own.

Our new greenhouse

In order to make sowing seeds and potting on easier for our allotment, we decided to invest in a greenhouse. The greenhouse is at home, which makes daily watering much easier. We are planning to use the greenhouse to grow veg and bedding plant seedlings. We will also grow tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, chillies and sweet peppers. Our new greenhouse is 8'x10'.



We have decided on a format of staging down one full length with a large bed on the opposite side containing space for a large seed rack. We have used decking to make a permanent path and weed suppressant membrane and gravel under the staging to keep things tidy.

Allotment Show prizes

A chilli fiesta

Our chillies were sown back in the end of January/beginning of Feburary in a heated propagator. I actually planted a large number of varieties, but due to limited space ended up giving many away. The positive thing is I am, this morning, awaiting the arrivial of our new 8x10ft greenhouse - a great opportunity for a mini chilli factory! Shown below is a variety called 'chilli purple'. The fruit shown is quite unusual. It actually looks like a flower with petals. Not quite sure if this is normal. but pretty nonetheless.



Here is the last fruit from the 'ring of fire' plant. We have harvested approximately 25 fruit from this plant and, as the name suggests, they are hot! Judging by the leaf size this could have possibily been quite a large plant so next year I will try going these in a bigger pot to see if this will increase yield.


Here are the jalapeno peppers. One is actually starting to ripen to red. You are meant to harvest these green. Not a great yield, approximately 10 fruits on the plant, but again I think this would have done better in a bigger pot.


An outstanding success has been 'praire fire'. These are small bush plants and our 1 plant has produced up to 100 fruit. Again, these are hot! Small, but deadly!



We have a couple of chilli plants called 'peter pepper'. I won't post what they are meant to resemble!


The majority of our chilli plants are growing in the conservatory for this season, but we did try a number outside. I have had success with chillies on the patio as it gets full sun for the majority of the day, but chillies are very temperature dependent. Many plants look healthy, but have very few flowers and not many have set fruit. The plant to reverse this trend has been 'Whippet's Tail'. It might only have 1 fruit, but this stands at an impressive 9 inches in length.

Pick up a parsnip

Sparkly picked one of our parsnips last night. 73cm long (2'5") and pretty straight. Hopefully we can pick a couple more like this next week for the summer show.

Mid summer is upon us...

July is the start of the main harvesting season. Most of our crops are now in full swing, with many ready to harvest or well on their way. On Plot 4 the sweetcorn is doing well. It seems to have recovered from early wind damage and now has it's first 'tassles'. Hopefully in a month or so we shall be tasting our first cobs of the season.



The sunflowers are between 4 and 5.5 feet tall. Unfortunately, we got them in a little to late to be able to rivial or neighbours monster flowers for the sunflower competition, but they should be soon producing an impressive display. We are growing 2 types of sunflowers 'giant sunflower' which should produce large yellow standard sunflower heads and a variety that produces red coloured flowers.


The squash have really picked up and seem to be growing well on the black weed supressant fabric. Although the fabric is a temporary measure, this retains heat and moisture which are essential for growing good squash. The layer of manure under the fabric should be helping too!



We have approximately 15 fruits up to 2/3foot in diameter. Below is a immature 'hundredweight' pumpkin.


The potato patch has produced large crops of potatoes, with many left to harvest. Unfortunately, some of the varieties have sucumbed to 'potato blight' and since this picture was taken we have chopped of the foilage and will be digging up the crop over the next few weeks.



The parsnips are looking very healthy. We may even have some suitable for entering in the allotment show in a couple of weeks.



The beetroot has been under harvest for about 1 month. Even from a relatively small area we have had a good harvest by using baby beets from thinnings. Within this area there are a few turnip plants which are ready to harvest.


This season we are trying 'mouli' which is a japanese winter radish that is used in salads and also stirfry. They seem to be growing well and will be eaten with 'chinese cabbage' which you can see growing under wire netting at the top of this photograph.



The leeks seemed to have slowed down their growth and may be due a 'feed'.



