Monday 5 October 2015

Harvest Monday - squashy and potatoey

Wow, what a lovely late summer / early autumn we've been having. Thank you weather, for easing us in gently. In fact if I remember rightly we had a bit of autumn in the middle of summer, so thanks for sorting that out now to even things up. Today's gone rainy though but we needed it really.

Ok, so some crops are grown to be productive over a long period - you can keep going back and picking more and more until the plants fizzle out (eg they run out of nutrients or it's just the end of their lifecycle) or the seasons change and the weather isn't to their liking. Here's a few things which have been carrying on producing this week -

Dwarf beans (though are getting a bit stringy) - I've had a few handfuls but not photographed them all. Courgettes and summer squashes still really slooowly pushing out occasional fruits. Some kale from a plant which carried over from last year. And a first for the autumn, hurrah, self-sown lambs lettuce that I put absolutely no effort into growing. There'll be loads more of that.

Chard continues too, but slower, plus runner beans. A few borlotti beans from the plot.....I still have the ones in the back garden to pick too. And another first (and last I think) - in the bag are some hazelnuts from the plot, but there are hardly any compared with last year.
Picked on Saturday, the blackberries are hanging on in there and producing some lovely late berries thanks to the weather.
And today from the plot. Everything's a bit smaller now. And I forgot to look for lambs lettuce.
Tomatoes from home. Look closely just above the bowl and you can see two of my little aubergines...there are 5 fruits now, ooh.
And some extra blackberries, foraged from the countryside. Jan's away for a holiday in the sun to get some vit D and relaxation with a couple of our friends - not my kind of hol so I stayed here. But the weather's been so nice I had to get out in the countryside, so headed up to gorgeous North Norfolk on the train and bus yesterday. ( I'll hopefullly do a separate post on this ). I followed a walk inland first before heading to the coast path....and my goodness, the hedgerows were absolutely heaving with blackberries. I knew I didn't have any freezer space or a spare tub with me (though I had some spare bags in case of wild plums) , so at first I just kept stopping and picking a handful to munch on the go. But then, along a bridleway, the temptation got me. These'll have to fit in the freezer somehow! And amazingly they didn't get squished in my rucksack, phew, that would've been messy.
Back on the plot, turning to crops that you can generally harvest all in one go and store easily for a while (though of course you can store beans, courgettes etc in various ways too. )
Maincrop potatoes - these are Setanta (not rooster, whoops). They're a lovely roaster too. I dug them up Wednesday morning and left them to dry / harden skins a bit during the day in the sun ( which was getting lower in the sky by the time I got back there, as you can see from the shadows). You can't really tell from the pic but they are huge potatoes from this row, it's quite interesting...I gave them lots of well- rotted horse manure at planting out time, and then my own compost on top to earth-up later (there wasn't enough soil to earth up from the sides)
Oooh, sunny
And my other bed of setanta. Here I just about fitted in two rows side by side, and also gave manure and compost. But the potatoes were generally a lot smaller here, with smoother skin (hardly any scab on either bed though, which is unusual for me due to the dry sandy soil). I wonder if the size difference is just due to the space each plant had to grow.....still, quite a good harvest anyway. I don't have a car so use a sort of granny pull-along trolley to move heavy things to and from the plot.
The squash plants aren't liking the cold nights, and as several of my butternuts seem ripe (sound hollow when knocked), I brought them home to keep in the lean-to. This is my biggest one and I wanted to know how much it weighed but I didn't have enough weights (there's a 2lb weight under there too). I just about managed to balance this lot, the result being just under 9lb! And the second biggest is about 7lb. Phewee. I think they liked the well-rotted horse poo.
Lined up on the settee - I sat next to them for a while, they feel very cold to the touch, brrr.

I have about 5 or 6 more fruits on the plot, though some still have a long way to ripen so I may have to protect them from the weather. I've got 4 of another kind of squash too, I don't remember the name without looking it up, and the cat is currently trapping me in my seat. It would be a shame to disturb her ;)

This week I'm going to head out and check on my other squash plants, which are in the garden of my friend's elderly mum, out in the Norfolk countryside....I'm quite excited to see how they've got on, it's been a few weeks since I was last there.

