Another month with a little more unintentional neglect than would have been ideal - with the Great British Beer Festival taking up the first 10 days of the month for us. Once again Mum stepped into the breach as hose-wielder, and as a result combined with some unseasonably heavy rain showers relatively little damage was done this time.
The main harvest for most of the month has continued to be beans - both the runners and the yellow bush beans have cropped marvellously this year - after a slow start in the case of the runners - and most meals through the month seem to have come with some form of beany element, with the freezer being plentifully loaded with lots more to see us into the winter months too. That's one of the best things about having the ability to grow or forage stuff to feed ourselves - the knowledge that spring's effort and summer's bounty will be turned into delicious food to eat through the rest of the year - whether essentially "fresh" (frozen), or as chutneys, jams or whatever other form we're able to preserve things in.
Project patchwork shed continues - with the main focus this month being the area above the log store as once that was all done it would enable us to start work on the extended roof and side to the store - and that in turn would enable us to get the logs we bought in ready for the winter out of the shed, creating more room in there to actually get things stored away. Paper brick making has recommenced too now that the greenhouse is no longer full of seedlings - another example of work now meaning we're better set up for the winter months. There will be another blog post shortly about the log store, too…
On the subject of seedlings though, some sowing is continuing - with troughs of salad and additional herbs being sown this month and already poking their heads up. I touched on my herbs last month - but truly, those are really one of my main joys from the garden this year, all the more so after the essentially complete lack of success with soft herbs last year. I have been regularly making small batches of pesto - albeit not a "classic" version as mine uses sunflower seeds and Padano cheese - and those too are stored away in the freezer ready to provide joyful little bursts of flavour in pasta dishes. I do still keep a keen eye out for herb plants for "rescue" as well - with the supermarkets and DIY centres garden clearance areas being good for those. Generally speaking there is little wrong with them that a re-pot and a proper watering can't fix! The cabbages we sowed last month all got eaten - almost certainly by slugs and snails, so I am stealing a bit of greenhouse shelf space from the drying fire bricks to use for new sowings of those - I'm determined that home grown cabbages will be in our future! Hopefully being able to keep them off the ground will help ensure that they stay intact long enough to get to a size they can be planted out!
We're now enjoying a decent supply of courgettes - albeit a lot of the plants are a long way behind where we might have expected. The chillies meanwhile are clearly loving life - the picture above shows the “Bishop’s Crown” variety with vast numbers of fruit swelling. Those peppers I photographed last month are still going well, too - we've got several at a size where we're just waiting for them to ripen, now!
The tomatoes too are lagging behind and disappointingly don't seem to be fruiting as well as they might either - this could be related to the exceptionally hot temperatures we had earlier in the year which may have affected the flowering and subsequent fruit setting. That said, my little “Minibel” bush tomatoes are cropping prolifically- and it was one of those that gave us our first ripe toms, with plenty more still to ripen.
The other task that inevitably begins at this time of year is starting to make plans for next year's plot. We've decided that a shift of position for the "cucumber trellis" is a good idea, and following our successful growing of sweetcorn this year we've earmarked a suitable spot for that, too. The main bean obelisk may well move to the opposite end of the main bed - with the additional plants being grown up and over the arches/metal frames. I intend definitely getting some of the Tromboncino squashes that I know will climb over those too - I had planned that for this year but just ended up with different varieties. We've been potting up the sturdiest strawberry runners as we have seem them - so should be able to increase our quantity of strawberry plants for next year while keeping our current mix of "Sonata", "Cambridge Favourite" and "Elsanta" - and we may try to fashion some sort of stand for those too, whether by buying or building is yet to be established!
Robyn.
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