Monday, September 17

I'm hanging on to summer

September seems to have fallen into a pattern with much of the things that I wrote on last week's Monday blog post still being true for this week.

Again the number of plot visits have lessened for more or less the same reasons. Until we have some decent rain, rather that the drizzly stuff that actually amounts to nothing more than a temporary dampening the ground, there is a limit to what we can do on the allotment without resorting to a pickaxe.

Again we have had a couple of days out and the photos that I took reinforce the feeling that autumn is but a whisper away. I know it is meteorological autumn but I am holding on to the idea that it is still summer for a few more days.
I mentioned last week that I sowed some annual flower seeds in an attempt to have some early allotment flowers. These have all germinated so it is a case of hoping they don't become slug fodder and go on to survive whatever winter throws at them. It may be difficult to make out the tiny seedlings in the photo below but, believe me, they are there. Maybe if you click on the photo to view a bigger image they will appear.
Also on the subject of flowers, a tray of small lavender plants have been hanging on for months in our garden greenhouse waiting for the conditions to improve, so they could be planted out. They just couldn't wait any longer, so I planted a few on the plot to fill gaps in the lavender bed.
The rest were used to create a lavender border in the front garden bed. Again I am hoping winter will be kind to them.
Also in the garden, in the raised bed in the coldframe area, I have sowed two lots of spinach. The varieties are Giant Winter and Amazon which is a smaller leaved variety. I was going to sow on the plot but thought that it would be more useful to have some plants at home where leaves could be freshly plucked to use in the kitchen.

We have, however, planted some winter onion sets, Senshyu and Radar and some Casablanca garlic in a bed on the plot. This had previously been home to some of our potatoes and so was workable enough to dig over and plant up.
We usually plant red onions too, but these rarely do well for us, so we have given them up as a lost cause.

So turning my attention to last week's harvest. Again, with freezers bursting, we are now picking as we need; that is other than for apples some of which are still being stewed and frozen. Hopefully we will also need to find room for some quince in a couple of week's time.

I picked our first aubergine from the plants living in the garden greenhouse. I'd like to say it was the first of many but it isn't!
We are still picking tomatoes but this is unlikely to continue for much longer. Although for a while now most fruits are free from blossom end rot we still have one or two affected by this disease. Various theories are offered up as to the cause of this affliction but all these suggest that how the plant is cultivated is to blame. If that is so, I don't understand why, on the same plant, only some fruits are affected and others are perfect. Sometimes perfect tomatoes even share a truss with a tomato that is affected. Can anyone explain it to me?
I thought that I had picked all the blueberries but I managed to gather a few more last week. We've been picking blueberries on just about every plot visit since 28 June.

The cranberries are now taking over the berry harvesting slot. Picking is a bit tricky as you can't always rely on the colour to confirm ripeness. I've found that it's a bit like harvesting mini apples in that ripe berries leave the plant without much resistance. It makes picking rather time consuming. On the plus side, birds don't seem to like them.
Another lot of potatoes have been lifted. This time they are Rooster. Unfortunately in spite of the dry soil, slugs seem to have found their way to many of the tubers.
There are still a few blackberries to add to our stewed apples but soon I'll have to prune out the old canes and tie in the new canes. Fortunately the canes are thornless and so the task will be painless
You may be wondering why the apple above has been treated to its own portrait. This is a special apple from our small Tickled Pink tree. You may remember that this variety has red flesh as well as red skin. It's very tasty too. Unfortunately the lack of rain has meant that our small apple trees have struggled to produce decent sized fruit. The one above is, (I should say was), a prize specimen, hence the portrait.




This week I am linking to harvest Monday hosted on 



Dave's blog Our Happy Acres


Unrelated musing: Just a little question. Have you noticed that fairly recently Blogger has started to indent the first word of a new paragraph? This seems to be a fallback to handwritten times when this was the correct format for the written word.  It was my understanding that this type of indentation along with 'sloping addresses' on envelopes was no longer used. This was to adapt to word processing using a computer. My question is, then has Blogger resurrected this convention. If I wanted to use an indent I could do this myself but it is annoying having to backspace at the start of every paragraph.