We have a new host for Harvest Monday - Daphne has decided to stop blogging - she was a great host, blogger and inspirational grower and preserver, so a huge thanks to her for all that she gave. I've only been taking part for a year or so but will definitely miss her. Her squash, sweet potato and carrot harvests were amazing too!

But our new host is Dave at Our Happy Acres, and looking at his blog he will do a grand job. I'm already in awe of his harvests this week!

 

11 comments:

  1. That is a big butternut! I love wild blackberries but I don't like picking them as much as I like eating them. That's a lovely haul you made!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Dave! Mm blackberries are one fruit that I eat a lot of whilst I'm picking, so a lot less end up in the tub. I have some battle wounds from all the thorny blackberry harvests this summer, especially when it's been too hot to wear long sleeves, ouch.

      Delete
  2. Blackberries, butternuts ... oh, envy. I had a terrible time with my winter squash this year and only got a single little butternut (better use it soon or it will go to rot) - yours look FANTASTIC! And your taters look very obviously huge in the photos so great job. I change location every year for potatoes to avoid pests but I think I picked a bit spot that was too weedy and my spuds came out quite small.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Susie, I'll need to use a couple of the butternuts quite soon, they have a bit of damage (one has a gash where I think I accidentally sliced it with the shears when cutting the grass a while back, oopsie). I'm pretty pleased with them overall though, my best ever squashes! All thanks to Daphne really, I saw her huge harvest last year and got inspired! (plus some late summer rain and good horse manure helped too).
      The spuds are actually variety Setanta, I got confused with an old order. They look quite similar anyway! I think the horse manure was the key to these too. Hmm, it's funny how different beds can vary so much isnt it. I'm sure yours taste nice anyway. I really hate washing potatoes so I'm quite pleased with the big ones, less to wash!

      Delete
  3. You have done better than me. I have found just one cob nut so far this year last year we had loads of them so obviously it was a better year all round for then last year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi sue, ah I was wondering how your nuts had done this year, I thought it was just me. I don't know what influences how many nuts there are, but I don't think I even saw many flowers or catkins.

      Delete
    2. We had catkins but few female flowers. Catkins are already forming.

      Delete
  4. You have done really well with the Butternuts. My plot is too shady for squashes, and the biggest one I grew was only about 6 inches long - maybe a pound or a pound and a half? I hope you have better luck than me with the Lambs Lettuce. My soil is generally too dry for it, and it bolts easily. It also seems to be very susceptible to Powdery Mildew - but that is probably also influenced by lack of direct sunlight.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Mark, I've been really pleased with the butternuts. Most of my allotment plot is quite open so gets a lot of sun. Interestingly, the plants in the shade of a big buddliea have been smaller / later so I can see how you might have problems.
      The lambs lettuce originated from some bolted plants (prob due to dry, poor soil) I sowed a couple of years back which weren't worth picking and since then they've done their own thing and are much happier, typical. So now I just let some go to seed each time to keep the cycle going. Luckily I have the space to leave some things to go to seed before other crops need the space. I'll keep an eye out for mildew though, thanks.

      Delete
  5. Seems like our weather is in snyc this year - no frost yet which is so unusual. I should try lambs lettuce as an little add in for our salads - no effort sounds good to me right about now! I tried to grow some land cress to add to salads this past spring without much success - although I think I did end up transplanting a few seedlings that I then inadvertently thought were weeds later in the spring and pulled them out - doh!

    That is one hefty butternut & those potatoes are beauties! I pulled the rest of my potatoes this past week as well and it's so much fun finding out what has been hiding under the soil all this time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Margaret, ooh I hope we don't get a frost just yet but you never know. Lambs lettuce is good as it lasts well through the winter and spring. I might cover some over to keep the worst of winter off, but our winters are nothing compared with yours. Ah, yes I've done that before, weeded out some crops, whoops!
      I had to use my trolley to bring the squashes home too, my arms would've given-out otherwise! Haha, yep it's a bit of a 'hold your breath ' moment wondering what's under the soil. I still have a few anya potato plants to harvest but their tops died off really early and then self-sown chard grew on top of their spot so I'm leaving them a bit longer. There might not be much under there!

      Delete