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