Monday, August 10

Lots of vegetables to choose from.

At this time of year, as allotment beds become empty we try and fill them with somethings else that is either quick to maturity of will stand the weather conditions during autumn or through winter.

We have planted some Safari dwarf French beans in the bed vacated by our early brassica plants. The beans had been sown in pots and planted out as young plants. Last year was the first year that we tried this and it worked well, We picked the beans whilst they were still very small and they produced a good crop.
Another bed that was vacant had housed our early peas. This bed will become home to our late brassicas. We have made a start by planting some Autumn Giant cauliflowers which had also been raised in pots. These will be joined by more brassicas plants that are on order.
A few weeks ago we planted up some leeks that we had grown from seed. Martyn wasn't convinced that they would make good plants and so he ordered some plug plants which arrived last week and were planted out the same day. The leeks that we planted originally don't look too bad now so we could end up with a plentiful supply. Better too many than not enough though.
Our second brassica bed is now producing a harvest and last week we harvested cabbages, calabrese/broccoli and cauliflowers so this week's menus have been changed accordingly. It's getting round to the time when we are overwhelmed with choice of vegetables and need to resort to freezing for the leaner harvesting periods.
Below is just a representative sample of the tomatoes and mini cucumbers that were harvested through the week.
The cherry tomatoes are picked from our Sweet and Neat miniature plants. We have several in the garden greenhouse They take a small amount of space - the photo below shows three plants growing together in a square tub. As you can see they are prolific producers for their size.
Lettuces are being harvested from the salad bed at the allotment as required. I'm guessing that the kohlrabi is nearly ready to harvest. At what size would you recommend cutting?
I pricked out some basil seedling to grow on as I like to have plenty of leaves to freeze.


Some of the potatoes are obviously not going to do any more growing so we harvested  a couple of varieties. We filmed the reveal and it is posted here.
3 August
We were pleased with our haul with both varieties producing similar amounts.
International Kidney
 The potatoes were clean and free of disease or bug damage.
Casablanca
For a few years, Casablanca has been a firm favourite in terms of production and flavour. International Kidney has yet to be subjected to the taste test.


The courgettes have now got going , although the yellow variety is producing very slim fruits, but I think that this is a trait of the variety - Orelia.
As well as continuing to harvest plums from our Oullins Gage tree, we are now picking Victoria plums although we are finding that these seem to have been badly affected by plum moth larvae. It's always a good idea to cut fruits  in half rather than just biting into them.
To add to the plums we also picked a few Mannings greengages.
8 August
The dahlias are producing lots of flowers. The bees especially like the single flowered Bishop's Children.

Not all crops attract the bust bees. The sweetcorn have now produced both male and female flowers.
The pollen from the male flowers is now ripe and the idea is that the wind will waft the pollen onto the lower female flowers. Of course we now are having a relatively still period. I don't rely totally on the wind to co-operate as nature intended so I brush through the plants with a cane to try and help things along.
On the subject of pollination, can I pose a question? Several of our blackberries look as above, Some of the drupelets in the cluster that forms the blackberry haven't ripened at the same rate as others. The paler coloured drupelets often shrivel rather than ripen, leaving hard dry patches on the berries. I'm guessing that poor pollination has caused this. Any other ideas?

Stay safe and healthy

This week I am linking to harvest Monday hosted on 

Dave's blog Our Happy Acres

You don't have to have your own blog in order to join in conversations. It may seem that everyone who comments knows one another but bloggers always welcome new commenters, after all that is how we all started. 

PS: It's not just our gardens that suffer from blight. Martyn and I are currently suffering from an influx of blog blight. It seems that it is the season of the spammer. One in particular is persistently targeting our and what appears to be lots of other people's blogs. Most are sent to the spam or moderation folders as we moderate comments on posts over five days old. These spam comments are deleted and never see the light of day but unfortunately some do sneak through. I apologise for any that sneak through and end up being emailed to those who subscribe to comments, Please do not click on any links in spam comments which gives these nuisances satisfaction and encouragement. They can track where click throughs originate from and will target a blog even more if they think that this is causing more people to visit their site.





21 comments:

  1. Absolutely stunning to see, i too have the same question about the kohlrabi? When is it ready to harvest - size wise.

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    1. We harvested a kohlrabi at about 12 cm across Shaheen just to try it out. We grated it and had it in a salad and it was just fine.

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  2. I can't answer your questions, but thank you for the ideas on crops to plant now.

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  3. On a small scale we suffered a similar sort of problem to your blackberries with our early variety raspberries. I would love to know the reason. As for kohlrabi the books always say tennis ball size (although we have grown Supersmelz which the seed merchants boast grows up to 8kg so this can't always be right).

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    1. This was something that I found out following some research, Mal

      ‘While blackberry flowers are self-fertile, bees are important for ensuring good pollination. Berries that have poor druplet formation are more common following cool, cloudy or wet conditions during flowering, because bees are less active in these conditions’.

      This seems right to me in light of the weather that we were having in July.

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  4. I can't wait to harvest the potatoes - I let mine go until September so that they can get a bit of a tougher skin for storage. It's like a treasure hunt when you dig them up but ending up with a nice large haul definitely adds to the satisfaction factor.

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    1. We’ve still lots to go at, Margaret. We try to bear the slugs to ours.

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  5. Great harvest, and the season is definitely heading into Autumn now with all the blackberries and plums.

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  6. International Kidney is an interesting name for a potato, and one I've surely never heard of before. I tend to let our kohlrabies get a bit bigger if we're cooking them, and take them smaller for eating raw. They usually oblige me with a mix of smaller and larger ones anyway. As for the plums, I'm sure I have eaten the occasional garden pest accidentally, but I would rather not know about it!

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    1. International Kidney is the name given to Jersey Royals that are not grown on Jersey, Dave

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  7. A delicious trough of veggies and fruits despite any pests. I sure hope you find out what causes this odd growing phenom on blackberries. Mine have done this from time to time. I have often wondered why. I suspect it is due to rain amounts. Please post if you find out. H

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    1. If you go back and read the reply that I made to . Mal, Lisa it seems it’s the effect of weather at pollination time.

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  8. Sweet and Neat cherry tomato is a great idea. Mine in pots usually get very leggy and large. I will check to see if it is available in the US. And oh those dahlias!

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    1. We like the tiny plants, Sue and have grown several varieties over time. They are great if space is lacking.

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  9. Looking amazing Sue! We like kohl rabi when it’s close to tennis ball size and still looks lovely like your specimen there!

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    1. We did harvest one this week, Belinda and it was fine.

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  10. You guys are amazing. I can hardly remember what I planted where. Meanwhile you plant, harvest, and replant. I always learn so much from your blog. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Thanks for reading and commenting regularly, Bonnie

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  11. No answers to your questions. What wonderful harvests, such a pleasure to see it all. You must have a gigantic freezer!Sweet and neat has done well, I must look out for the seeds.xxx

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