MY WEEK : 35 ( 11TH SEPTEMBER )

Hello all, another week slips by as our main growing season nears it's end. The raised beds are starting to empty now as crops are harvested and stored or consumed as you can see in this photograph, the sunny and showery weather is proving to be ideal for all those un-germinated weed seeds that are either in the soil or have been blown onto the soil from other plots that have not been cultivated recently, they seem to grow overnight.



During the week I was asked to show how my Leeks are coming along and here is the latest photograph of them, as you can see the rain has washed the soil around the stems of the Leeks now, you may have seen in my July video of how I transplanted them into dibbed holes without pushing the soil back around them which could have resulted in the soil getting in between the leaves of the plants causing them to be gritty when cooking and eating them. The stems are approximately 1" in diameter now and should put on some more growth before the end of Autumn, you can still give them a feed of Growmore now if you want to give them a boost, however as with most vegetables I prefer to eat them whilst young and tender rather than when they are older as the flavour diminishes the longer you leave them.


This year I experimented by trying to grow my Sweet Peppers out in the open on my allotments and I must say they have done very well even better than I have grown in previous years at home in my greenhouses, although they have not turned past the green stage they are still excellent in size, quality and flavour which is what it is all about. If like me you have a glut of them you can freeze them for use in cooking during the months ahead, you just de-seed them and cut into slices or dice them and pop into a freezer bag, they tend not to stick together too much so you can fill a large bag and only take out what you need, along with the Tomatoes that I have frozen they will make lovely pasta sauces.


I was also asked as to what variety of Calabrese I had grown this year as you can see it has done exceptionaly well, the variety is called TRIATHLON F1 from Edwin Tucker Seeds and as they say in their catalogue 'A late heading variety producing very heavy yields of deep heads with small to medium bud size. Vigorous high quality plants ' they definitely do what they say on the packet!!



As you can see from this photograph, after I harvested the main head about a week ago the plant is already producing a smaller head for a following crop.
Around the Brassica cage this week I have stripped the lower leaves off the Brussels Sprouts, Early Purple sprouting and also the Calabrese, this as I mentioned last week is to allow more air and light around the plants and also to reduce the amount of leaves that could attract more Whitefly.


The Cherry Tomatoes ' Gardener's Delight ' are still producing an amazing crop of sweet and juicy fruits and they are proving to be much easier to grow than greenhouse varieties , this is another crop I have in abundance which I also freeze whole to use as and when required for soups and Sauces during the Winter, as it is not an F1 hybrid I have been able to save my own seed for next years crop. To do this you need to spoon the seed out of the Tomatoes in something like an old fashioned tea strainer and run under warm water, you then gently move them around the strainer trying to wash away as much of the flesh/pulp that the seeds are encased with. You then simply place on a pices of grease proof paper ot kitchen toel and leave on the kitchen windowsill for a couple of days to dry out thoroughly before storing in an airtight container.




PLOT NO : 1



PLOT NO : 2


These photographs give a better view of how the plots are slowly emptying of their crops, the work now begins to get the ground ready for next season along with the usual maintenance on things such as the raised beds and fences and pathways.

Another piece of news to tell you all about is that in the near future there will be special links posted to some of my suppliers that I use and recommend, they will be offering a discount to all my website visitors who wish to order with them which will help you all save a bit more money as we allotmenters strive to do, I hope that you will find this useful.

Well that is just about it for another week, I have been asked to show my collection of Dhalias to you all again, so if you don't mind I will leave you with the following slideshow of the latest photographs of them all, until next week take care regards Steve.