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!

 

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