Harvest Monday - ooh!

Well, this Sunday was....sunny! In the morning at least. So I finally sowed my broad beans (scattered some chicken-poo pellets on the beds and covered with anti- kitty sticks. I'll probably add a bit of compost in spring too). I sowed about 80 seeds. I'll buy some seeds for spring sowing when I put in my seed order soon as well. In spring I'll also sow parsnips between the rows to make best use of the space. The parsnips don't need to get going too much until after the beans have been harvested.

I also cleared out my leaf mould piles (and bagged them up for using in the spring, lovely & crumbly) ready to receive this autumn's leaves. I'll probably head out at the weekend and collect up leaves from where they pile- up near-ish the allotment, hopefully before the council comes round and sweeps them all up.

And I made a start at weeding round my fruit trees and bushes, so the birdies can get at all the non- friendly bugs that might be hiding out in the soil there. I'll not do too much clearing in general though as our soil is v sandy and the nutrients will leach out with the winter rain if the soil is bare. Plus there's so much weeding to do I won't get through it all anyway!

And on to the harvests:

Tasty greens

Some little beet roots (that were where I needed to sow the beans) and a few onions from the shed

I used up a butternut squash (roasted, so tasty but only one left now)

 

And picked the rest of what was left in my lean-to greenhouse at home, as the cold weather would start to spoil them:

Some basil (and chilli peppers from the plant I brought into the house recently)

And some baby aubergines and sweet peppers! These all went into a ratatouille type thing (which was a tad hot due to the three chillis) with a couple of tins of tomatoes.

The photo is quite a small chopping board, so makes them look bigger than they really were!

And I made another batch of elderberry and apple jelly (8 jars) using the same method as last time except I also added some red currants for extra pectin. I still had to boil it for ages. Maybe the fruit is particularly watery and needed to boil-off a bit first.

So a much more productive week for me. I didn't get chance to dig up any parsnips as it started to rain (yawn, more rain) so maybe I'll get some this week.

Linking in with the good folk for Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions

 

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Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes

So I thought today I'd focus on toms. It's been a good year for me, growing them in the lean-to at home. I have 21 plants squeezed in, 19 of them have done well. Here's part of the lean-to this morning before I picked the toms.
They look a bit like trees because I've cleared the lower leaves to let in more light and let air circulate.

I have red pear and super marinade:

Sweet cherry:

Money maker:

I also have Craig and ??? ( I forget)
There's stil lots of fruit to pick but lots of the leaves have started to show signs of mineral deficiency so I cleared even more leaves. It'll also give more light to the other plants in the lean-to. I won't bother to feed them again as don't expect there to really be any new toms growing as it's late season and the evenings (and sometimes days) are getting colder.

I grow basil in the same pots as some of the toms, they're meant to compliment each other and basil is supposed to keep flies away. I only grow it in the ones round the edge as otherwise can't very easily reach in and pick it. I also grow it in separate pots too. It's been a good year for this too! I have a later set of seedlings I've recently potted on, so should get a continuous crop for a little while. I put comfrey and alkanet leaves round the base of the tom plants every now and then, it feeds them and also protects the roots, which I find tend to get exposed after all the watering over the season.

Basil - not my best specimen! But you can see where I've pinched out the middle out to produce more side shoots (and hence more yummy leaves)

Also in the lean-to I have peppers (chilli and sweet) and aubergines (aubs have only just started producing flowers as I was a bit late with my seedlings so not sure if I'll get any fruit from them). I also had a bit of trouble with my pepper seedlings so bought a chilli plant (it wasn't named, just 'hot') and two sweet peppers (also un-named) for 70p each. They've actually done quite well and have the first red sweet pepper and a few chillies. I do have a couple of my own pepper plants that are starting to produce fruit too but are a bit behind.

Hot pepper

Sweet pepper up on the shelf

And here's the tomato harvest! Plus beans and a courgette from the back garden.

Quite a lot of the toms are splitting but as I'm just making soup and sauce it doesn't really matter. I should def keep an eye on them more though!

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