Cabbages are great. You just put them in the ground and then leave them for ages and they slowly grow. At the top of the plot I planted a row of ten savoy cabbages and ten purple sprouting broccoli, I put a net around them because the birds are quite keen on them and then I left them. Looking over the plot today I could see quite a few weeds growing around them so I lifted the net and weeded. That done I'll now just leave them another three months or so until they're big enough and ready to eat.
I also have a second later row of cabbages which I put about about a month after the first ones. I planted these under a net tunnel which is only a foot high and haven't looked at them since. There were a lot of weeds around them and these plants seem quit leggy and haven't really balled up yet. I weeded and have left them uncovered for now but I guess I'll have to something about that unless I want shredded cabbage plants and fat birds.
Tomatoes are still doing well but there's the sense that summer is over and the courgettes are slowing down and I picked barely a handful of beans although there are a few more flowers on them. A few raspberries and strawberries are appearing but they're never as exciting as the first of the year. The strawberry plants have put out hundreds of runners and there will be many new plants by next year which is good.
I didn't get to the plot over the past week due to the rain. Saturday was looking good until I arrived and the heavens opened once more. I only took a few pictures before it got too wet, then I sheltered in the shed playing Angry Birds on my phone until the battery died down. The strange shaped cobnut squash are getting bigger and sort of turning the right colour. Having left it a week there were quite a few courgettes to pick, two of which were more marrow sized. A few more patty pans had grown and I picked another couple of kilos of french beans.
Despite the rain the tomatoes keep coming, they're only small but I get a lot of them. Eventually the sun came out and I set about clearing the very overgrown main crop potato bed. I've still got loads of earlies but the main crop are ready to lift.
At the top of the plot it looks like the strawberries are going to fruit again. The main plants have sent out loads of runners for new plants but are also in flower. I guess I should cover them unless I want the birds to get the strawberries, and put down slug pellets. The raspberries are looking like they'll produce an autumn crop as well.
This is a squash from plant one, I've posted a few pictures of it's squash before. They're cobnut squash, a sort of butternut variety. This one looks pretty much as they do on the seed packet and all the others on this plant look the same. I've even picked one although we haven't eaten it yet. I had a second cobnut plant which produced loads of flowers but i didn't see any fruit for ages, then...
This appeared! In fact there are two of them, both already quite big they were hiding in the undergrowth, I found them when picking tomatoes. They are quite a different shape and colour to plant one, the seeds were an F1 hybrid so the fruit should all be the same. I guess I'll have to wait until they're ready to eat before I make any conclusions as to what happened.
Meanwhile it's not yet mid August and I'm already clearing the site. The new potatoes, broad beans and peas are all picked and I've now cleared the respective areas they were growing in. I'm not sure if there's anything I can really plant now that they're gone? It's strange having such gaps when only a few weeks ago I was desperate for space.
I harvested another half dozen courgettes, the plants still seem to be doing well but the patty pan squash have given up. I'm not sure why? I guessed they were pick and come again like the courgettes but perhaps not. I also picked another load of french beans, not as many as the last two weeks but still about 2kg, we still have many to eat. A few more tomatoes were ripe and there are more to come, we haven't had to buy any for a couple of weeks now.
Both sunflowers are now in bloom, they look very pretty with the nasturtiums growing around the base of them.
The hot damp weather has given me a load more tomatoes to harvest and of course even more french beans. I weighed them when I got home and yet again over 5.5kg! I can't give them away fast enough.
I have about five or six cobnut squash growing, not sure how long to wait before I pick them? I also dug up the rest of my early potatoes, I'd guess about 20kg of spuds. There were also as I thought a few desiree plants mixed in, the pink potatoes are much bigger so probably 5kg of them from three plants.
The cabbage and broccoli are growing under netting to protect them from the birds. So although there are a lot of weeds around them the cabbages are doing well and beginning to ball up.
Here's a view of the broccoli from above, the plants are a lovely colour with minty green leaves and light purple stalks. I've never grown sprouting broccoli before so I've no idea how long it takes before they sprout, the plants look healthy and are about 45cm tall I guess.
French beans in bags, about 5.5Kg of them! This years glut and I'm going to have to start giving them away as we have another 2Kg in the fridge already.
Not to be left out the squash and courgettes are still highly productive, about a dozen of each every week and there are now five cobnut squash but they will be ready a bit later.
The first of my sunflowers is in bloom, it's only about five feet tall a tiddler compared to some on other plots.
I also got to pick my first four tomatoes, there are plenty of green ones which i hope ripen soon in this warm weather.
Look who I found when cutting the grass! A common frog I believe, I don't know where it came from but as long as it eats the slugs I don't mind. It had very pretty speckled markings. He was only about 5cm long.
I also picked a couple of beetroot, one red as you'd expect but the other was white. At first I thought it might be a stray turnip but it definitely was a beetroot. Paul thought perhaps an albino one? Was it a rare specimen? Too late we ate it. I've also picked a lot of nasturtium flowers, they're very peppery but nice in salad.
