Booker T and the MG's reform for......

........ Green Tomatoes.

As the slugs were making their way through my tomatoes before they had time to turn red, I decided to harvest them all today, leaving just the small ones to grow on a bit more.




I stood on the bathroom scales with these, and if you subtract my svelte figure from the total, there are about 6 stone of tomatoes in here. Or possibly 9 lb's if you prefer reality to fantasy ;-)
These are going to be combined with the mother of all courgettes, apples off my tree, onions from the plot, and miscellaneous spices as recommended by Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall and Aunty Louise.

Given 2 lb's of toms equates to 10 jars of finished chutney, it looks like I'll need to order pork pies in bulk from now on to use it all... which is nice :)

Goodness gracious great balls of ..... courgette !

Today was courgette harvesting day and after many weeks of keeping them supplied with water the boys have done good.





The observant will note that these puppies are 3 1/2 lb's each which should keep me in courgettey comestibles for a little while!

As for the rest of the plot, the cabbages now have hearts in them so should be ready to harvest later on this year. The tomatoes are still stubbornly refusing to turn red so I think I'll have to crop them and turn them into chutney if they don't pull their fingers out. The leek bed is also coming on great guns and looks set to produce a good crop in a month or two. Peppers? Well despite them being mollycoddled in the cold frame for about 6 months, the plants grew to a grand height of about 2" and didn't develop any peppers on them :-(. Looks like these may need a greenhouse to grow in this climate so won't bother with these next year.

That's neat, that's neat.. I really love those tiger.... tomatoes

A quick run up to the allotment to dig out the swiss chard which had gone completely rampant. The tops filled a rather large bag and went to the bunny sanctuary for them to nibble on, while the roots have gone on the compost heap. While digging the roots out I found a load of what looked like small plastic beads. A quick search on the web shows thes are slug eggs, which are now in a bed with no plants in it for them to eat. Hah !

The tomato plants are still doing well, but the tomatoes are staying green. With a bit of luck we'll get enough sun to ripen them up, but if not, green tomatoes chutney here we come. The picture below shows the tigerella ones which if you look closely have stripes on them and little bowls of Frosties at the roots. They're Grrreeeaaatttt !!!



The wood chips I put down on the rest of the plot have some weeds coming through, but 10 mins sorted those out which is a lot less than it used to be.

Too windy for custard creams today so I made a tactical retreat for a bacon butty :-)

The end is in sight

The far end of the plot has been a real pain as it backs onto the wildflower field behind the allotments and scoops up all the seeds blowing through and turns them into nasty weeds.

After weeding this bit for the umpteenth time I bit the bullet today and spent a good few hours hacking all the weeds down and covering the whole area with wood chips. This means that the fruits bushes and Jerusalem artichokes are surrounded by mulch which should a) stop them drying out, and b) keep the weeds from surrounding them. I also carried on the wood chip theme and extended this newly covered area down the side of the plot and also the middle that I'd not done before.


This now means I can concentrate on removing weeds from the beds rather than spending all my time keeping the paths clear.

The rest of the week, weather permitting, will be spent moving towards the front of the plot adding woodchips and removing weeds.

Nurse... I've got a swelling

The courgettes are now coming on a treat so I'm giving them plenty of water to get them all to end up the same size as this one.


I also got a whole load of cabbage and cauliflower plants from Louise which have been grown in plugs which mean they are big enough to fend off some of the critters that eat them when they are very small. These have been spread out amongst my old cauliflower bed (which contains very few cauli's) and the carrot bed now half depleted of carrots.

I also laid into the plot next to me and hacked down a load more weeds. The resulting carnage was then covered with weed matting and a slack handful of wood chips to hold it down.

This now covers all of the plot where it is adjacent to mine and extends a good long way into the plot to I don't get a load of weeds growing nearby and then hopping onto mine. This should mean I can spend less time weeding and more time growing veggies and eating custard creams.

Next week is holiday time and the weather is supposed to be good so hopefully I'll be up tidying the plot and getting rid of some of the weeds permanently.

Know your onions

Today the onions from the cold frame were moved into the old potato patch following the age old "crop rotation rules". The ones I harvested this year should last a while and then these ones should be ready just as they run out (fingers crossed).

A second bed of carrots were then planted (Autumn King 2 and James Scarlet Intermediate) where the peas and beans were, again to follow on from the ones that are ready at the moment. The whole of the bean harvest fitted into a single hand but having a word with an owd boy on the plot next to me, these might have been dwarf beans whereas he plants climbers which were much more successful. You live n learn in this game.

The first lot of spinach I planted all went to seed and died off so I've tried another bed of this where the onions (first lot) were. There's perpetual spinach, which should last all year, and "Popeye" which I got just for the name ;-)

This now fills the first three beds of the plot with the second lot of veggy comestibles.


The Chinese Gooseberry from my coldframe has also got planted out into the covered cauliflower bed as it seems to be coming on a treat. Apparently Chinese gooseberries are the same as English ones, but you want another one an hour later ;-)


The sprouts (planted by Harry, age 5) are also starting to appear. the small blobs you can see next to the stalks are what will be on the side of my plate at Xmas along with unfeasible amounts of turkey.


Finally. the courgettes I planted are starting to bear fruit (or veg... I'm not sure what a courgette counts as).



Finished off with a mammoth weeding session (I thought they were extinct myself) and copious quantities of lemon puffs and custard creams (cheers Morrison's who put these on Bogoff)

Spud U Like

Today I dug up the last of my spuds, sacrificing yet another fork to the allotment gods in the process. These have gone into a hessian sack (cheers Louise) to stop them going green until I can turn them into various spuddy comestibles.



I also pulled up a cracking crop of shallots and onions, filling a fairly big tub with each.





The onions on particular grew to enormous proportions.


However, to compensate for this, the french beans have put on a pretty poor show as the following picture shows.



Four beans per plant appears to be all I'm going to get from them :-(. Better luck next year.