Squirrellng away the harvests

Last week the weather was wet, windy and cold for the time of year. It was nothing like the end of summer and far more like autumn. It seems to have been autumnal for a while and, except for a few lapses when summer had fought back to retake centre stage, it hasn't been a particularly pleasant autumn. At times it has been reminiscent of Aesops fable about the wager between the North Wind and the sun. In our case the sun just hasn't put in enough effort and we have not been encouraged to make many visits to the allotment. Working in the cold is one thing, but battling against the winds and trying to garden when everything is wet and soggy is not enjoyable.

We did, however manage some time on the plot. There are things that must be done in spite of the weather so we took opportunity of any breaks in the inclement conditions, mainly to harvest although, Martyn did manage to cut the grass. It's one area that has positively thrived in the conditions, meaning this year it just hasn't had a summer break and has just kept on growing.

I've often complained about the number of ants on our allotment and in the garden. I've suffered from far too many bites, when I have inadvertently stumbled across a colony at work or disturbed a nest. I have to give them credit however, for one bit of good work. Cyclamen pop up all over the allotment and garden, courtesy of the ants efforts in transporting the seeds. The original couple of plants in the garden have produced thousands of progeny, many of which have found homes in the gardens of family and friends. 

We're at the stage in the gardening calendar where we are harvesting a wider variety of goodies.

24 August

Although we are still picking fruits, it is now our vegetable harvest that is taking centre stage.

Kohlrabi always remind me of a sputnik. We've been grating ours and adding them to our regular batches of coleslaw, but now that the 'globes' are larger we will probably need to start cooking them.

The climbing beans are now cropping in spite of their slow start. They are not as prolific as usual. Maybe, like the courgettes, they are not keen on this year's cool cold summer. Many beans will be frozen to use over winter.

Apples too are being made into a compote and also frozen.

29 August - Raspberries, Peas, Apricot Dream Tomatoes, Marjorie's Seedling Plums, Sweet Corn

On Saturday we set off for the allotment expecting a dry afternoon so we had several jobs lined up. I must have had a psychic episode as I decided to pick a few things before doing anything else. 

The All Gold raspberries don't like wet and windy conditions and quite a few berries had been battered and spoiled, but I was surprised by the amount of fruits that had held on for us. I've been asked several times whether the yellow fruits taste as good as the red ones. They yellow raspberries may not look as tempting but in a blind taste test you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I pulled peas are from our third sowing. They have probably proportionally produced the most pods which are also of better quality than the previous pickings. The rows are different lengths so a direct comparison isn't possible. I'm hoping that the pods hang on until they fill out, as I noticed some of the leaves are beginning to be spotted with mildew.

On Saturday, whilst I was picking, Martyn started on lifting one of the rows of our main potatoes. The variety Apache yielded about 21kg (about 46lb) of good quality potatoes. 

Apache

On Sunday Martyn lifted two more of our main varieties of potatoes - Elfe about 5.5kg (12lb) and Osprey about 20kg (44lb). We have several other varieties to lift and will be delighted if any produce a similar crop especially after such a poor potato harvest last year.

On Saturday, I decided to have a break from harvesting in order the lift the onions in our second onion bed. You may remember that the first bed produced a pathetic harvest. Most of the onions from this second bed, however had grown really well. If anything the bulbs were too big, the exception being the red onions which we never seem to grow successfully. We had decided not to plant any red sets this year but, you know how it is when confronted by items in the garden centre. I think it is definitely time to give up on them; we will just have to be more disciplined next year.

From bed 2

From bed 1 - both beds are the same size

As I was lifting the onions the rain started to fall so any plans to  do any more harvesting was abandoned, although, Martyn quickly picked some Marjories Seedling plums and an Earlibird sweet corn as we wanted to test whether they were ready to harvest.

It was and so that means another two jobs to be added to the ever growing list - picking and freezing the sweet corn.

On Sunday I pruned the summer fruiting raspberries and tied in the new canes.

We had a gap in the row of raspberries where one variety failed to grow so we moved some Tulameen raspberries from another part of the plot, where they were struggling to compete with some couch grass, and planted them on the gap.

30 August

We always have a least three vegetable based meals each week, and at the moment there are plenty of fresh vegetables to use. Although many can be frozen or stored, some need to be used much quicker. The courgettes are in full flow and many have been given away, others can be sneaked into all types of recipes including our coleslaw, however sometimes they form the main vegetable of a dish.

Included in last weeks' menu was a Vegetable Tagine with Chickpeas and Raisins. Whereas many tagines are based around squash, this one uses courgettes. I use a ras el hanout mix of spices rather than the spices specified in the recipe. I served it with giant wholemeal couscous.

Another of last week's dishes was a Vegetable Stew roughly based on this recipe with a variation in the vegetables used. A stew seemed very appropriate given how cold it was.

Apologies for the colouration of the photos but they were taken under artificial light and needed to be taken quickly.

Our third vegetable dish was stir fry, which didn't make it to the photo gallery as I forgot. I find stir fries really useful - as well as tasty - when there are lots of odds and ends of vegetables that need using up.

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.

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