The Quest for Water

So today Oscar busied himself with a job we've talked about doing for a year, but as is often the case, it takes a twelve-year-old to actually get on with it.  Since the neighbouring allotment belongs to my brother-in-law, and the lovely May does the watering for both of us, it made sense to open up a bit of the fence between us so she can get to the water butts which collect rainwater from the multitude of sheds they inherited with the allotment.

This water butt is entirely useless for collecting water, sitting as it does under a tree, and we've been filling it up with the hose so May had another source to draw on for the tunnel.

May emptied the butt...

... while Oscar opened up the fence and repositioned the butt that was already there, so now two butts will fill from the shed roof, hopefully, and they're both positioned conveniently close to the polytunnel.

The middle of September, and outside the tunnel I've got swedes to harvest (should I wait til after a frost?), parsnips, pumpkins, purple sprouting (not yet sprouting), runner beans coming out of my ears and leeks just gone in the ground.

Sunflowers have been and continue to be absoluytely delightful.  Oscar collected the seeds from one of the heads when they were ripe and swollen, and roasted them with salt in the oven.  Delicious snack, if a little messy spitting out the husks.

We've now pulled the remaining purple carrots from the tunnel.  They were a bit disappointing, and next year we're going to plant some outside too.

I'm picking daily tomatoes from the tunnel.  There are three main varieties - big not vey tasty classic looking ones, which I've been using for cooking and make a marvellous base for soups, stews and curries; gorgeously sweet 'sun gold' orange cherries, and small sweet plums which are quite delicious and I've no idea where the seed came from.

I've now harvested my grapes, which were exceedingly scrumptious, and best eaten fresh and raw, although I need some advice on how to proceed with a grapevine in a poly tunnel.  The last of my cucumbers have been picked and I have to say they were a fantastic crop this year.  Every one was sweet and delicious and so incredibly full of flavour.  Runner beans are a daily picking.... it's just working out what to do with the flaming things...Spinach and chard are the amazing crops which keep on giving.  Still perfectly lovely for cooking, I have a constant bag in my fridge which enrich soups, curries, nut roasts and anything else I make.

One August evening...

Beetroot!

Oscar dug for treasure while the setting sun made the sky beautiful...

And I picked endless caterpillars off the purple sprouting broccoli in an attempt to save it from total decimation.

Os couldn't resist pulling a parsnip - just to check - and it turned out to be a foot long!

Been harvesting and cooking and holidaying and working and not blogging... but the veg have been utterly wonderful this year, in spite of the late start.

This is how the patch was looking earlier in the month, but unfortunately I've been busy with work  and stuff so have not been blogging.

Since I've not blogged for so long. here's a load of self-explanatory photos, and I'll get over that allotment and do a proper report on what's really going on right now.

For the moment, here's what's been going on for the last 6 weeks...

Lovely carrot colours.  I planted some purple ones, but the yellow ones are mixed in with the traditional orange ones for some reason.

Seems like an awfully long time ago I harvested my French beans.  Not an enormous crop, but delicious and enough for a couple of meals.

Got cucumbers coming out of my ears!

A combination of club root and cabbage fly have been attacking my cabbage patch, along with the ubiquitous slugs,  but still had plenty of lovely specimens.

This is how the purple sprouting plants looked before the great caterpillar attack...

Right - not wasting any more time on this blog post when there is work to be done over the plot... will post soon about what the score is over there.

Courgettes Grow Faster than Appetite!

I am stunned at how fast my courgettes and sweetcorn are growing.  On Friday I popped over and there were none worth picking, and I measured the sweetcorn to be the height of my shoulder.  On Monday there were seven courgettes, two of which were whoppers and heading for marrowhood and the sweetcorn is towering over my head!  I've hardly had time to blog because I'm harvesting, weeding, maintaining the plants and filling the water butts.

There's no stopping these runaway courgettes.  They absolutely love this hot dry weather, with regular watering.  The plants are bigger and more wholesome than any I have ever seen.

Blimey!  Breaking news - sweetcorn grows over a foot in 2 days!

After a weekend it's dwarfing me!

Just look at the size of these grapes.  It can only be a matter of weeks before I find out how they taste.  Can't wait!

Oodles of tomatoes waiting to ripen.  The vigilance of snapping off side shoots seems to have paid off and the tomatoes are all visible and it's possible to get between the plants to weed.

Onions on the left are doing really well after a jolly good weeding, and amazingly some of them seem to be reaching a half-decent size.  It just goes to show that sunshine is the key to all great growing it seems.  The beetroot is next and then the swede which I've thinned out considerably.  I've never grown swede before so am quite excited to see them develop. 

The peas have been harvested and the plants pulled out, and I'm using the twiggy sticks that were supporting them to try and grow the pumkins upwards rather than trailing on the floor for the slugs to feast on the baby pumpkins.