The drawf beans have been an excellent cropper with 'purple teepee' growing with much success. The 'yellow king wax' are flowering and should be ready for harvest once the purple beans have finished.



We have a flowerbed on plot 4 and the dahlias are flowering.



Our courguettes are producing their first fruits. We have 3 plants which will provide enough courguettes to feed a small army!



Here you can see a 'perenial cornflower' flower. These seem to be doing particularly well in our flowerbed and are good for attracting bees, which in turn pollenate all our veg!



The bramley apple trees has well over 100 large fruits. The rain and sunshine has produced quite an early crop and we will be harvesting these during August.



On plot 9 our muntjac bean frame is supporting vast growth.


Here is a 'gigantes' bean flower. These are a variety of butter bean.



The runner beans are also flowering and the first crop should start to set over the next few weeks.


On plot 9 we are trying a variety of mini sweetcorn called 'minipop'. The plants produced are huge. Some are already nearly 6ft tall!



On plot 9 we are trialling a number of different 'bird protection' devices. Pigeons are a particular problem on the plot and they will eat anything green and tasty! The fleece in the front of the photograph are covering swedes and the net frame is to protect brussel sprouts. In between the canes with blue tops is 3 rows of beetroot. These will to provide a large crop of beetroot for pickling to use over the winter.


Here is another 'bird protection' method we are using on plot 4. These windmills are quite effective at scaring off pesky pigeons.

What's for dinner tonight?

This afternoon we harvested the broad beans. From a double 5ft row we managed to crop 3lb of beans.

For dinner we have some charlotte potatoes, broad beans, along with peas and baby carrots.

Measure twice, cut once... think first...

Today Sparkly set about making a frame to cover a brassica bed to protect it from greedy pigeons.
She has done a great job, but I have mentioned in the past that we prep things at home and assemble on the plot as I didn't want to have to carry it there.

I mentioned this, and got moaned at... but then pointed out the obvious...

It wouldn't go through the front door :)

Purple Chillies

This year we are growing a range of varieties of chilli. The chillies are well into their growing season now (planted in early Feb) with all varieties in flower and some with immature fruits set. Pictured below is 'chilli purple'.

Making a garlic braid.

Our first harvest of garlic (purple wight) has been drying in the conservatory for a couple of weeks so it was time to prepare it for long-term storage. I have never done this before, but I did a bit of research on the web and got a few ideas.

Firstly I prepared the garlic by trimming the roots and tops and cleaning with an old tooth brush. This is to remove any dried soil. I also removed the outer layer around the bulb to obtain a 'clean look'.

I then placed the garlic stems under a damp towel and left them for half an hour. This is to soften the stems to make the braiding process easier.


From here the last thing was to braid the garlic. With having an older sister, I have had plenty of practice braiding - I used a technique similar to putting a french plait into long hair. From here I added a string loop to make a stable system for hanging in the kitchen.

Overall, I am really pleased! This braid has 15 bulbs. We have about another 60 bulbs drying in the shed at plot 4.

It's full steam ahead in the growing season...

The climate of rain followed by sun is suiting many of our crops. The early potatoes planted on plot 4 are now ready. Today we harvested the first few 'charlotte' plants and the remaining 'rocket'. Below you can see some of our charlotte harvest.


The rocket are larger in size.


Earlier in the week I decided to 'bite the bullet' and plant out some of the chilli plants in the raised bed on the patio. The patio has full sun all day and chillies have previously done well in pots here. Time will tell whether we will get a good outdoor chilli crop. The remaining chilli plants will be staying in the conservatory.

The tomato plants, planted in pots on the patio, are doing very well. Shown below is an unsual looking tomato flower. These are a 'brandywine' variety.




Yesterday we also harvested our 'over-wintered' onions. We have about 30 large onions.

Elephant garlic

After a few days of rain it seemed sensible to lift the remaining onions and garlic so they didn't get ruined. We now have a box full of onions to sort out and dry, garlic drying in the shed and elephant garlic.

We only planted 6 elephant garlics, 1 didn't grow, 4 were mushy and stank when dug up... but we got one!

Here it is alongside a normal garlic bulb.