Monday, August 15

A peach of a week

8 August
The berry harvest is in some ways slowing down now but the blackberries are stepping up production.
The canes are weighted down with fruit. Picking is a breeze as the canes are thornless and  the berries are large and juicy.
The Japanese wineberries, (I posted about these here), and blueberries are still continuing ro ripen and provide steady pickings.

We were disappointed with the gooseberries and the small fruits that had been left on the bushes had turned a deep wine colour. Out of curiosity I tasted one and am glad that I did as they were lovely and worth picking.
Maybe in future we should leave the berries on the bush for longer.

Yellow courgettes were coming thick and fast but the windy weather has delivered mildew in its wake so I hope this hasn't brought an end to that particular harvest.
Strangely only one end of the row has so far been affected.

Some of the potato tops had died down and so it was time to dig them up. The remaining half row of Casablanca were lifted and as previously were free of any slug damage. They are the potatoes in the box below.
The potatoes in the two buckets are Winston. We have considered leaving this variety off our 'to grow' list as it has usually suffered greatly from slug damage. It earned a reprieve on the grounds of taste and cooking qualities.
This year the slugs appear to have left them alone but some potatoes had small holes indicative of wireworm damage. Wireworms being the larvae of click beetle and not the thin orange centipede which often is blamed. See my post here.

Later in the week we dug up a further two rows of potatoes - Kestrel and Nadine which were growing alongside Winston neither of which had the same damage. It seems that Winston attracts pests more than some other varieties. It is the first time we have grown Kestrel which has produced some good sized tubers.
The highlight of the week was the harvesting of our solitary peach. We had been agonising over when to pick but had the decision made for us as the fruit was brushing against the branch from which it was growing and in danger of spoiling.
We shared the fruit and both thought it was delicious, so I need to improve my pollination technique to try for more fruits next year. The technique worked well for apricots so maybe peaches are more fussy.
11 August
The climbing French and runner beans are now in full production and so far the supports have stood up to the wind.
13 August

We have a patchy row of peas due to poor germination from which I picked a few pods. I am keeping another watchful eye on another long row that is loaded with pods as I want to catch them before they go past their best.







Our plums and greengages tend to crop every other year and this year is a rest year for them, however we did manage to harvest a few Oullins Gage plums which although a little bruised were delicious. There are one or two greengages that we will have to keep a watchful eye on and get to before the wasps.
One of our inherited apples which we think is Discovery is dropping quite a lot of fruit - much to the delight of the blackbirds - so we have decided to start picking a few. They are not quite ripe but as we don't mind them on the tart side that isn't a problem.


Gardeners tend to measure the year by key gardening events. The first ripe tomato is one of these key events. I can now report that we have joined all those who arrived there before us and have picked our first few ripe tomatoes, mainly Sungold.
We also continued to harvest a few salad crops from the garden.
Finally there are the flowers including sweet peas that didn't make the photoshoot other than in the full harvest photos.


Today I am linking to Harvest Monday over at Dave's blog  Our Happy Acres

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett

31 comments:

  1. Your photos are beautiful! Everything looks lovely and delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  2. More gorgeous harvests!! The potatoes are lovely, aren't they?--I always find
    that harvesting of them is the most satisfying for me. That's when I REALLY feel that I'm prepared for the winter ahead. I guess because all the other "stuff" is hidden away in the freezer. My potatoes are in the garage, where I tend to see them all the time. Anyway, to finish up this novel-happy harvesting and have a wonderful week ahead in the garden

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We store our potatoes in the garage too. Sue. We used to store them in cardboard boxes that you could obtain from the supermarket but they seem to have stopped putting them out for people to collect and so we are using brown paper sacks this year.

      Delete
  3. The Harvesting of the Solitary Peach makes a good title for a book!
    Lots of delicious looking harvesting continuing, and you are making me think blackberries would be a good idea in my patch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you do decide on blackberry, Deborah, make sure that you buy a thornless one to save yourself a lot of pain. Ours is a variety called Loch Ness.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the tip Sue. Yes, it's a bit of a bug bear as all my vines are actually wild ones and very thorny.

      Delete
  4. What a fabulous selection of produce. Those blackberries are astonishing, and the purple gooseberries sound lovely :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In future I will have to remember to wait until the gooseberries turned purple before picking them, Darren. In the past we have picked them earlier.

      Delete
  5. Those are beautiful harvests Sue! Those blackberries really are loaded, and the berries look perfect. Your peach is one more than I got, since our tree was hit with brown rot and all the fruit was spoiled.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even just one delicious peach made having the tree worthwhile, Dave.

      Delete
  6. Wow - your harvests are incredible! Loving all those boxes of potatoes and, of course, congrats on the 1st tomato of the season...always such an anticipated and delicious event!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It certainly is, Margaret is hoping for lots more tomatoes to come.

      Delete
  7. Incredible harvests! Congrats on the peach and the first tomatoes. Those berries, as usual, are to be envied.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Congrats on the first tomatoes and peaches of the season! It seems Sungold are a popular variety. Those blackberries are huge! I imagine you will be eating very well this week.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Amazing! So many fruits and veggies AND beautiful flowers. Congratulations on a year that started rather depressing!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Love the photos Sue! Kestrel are good keepers, you'll be pleased to know and yours look a good size too. We struggled with potatoes this year on the new plot so I am slightly envious of your really lol. Lovely to have ripe tomatoes again isn't it? Kathy (aka alittlebitofsunshine)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is good to see the start of ripe tomatoes, Kathy let's hope we get plenty before blight strikes.

      Delete
  11. What wonderful harvests you've had! Love the shot with everything all laid out...such abundance! And your flowers! Absolutely gorgeous!

    ReplyDelete
  12. You were very well behaved to share the peach. I hope to behave in a similar manner next year. Lovely harvests as always and the flowers are just gorgeous. x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As we harvested together there was little choice. Seriously though not to share would have been a divorce matter.

      Delete
  13. Oh my! Another bountiful harvest, you have me salivating! So glad you got a peach, my poor peach tree died after suffering from leaf curl last year, hopefully you will get more next year.xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm working on a better pollination technique, Dina.

      Delete
  14. Very lovely harvest! Your berries always make me so jealous. And the potatoes too...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have plenty to make me jealous too, Endah

      Delete
  15. I'm always amazed by your harvests, so bountiful. The peach must have been delicious being your solitary fruit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even a solitary peach was cause for celebration, Annie

      Delete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment - it is great to hear from you and know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted)
I am getting quite a lot of spam. It is not published and is just deleted. I have stopped sifting through it and just delete any that ends up in my spam folder in one go so I am sorry if one of your messages is deleted accidentally.
Comments to posts over five days old are all moderated.