24 comments:

  1. I thought the pre-indent was my fault. It happened inconsistently. Next time I'll try to figure out why.

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    1. No it’s definitely some change Blogger has made, Jane. I’ll have to Google to find out whether there is a way to override it.

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  2. I have loads of problems with formatting in Blogger. I think it is mainly because Blogger (Google) doesn't like Internet Explorer and wants you to use Google Chrome. The worst feature is that Blogger has a mind of its own when it comes to inserting line-breaks or spare lines. I have to edit them out in the HTML view. Nice apples, btw!

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    1. I use Google Chrome Mark and it’s the same . I have to use HTML when Blogger insists on refusing to justify my text.

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  3. Yes, Sue this apple deserves its portrait :-)
    I've seen small seeds sprouted on your bed. Are they all annuals? Are they hardy to cold winter, not as our winters but yours are cold too. I like to pick up cranberries in the woods, of course. They lie at home and ripen in time.
    Happy new week!

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    1. They are all annuals, Nadezda. They should be winter hardy for us as long as the winter isn’t too severe.

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  4. I've never grown cranberries but the ripeness indicator sounds a bit of how I judge the thornless blackberries. The ripest ones seem to fall in my hand, and if I have to tug too hard it isn't ripe enough.

    I have no answer to the blossom end rot condition. I do think some varieties are more prone to it. I don't usually have much of a problem here, but if I grow a new type that gets it I don't grow it again. I have noticed it tends to crop up more for me in dry years than in wet ones, where cracking and splitting usually takes its toll like it did this year for us.

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    1. Mostly growing inside our tomatoes aren’t as affected by rain or lack of it, Dave. Heat and sunshine levels would be the changing variables. Interestingly the ones that we have grown outside in soil haven’t been affected. Ones that my sister grows outside in tubs of compost are affected. It leads me to suspect the compost. I still don’tunderstand why only some fruit on the same plant or even truss are spoiled.

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  5. Your tomatoes and apples are looking lovely. It sounds like the fruit harvests in your garden this year have been prolific. I used to get blossom end rot, but adding eggshells to the planting holes for my tomatoes seemed to help that. Now I get yellowing leaves from magnesium deficiency when we get too much heavy rain.

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    1. The eggshells is something I’l try Phuong. Do you just crush them and mix them in and about how many for one plant or growbag?

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  6. That tub of apples looks very appetising. I've no suggestions about the blossom end rot but I've had similar experiences where it only affects some of the tomatoes on a particular plant. I don't seem to have had any problems with my paragraphs, or none that I've noticed anyway.

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    1. I wonder why Blogger had chosen some blogs to mess with and not others, Jo? Martyn has the same on his blog. I really will have to investigate further.

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  7. Your fruit and vegetable harvest is really impressive!
    I admire your organic crops!
    Greetings

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  8. Tickled Pink is a fun name for an apple, but the ones in the photo above that look really lovely. I wish I was chomping on one right now!

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    1. Tickled Pink has a posh name too, Belinda - Baya Marisa but the former is easier to remember.

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  9. Looks like you're getting a nice harvest despite the dry conditions. I am envious of your cranberries!

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    1. All the work watering seems to have saved the day Shawn Ann. Looking forward to a rest now,

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  10. Your Rooster report set off alarm bells with me as this is my main crop variety. Since then I have dug up a third of the crop. There is more damage than in the past but happily not too much. The size is not too bad - about half would be big enough for baked potatoes - so I am not complaining. The odd thing is that those that have been tunnelled have frequently been colonised by millipedes! It seems that the soil and the conditions do favour different varieties. Rooster works for me!

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    1. It’s always difficult to recommend varieties of potatoes for that reason, Mal. We won’t rule out any variety based on this years results. Nothing was lurking in the holes in our potatoes.

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  11. We've had rain for a couple of weeks now, the difference it makes! Hope you get some soon, wow....that apple deserves the spotlight! I see your annuals, little rows of green, lovely. Another fantastic harvest too...xxx

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    1. It always seems wetter on your side of the Pennines, Dina. We get the shelter belt effect. Once we start with downpours chances are that they won’t stop.

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