The pride and joy of myself and May - the cabbage patch!  Looking fabulous, the cabbages are forming proper hearts and are so far not getting too hammered by slugs, snails and caterpillars.

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A typical day's harvest.  The carrots are getting less now, but there are still a fair few meals worth, and the lettuce leaves are finally thinning out as some of the plants have bolted and I've pulled them out.  I've got some new salad leaves appearing which will be ready in a week or two.

The spinach and chard is still coming thick and fast for cooking, although again, a few spinach plants have bolted and gone to the compost.  New baby leaf spinach is pickable for salads in the tunnel and outside.

I've harvested all the broad beans now, and although they were fine for cooking they were not great raw, so next year I'll make sure I don't sow the dwarf variety but grow tall broad beans like the tasty ones I had last year.

Next job - nag husband lots to whizz over the paths with his petrol mower.

It's a miracle! My broad beans have been resurrected!

Phoenix-like, my broad beans have emerged from the dead black flowers which gave a very convincing impression of being disease-ridden.  I had an inkling there was hope after googling the problem, and seasoned gardeners always seemed to reply to miserable amateurs like me by questioning whether they had examined the plants closely to see if pods were emerging from the black flowers. 

I confess to feeling a plonker after my last blog post, but am thrilled to see I've got a very wholesome crop on the way, and this gardening game is all about learning.  The plants are very different from last year though, only reach my knees, with beans tightly-packed on the stems, so am wondering if I've used a different type this year, or if it's because I planted them directly into the soil rather than starting them off earlier in pots as I did last year, producing chest-high plants.

Watering

We've had a long hot dry period here in Wales, which has been fantastic for everything in the garden, but has meant we've really had to concentrate on the watering.  Water butts are dry everywhere, and we've been using the hose to soak the plot and fill every receptacle possible.

We fill everything we can find.  We even filled a wheelie bin (not pictured) one
day.  We've since collected more vessels than this.

When it's as hot as it has been, getting wet with the watering is a pleasure.

Tunnel

We're running out of space in the polytunnel, so I've booted out the rickety trestle table and tidied up the tools so I can sow more lettuce and some carrots for the winter.  

Ta-dah! Space created!

The first tomatoes are appearing, and I'm still ruthlessly removing the side shoots so they don't turn into a crazy jungle.  I've spent loads of time weeding in the tunnel and transformed the tomatoes and the sweetcorn.

Before...

First tomatoes,
Oodles of flowers.

After!

I've been advised to trim the grapevine back to the bunches, and now the baby grapes are revealed I can see what a fantastic place a polytunnel is for grapes.  They are way ahead of outdoor ones.

Only planted this vine last year, so have no idea how the grapes taste.  According to the pic on the label they are green (will check the variety) but will they be sweet?  Or will I need to add home-made wine to my list of culinary delights?

I'm picking daily spinach, parsley and salad leaves, and although the rocket is flowering, the leaves are still tender and tasty, and the flowers have a nutty flavour.

The salad leaves continue to be gorgeous, but I'm aware they will start
bolting soon, so need to get a new row in.  For now though they are
mild tasting and tender.

Lovely aromatic basil.

I'd forgotten I sowed another row of spinach.
It's very welcome though, as the old stuff is
only good for cooking now and it'll be great to
have some baby leaves to add to salad.

Purple Sprouting

Meanwhile my purple sprouting broccoli plants were starting to go leggy and yellow, so it was time to dig another bed for them.  

Although this bed had been turned over in March, it was like
digging a field from scratch.

It was incredibly hot and took hours and hours as I had to
have regular breaks.  Once it was dug I went over it and
over it to try and remove maximum weeds.

And then it needed tons of raking...

Before finally getting the little plants in.  I added  my only
two butternut squash plants to the patch too.

 Peas & Courgettes

I've got a few peas in the tunnel and more outside, and although I know they'll never make it back to the dinner table, they are great for snacking on when working.

Along with freshly-pulled baby carrots, they are great for feeding anyone who gives me a hand too!

Oscar's favourite snack.

One day I'll grow enough so we can actually have them for dinner,

but for now they are delicious, sweet and crisp.

I have started picking courgettes already.  I am amazed by the way they go from having a few flowers to suddenly being fully fledged courgettes that need picking before they resemble marrows.

They were supposed to be mixed coloured courgettes, but every plant except one has turned out to be very pale green courgettes.  A shame because I really like the colour combination of having some bright yellow ones.

Only one traditional green plant, and I'll be interested to see if I can detect a difference in their  flavours.

Weeny baby pumpkin.  Every pumpkin is currently at this stage.

And finally...

Oscar cut all the rhubarb.  It was quite thin, probably through lack of rain, but there certainly was plenty of it.  It's now stewed, in a pie, with the rest heading for the freezer.

My favourite bit.  Finally relaxing in my tunnel, pretty exhausted with a chilled
bottle of cider Oscar kindly brought for me.  Bless him!