Things slowing down

Things are slowing down now. I've picked the last of the runner beans, and the summer squashes are  coming to an end as well.

The kale has more or less survived the caterpillars, so I've got plenty of that, but I'm the only one in our house who likes it. Also, perpetual spinach is living up to its name and still going strong.

I'm also still getting a few seriously hot peppers.

Did I say I moved the Globe Artichokes? They seem to have survived, although look a little bit limp.

Next task is to start clearing away the beans etc and starting clearing the ground if the winter.

A few warm and sunny days

Wow! We've actually had a few warm and sunny days! 

This has meant that the straightneck and yellow (unknown!) squashes have come back to life a bit, and I finally got a few (very hot! peppers).

Even more amazing, sun meant that I actually got my wife down to the allotment to help me! You can just about see her behinds the beans. Talking of which, we managed to pick quite a few more today.

Also, I thinned out the few carrots I planted (they are looking good, but why did I plant so few?) and also re-planted some little gem lettuces to give them a bit more room (top piccy).

Finally, I moved our globe artichokes, as the were too close to the boundary with next door. We'd agreed to put a path between our plots to reduce weed-spill. They went pretty limp straight away -  I fear I may have killed them..

Cordless Strimmer

I bought a Sovereign cordless strimmer last week in the sale -deduced to £19.99 so I wasn't expecting much, but it's fantastic. As I've said before, I've got a bit of couch grass problem, but this allows me to at least keep it tidy. 

It uses little plastic blades, which work fine, and the battery lasts about 20 minutes, which is fine to tidy up the plot, and cuts a lot better than I was expecting given the price.

Start of Autumn

Well, it's been the dullest August on record weather wise, and the 5th wettest. Not ideal growing conditions really. The tomatos have been a complete failure, and I've only had a few peppers and  two small aubergines. On top of that, we've had major stormy rainy weather, and the small poly tunnel has split.

I'm getting lets of quite a few runner beans, but less than I would have done if it hadn't rained so much - we are probably only going to get another few weeks worth.

The courgettes are coming to an end, but I've got a reasonable number of decent winter squash to keep us going.

As you can see from the picture above, it's all started to look a bit tired.

After three or four sessions of picking caterpillars a seem to be winning, although the plans are decimated - have a look at the Kale below. Hopefully a reasonable number of them will recover.

Yesterday I planted some cabbage, cauliflower and sprouting that we got from a mail order company. I was pouring down with raining at the time, the sprouting has just gone into a temporary position, as I hadn't prepared enough ground, and the plants look like they needed some daylight, so I though I'd get them in.