Clearing up and putting to bed

It's that time again !! you know the time when the plot and the garden looks untidy, with dead or dying plants and it really all needs clearing up and putting to bed for the autumn and winter months. YEAH !! I look forward to doing this as it's a time of reflection and planning for next year.
My son moved recently and in the garden there was a brilliant cold frame that I had my eye on, sadly the elderly lady had died and her family didn't want it and left it behind.   So I have it now on the allotment  plot. I just need to buy some more glass and bits and bobs for it and it will be so handy. I love it.

We worked on the plot for two half days this week, pulling up plants that had finished, weeding (lots) covering some beds, moving my strawberry bed to somewhere sunnier and planting new runners and new varieties. I also planted a Victoria Plum tree that was in the sale at our local garden centre. It's in and staked and fingers crossed there will be plums next year as it is a mature potted tree.

The plum tree

The Cape gooseberry plant in the greenhouse has been very productive and I have had quite a number of fruits off it and there are still more to ripen. I will have another go growing another next year and put it in an even bigger pot and give it more room to grow.

Cape Gooseberries.

The chillies have been amazig this year. I grew about four different varieties, one in particular is VERY hot.



This year wasn't a successful year for the Pumpkins and squashes, but I have had some and they look lovely.

The Globe artichokes surprised me by having so many fruits on for their first year, but the hearts weren't very big and that's the best part for me especially pickled in olive oil and garlic. So I decided to not harvest this year and I allowed them to produce their amazing flowers. The bees love them and so do I.

And here is a photo of the plot looking tidy and although a bit bare there is still some things to pick for instance mangetout which is the second sowing and there is an amazing amount of spinach which is still producing tasty leaves. It looks even tidier now as the grass has been cut since the photo was taken.

That's about all my news for now. I know I have been a bit neglectful of the blog and my blog reading  recently, but we have been in London quite a bit.

I hope you have all had some wonderful harvests this year and if not ! Well there is always next year.

I've grown too much AGAIN !!!!

Last year I vowed not to grow excess amounts of veg on the plot this year, but I'm not sure how it happened but I have done it again.  Although it's lovely to share with the neighbours (which I did today !) but it all takes time to look after such vast amounts of plants. Trouble is I can't bring myself to compost healthy plants so even though I give away lot's of plants every year, I still have way too many.

I had a good harvest today and It's scary to know that although my fridge is full there will be more to harvest on my next visit. Next year I have to get it right !! how do you manage to just grow enough ? or do you also do as I do and grow too much ?

Here is some photo's taken on the plot today, it's all looking very lush. I dug up some garlic from the second bed  and this variety 'Cristo' is huge, it fit's into the palm of my hand.

The Globe Artichokes are enormous and growing like crazy.

The onions are growing well, they looked like blades of grass when I put them in as I grew them from seed.

I have lots of  self seeded Sunflowers and Calendulas, all brightening up the plot

The pumpkin and squashes are in

The Spinach has been amazing, but is slowly going to seed now so I have sown some more today.

The Runner beans and French beans have now reached the top of the wigwams and are all in flower.

The Tayberry has quite a few fruits now and I have been eating some for a couple of days.

The gooseberries have loads of fruit, the green ones are huge and the red ones are just turning from green to red and are delicious.

I am growing Cape Gooseberries in the greenhouse and this one is really getting big now and has quite a few fruits forming

And finally  here is the Broad beans, Mangetout, and Calabrese that I harvest today. I haven't grown calabrese before and I am so pleased with it as the heads have grown so big over the last week, I will definitely grow it every year.

It's been an amazing year so far, and there is so much more to come. All the potatoes are dug up now as I only grew first earlies. I will post the results on the varieties soon, as they were unusual  and I haven't grown them before.

A Taste of Autumn at RHS Wisley

On Friday we went to the Autumn festival at RHS Wisley. It wasn't as good as I expected it to be, but it was a lovely sunny day and the grounds at Wisley were showing all the beautiful  autumnal colours, and also  signs of the severe frosts we had recently, lots of plants were blackened by the frost just as mine were at home in the garden, especially my dahlias which have now all been lifted and drying off to store over winter.

It was heaven there for 'Foodies' as most of the stalls were food. There was cheeses, pickles, jams, wine, cordials, oils, and lot's more, all delicious (well I had to have a free taster !!) and not the usual supermarket buys. I'm not sure I would go again, but as we were passing to go to my son's anyway we thought we would go and see what the festival was like.

We visit Wisley often as I am a member of the RHS and I do love it there.  The shop and garden centre are both so good with lots of wonderful gift ideas at this time of year. The restaurants ( there are a couple of them) are also very good value and the portions are very generous.



There were lots of apples



Stripey English Apples, I have never seen these before !!

Beautiful Seeds

Fabulous Pumpkins, some I've never seen before and now want to grow next year



Chillies and Onions





Beautiful Chard

 

Lovely Pink berries



Globe artichokes, these are on my 'must grow next year' list.



Some advice from RHS on how to grow artichokes

Lovely Free leaf mould.

Well the weather here wasn't too bad today, we had some drizzly rainy spells but they didn't last long so I was able to get up to the allotment to do a couple of jobs .

