Monday, August 25

Harvest - One potato, two potato, three potato, four ...

The tomatoes are steadily turning red or yellow but not to the extent that we need to freeze or use then in bulk. Not only haven't we grown as many tomato plants this year but those in the plot greenhouse have been disappointing with some plants failing to produce any fruit at all. I think a couple of poor quality grow-bags were in part if not wholly to blame.

Whilst the thornless blackberry crop is winding down the autumn raspberries are just starting to crop. The yellow All Gold is particularly susceptible to rain and wind damage so the weather needs to improve if we are to benefit from a decent crop.
18 August
The runner beans just keep on coming. Our freezer is well stocked with frozen beans and so Martyn has tried making runner bean chutney. 

We picked one or two Bramley apples that had fallen from the young tree on the plot and also apples that we can't identify from one of out inherited trees. This week's greengages are Reine Claude  and Mannings, the plums are Victoria.
20 August
After picking a couple of punnets of strawberries from the everbearing Flamenco we may have to change our decision not to plant this type of strawberry when we plant up a new strawberry bed next year. It may never produce many berries at a given time but a bowl of freshly picked strawberries at this time of year is a treat.


 
23 August
Another strawberry that earns its keep, as far as we are concerned, is the alpine strawberry. You do need lots of plants to provide a useful harvest so we use them to edge the fruit beds on the plot. I've just planted a new batch to refresh our supply chain.
The remaining Charlotte potatoes have now been lifted. They had produced good quality undamaged tubers. The row of Winston that were affected by blight have also been lifted and produced a reasonable crop considering that the tops were killed off early. 

Although Winston shared a bed with other varieties that had lots of slug damage, these tubers had only slight damage. It's fascinating that a simple creature such as a slug can have such taste preferences.

Harmony,  Nicola, Nadine, Casablanca and Rocket were all growing in a bed affected with blight early in the season. Strangely although this bed didn't seem too badly affected more tubers were spoiled by blight than in the bed to suffer badly.  Despite this there was hardly any slug damage and all except Rocket, which was a complete failure, produced a decent crop. Casablanca in the bucket on the right below, produced smaller tubers. As some tubers showed the affects of blight we will use these first as the lifted potatoes may not store well.
24 August


Once again I am linking to Harvest Monday over at Daphne's Dandelions.
Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett

32 comments:

  1. How busy you are! Great harvest.

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  2. It's interesting to see that you had such mixed results with your potato crop, but it does demonstrate that even if blight strikes you can still get some useful tubers. In what way was Rocket such a failure? Was it the blight that got them, or the slugs? My Runner Bean harvest this year has been "modest", so (unusually) we have not frozen any. We are just keeping pace with them. This week Jane found a few tubs of last year's tomato sauce at the bottom of our freezer, which was a nice surprise. We thought it had all gone. No new tomato sauce for us this year though; the majority of my crop has already been made in to ketchup.

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    1. Rocket just generally was a poor performer whether touched by blight or not, Mark. Very low yield and lots of slug and wireworm damage, Of all the potato varieties grown it was the worst. Maybe our plot conditions and soil don't suit it.

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  3. How wonderful to see all these lovely fruits!

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  4. Your comment about Flamenco is spot-on and it is why I am so fond of perpetual fruiting varieties. When I had a greenhouse, I would keep a few under glass in addition to the ones outside and nibble on them between April and autumn. They never had me running for the jam pan, but they provided an on-going treat. Your comments about blight are very interesting. Lovely to see those sweet peas!

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    1. Which varieties if strawberry did you grow Sarah? St the moment we have decided to plant a few everbearing, We may have to consider some in the greenhouse too.

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  5. You did get a lot of potatoes this year didn't you. Too bad about the tomatoes though. They must be really hard to grow in your climate. I got rid of my everbearing strawberry. It was too hard to keep the squirrels out of it all year long. But you are right. A bowl of strawberries this time of year would be so good.

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    1. We usually grow plenty of potatoes, Daphne - tomatoes aren't a problem to grow if the compost is sound but they do seem to take longer to ripen these days for some reason. We used to grow them outdoors but blight became a problem.

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  6. Wow! What a harvest. Lovely

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  7. Great harvest Sue. We have loads of potatoes which should keep us going for quite some time!

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    1. We usually have enough to see is through, Damo and only need to buy a few when the ones in store start to shoot.

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  8. Beautiful harvests - those apples look delicious! Completely agree with you on the berries. I specifically planted an everbearing variety for that very reason but sadly, it looks like that trickle of berries in the 2nd half of the season isn't going to come.

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    1. That's a shame about your strawberries Margaret - fingers crossed for next year.

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  9. Very good harvest. I am impressed with the strawberries you are still getting. Our ever-bearing are not producing much this year compared to last. Perhaps they are resting!

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    1. Fruit production can be fickle, Alain are they old plants?

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  10. I love your beans, long yellow specie. I have ones like yours but they are still growing and will ripen 2 weeks later. The apples are great and sure tasty! What will you do with them? Jam, juice or pie, Sue?

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    1. Most of the apples are eating apples that we eat raw Nadezda - we store them for quite a while in an old fridge. We do cook with some and freeze that for use later, we make pies and crumbles, use them un oirk dishes and side salads

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  11. How lovely to be harvesting strawberries at this time of year. We've still got lots of potatoes to lift, the ones on the plot seem to have done ok, no slug damage in the ones we've lifted so far so it looks as though we'll be able to grow lots there in future instead of so many containers.

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    1. We still have a couple of beds to lift, Jo. One hardly grew any tops though so we don't expect much from them/

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  12. Hi great harvest! How do you store potatoes once dug and how long would be reasonable to expect them to last?We usually only grow enough to eat as we go but this year we need to dig and store for awhile at least.
    Thanks

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    1. Hi Peggy and welcome. We store potatoes in the long flat cardboard trays that supermarkets get rid of - the sort things like lettuces are delivered in. The potatoes are covered with newspaper to stop light and then the boxes are stacked - off the floor in the garage - they need to be kept cool. They usually store 'til somewhere around the end of April when they begin to shoot. You are supposed to be able to freeze potatoes too but we never have - there are lots of links online about this.

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  13. My freezer is chock full now so anything I pick will have to be eaten fresh or bottled. The runner bean chutney I made last week (see my revived blog at A Woman of the Soil if you are interested in the recipe) it turned out really well and even though I know you are meant to leave it a few weeks I had some yesterday and it is spot on). The runners have practically finished now but I will definitely make the chutney again next year.

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    1. We have several freezers, Elaine. I'll definitely look at your recipe.

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  14. Great harvest, Sue! Your bean collections are so interesting!. I've failed on growing yellow and purple beans at the last season. I want to try it again, and again. Hope next I will be success.

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  15. That's a lot of potatoes! good harvest of vegetables and fruits!

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    1. The potatoes do have to last a while, Malar

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  16. Also my tomato plants are dissapointing. I haven't harvested any yet, and last year I was making tomato chutney at this time of year:(
    The beans look very delicious!

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    1. I don't think modern composts suit tomatoes as much as the older mixes, Aga

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