It's unseasonably hot in London. The guy at the neighbouring plot said it was 32ºC and had been hotter on Friday. Most things are over for this year now, still getting green courgettes but despite the heat the yellow ones are giving up the ghost. There were a few french beans left that have now dried out, I going to try and keep the seeds to plant next year.
I've put them in a brown paper bag to store them over winter. I hope this stops them being eaten or going mouldy. I've yet again picked a good half a tub of raspberries, they've done so well this year.
My purple sprouting broccoli has flowered. It looks very pretty but you're supposed to eat it before this stage - oh dear. The first cabbages are doing really well, quite a good size and well balled up this year. The seconds are quite as impressive, I bought some more pegs to keep the netting down and make them bird proof, I hope they recover over the winter.
Cor what a whopper! A week away and the courgettes will play, came back home to two huge great marrows. I don't know what we will do with them? The green plants have many more courgettes to come as well but the yellow ones are giving up for this year.
I also picked my last patty pan squash. The plants had died back so I pulled them out to find this last squash still hanging on. I pulled out the tomato plants as well picking the last four fruit that hadn't got blight.
This year has seen a super abundance of raspberries, varying in shade from bright red to deep purple.
I picked an ice cream tub full of them and will probably put them in the freezer with the other two tubs I already picked.
The purple sprouting broccoli is beginning to sprout! It looks very pretty, we'll have to try it soon.
My cabbages are getting bigger and are also ready to start eating.
I picked most of the cobnut squash before I went away. There were two more barrel shaped squash growing on one plant when I got back. I pulled the other plant up as it had died back only to find another small squash on it.
It's the season for spiders and snails, hard to tell from the picture but this monster was about two inches across and living behind my watering can.
Last year I only picked about a dozen raspberries over the whole season. I was thinking about taking the canes out, they were something already on the plot when I started. I might change my mind now, not a huge crop but enough with more on the way to make it worth while having them.
Some autumnal strawberries are coming through as well. The plants have also sent out loads of runners with new baby plants on the ends. The strawberry patch will be much bigger next year.
I didn't have anymore french beans to pick and their foliage is turning brown but the plants are also in flower again so i guess there will be more beans yet!
A perfectly shaped cobnut squash, not too large but I picked it as it didn't seem to be getting any bigger. There are about six others growing altogether on the two plants.
This is an example of a plant two cobnut squash, a very different shape. It is a much bigger squash probably weighing over 2Kg.
They're quite pretty wen they are young green and stripy. This baby squash is only about 4cm long.
The undercover cabbages are doing fine but predictably the ones I left uncovered had been attacked by the birds, they really like cabbage. I've made a bit of a makeshift cover for them and I hope it'll do the trick.
I picked a few beetroot along with the usual courgettes and also collected a few more heads of garlic to take home. There's still an abundance of new potatoes before I get to the main crop but the tomatoes seem to have a bit of blight so not so many this week.
Finally the view over plot 68, it's been a good season in all and there's still quite a lot to come through the autumn.
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.