I looked on our local 'Freecycle' website and someone was offering 30 box plants that they had pulled up from their front garden which once formed a hedge. I went along and collected only six as they were larger than I imagined, some up to 2 feet wide and 2-3 feet high. We (Austin helped me) planted them along our boundary border on the allotment, so I now have a full grown box hedge, some parts are a bit bare but hopefully will grown again. The roots are very good and I added blood, fish and bone, plus manure to the planting holes, which should help them settle in and grow in their new home.

We then emptied the leaf mould bins that we had put all the leaves in from last Autumn and it was the most amazing lovely black crumbly stuff you have ever seen. It has made an enormous green garden bag of the lovely leaf mould. It should have been watered a bit more often during the summer, as there were some leaves that hadn't rotted enough nearer to the top, so I will leave it all in the bag for a bit longer. I also have two sackfuls at home in the garden which are doing well.

I collected two more bagfuls of leaves the other day and intend to collect more over then next few weeks. There are masses of leaves all over to housing estate which the allotment backs onto, lovely free leaf compost.

It's hard to imagine that this pile of leaves will turn into the lovely stuff below.

Lovely free leaf mould.

The curd that never got made !!

I was very disappointed this evening as I had gathered everything I needed to make some pumpkin and ginger curd, but although the pumpkin (pictured) looks ripe enough and sounded hollow when tapped (supposedly a sure sign it's ripe !!) when I cut it open to roast it it was quite green looking near the skin. I de-seeded it and got the pumpkin cut into quarters anyway, and proceeded to bake it until the flesh was soft, but it really didn't look good and had a greenish tinge, SO into the bin it went and no curd got made today. I'm hoping the other pumpkins are ripe enough. I would love to know why this one wasn't.



Some chillies have dried for winter use. I have lots more drying, they look so colourful.

Pumpkin weigh in

I finally got around to weighing my Pumpkin today and here is the result :-

2 stone 2 lbs
29. 8 lbs
13. 5 Kilos

I set the scales in stones, then lbs and also kilo's, just to cover every ones method of weight.
It is much bigger than last years pumpkin.

The Pumpkin and Squashes are now all stored in the garage, and I will be using them for soups and pumpkin pie soon. I also have a recipe for pumpkin and ginger curd which sound lovely.



I have some Ivy growing up and along a fence in the garden and it is covered in the blossom that Ivies get around this time of year and it was covered in bees, wasps and butterflies today. The noise of them all buzzing was really loud, just as well I am not bothered by wasps and bees as it would have been quite scary



We went up to the allotment today, it was such a lovely day and there was quite a few jobs to be done. I removed the netting from the purple sprouting broccoli and weeded the bed, took off the lower leaves that had been munched by caterpillars, although I only found one. I added some blood, fish and bone to the area and some of the compost from our own compost bin and covered it all with netting again, it all looks good. The brussel sprouts are coming on, I can see the tiny sprouts forming up the stems.

I planted two box shrubs along my boundary and have taken lots of cuttings (which have taken root successfully) to add to the border next year as I want a box hedge to border my boundary on one side. I also dug a new flower bed on the other side of the plot.

This evening I made some Blackberry Curd with some berries that were in the freezer for months and I didn't want to waste them. The Raspberry Curd was such a success that I thought I would give other fruits a go as well. Mmmm next year Blueberry Curd, Red Gooseberry curd. I am really into Curds ( can you tell ? ) especially stirred into plain yogurt, delicious.

A long overdue update

It's over a week since I last did a post and seeing as I spent part of today working on the allotment, I thought I would share some photo's of the plot. Austin helped me dig over my two largest beds, one where the pumpkin and squashes were growing and in the other bed the french and runner beans were. As we cleared the beds and weeded, we covered the ground with black plastic to smother any weeds that had any thoughts of sneaking up on me over the winter.

I have to say I lose interest at this time of year, it happened last year around this time as well, but come the spring my enthusiasm will return. I still have the following growing : curly Kale, perpetual spinach, parsnips, beetroots, Florence fennel (which are swelling nicely) and a couple of cabbages. Oh and purple sprouting broccoli and brussel sprouts, but they have to grow through the winter and hopefully we will have some sprouts for Christmas.

The best thing I ever did was grow so many flowers up there because it's so colourful and many flowers still have lots of buds to open for a while yet. I have stored all the squashes and the pumpkin in the greenhouse, where I also have more little chillies growing, in fact lot's of little chillies !

I must get that Pumpkin weighed ! it was very heavy.

The 'Pink Giraffe' Dahlia is still a lovely sight, I have three up on the plot.

Dahlias and Echinacea, grown from seed this year and still looking lovely

Covering the beds for winter.

Clearing the beds, and planning for next year.

Not so tidy, but still lots of colour.

Florence Fennel, almost ready to harvest.

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My hydrangea from the garden. faded and looking delicate and so pretty

The colour from the front, such delicate colours as they age and fade.

Colours from behind, a nice minty green, I like this better.

I have actually been spending more time working on the garden than the allotment just recently. I have widened a couple of my borders so I can plant more annual flowers such as Cosmos, I bought a packet of seeds recently that are double flowering and they look stunning, so can't wait to sow them next year. The borders already have lot's of perennials, so I thought it would be nice to add some annuals as well, especially cornflowers which looked really nice with the colours of the Cosmos this year. We also cut down a couple of large shrubs which were old and very woody, we now have to try and get the roots out.

That's about all for this update. I hope you are all enjoying your gardens and allotments and getting on with the preparations for the winter months. The best thing is the planning for next year, and looking through the seed catalogues deciding what to grow next.