Filling the Freezer

Spent much of the Bank Holiday weekend processing more garden produce!  Finally pulled the last of the onions / shallots - not an impressive crop I'm afraid - hopefully the leeks will do a little better.  Also dug up the last of the potatoes in the main vegetable plot.





Made up some more tomato pots, and used some of the glut of cooking apples we'd been provided with to make up some apple and chilli jelly.




The rest of the apples are chopped and in the freezer, along with a rather large bag of chopped courgettes, and 5lb of damsons that someone had given us.  Damson brandy anyone?

Green Stuff - One Month On . .

Time for an update on the Green Stuff . . .

The greenhouses have both been planted up now - here we have the main greenhouse, replete with plum and beefsteak tomatoes, cucumbers and some very small aubergine plants (hopefully they'll pick up over the next few weeks).




The small greenhouse (as well as the vine) has the cherry tomatoes and a few more aubergines . . .





Progress in the main veg plot has been mixed - the potatoes are on their way up, but the courgettes and butternut squash haven't really come on much - fed them today so hoping for better things to come.




Also planted up some green beans, a week or so ago, hoping they'll get going soon too . . . (decided against peas this year after last year's less than impressive harvest).





The onions (and stray potatoes leftover from last year!) are doing ok in the smaller veg plot, and there are some leeks to plant out in due course as well.



Finally we have the broad beans, which are doing very nicely thank you, despite a bit of a battering from the strong winds.

 A bit of sunshine and we should also have our first strawberries sometime very soon!

Bank Holiday Bonanza

Bank Holiday Monday was harvest day for at least some of our two major crops . . .

Firstly the onions - some were mega-specimens (like this one) - others that had been rather shaded didn't grow that big at all.  We did however harvest a fair quantity - here seen drying in the sun:







Next up - the potatoes - which I rather thought had 'blight'.





I'm informed however, that they do actually also 'die-back' in this way, so the yellow stalks and dried brown leaves weren't necessarily signs of anything very dire . . .

Had already started digging them up by then, so decided to lift half the plot, and leave the rest for now - even so this yielded an unfeasibly large quantity of potatoes!

We've stored some of the better specimens in a dark cool place, but the majority (which seem to have the rather unpalatable sounding common scab) are being peeled, turned into mash, and frozen.

More Growth

Said I'd blog something about the other veg plot once I'd weeded it - I've now weeded it twice!

As you can see, the onions are doing well - they're almost unrecognisable now as the rather weedy objects that we planted out back in May.  Some are larger than others, but there are a few potential 'monsters' at least.  A couple of potato plants appeared spontaneously as well - remnants from last year - we've left the two strongest in place to see what comes of them this year.



The peas have made a reasonable show, but I don't think we'll match the success of our first ever growing year - although I suppose they do have another 3 weeks to reach the 6 foot mark of that first harvest.  At least a few more plants seem to have survived into maturity - in contrast to last year.


Finally we have the green beans - we planted up a pot with the same variety we grew last year and they are climbing well.  We were given a bag of what we thought were a similar variety, but despite having a lovingly-constructed cane structure to grow up they are showing little sign of wanting to climb anything - I suspect they may therefore be a bush bean variety - well, we'll see . . .

Will confirm the bean situation, and just how high the peas did grow in due course . . .