welcome to my little suburban oasis, filled with flowers,fruit trees and vegetables

Monday 27 October 2014

Picked this week - 26th October 2014

 For a while, I thought this was going to be a lean week - the tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and courgette above were all hubby brought home from a mid-week trip to the allotment...
fortunately we both went down on Saturday...


 more soft fruit..
 a bunch of spinach and american land cress
 another courgette, a bit small but I'd sooner pull it than it get frosted
 clearing more tomato plants
 tiny cabbage and equally tiny handful of broccoli
 better luck with radishes

a mix of various beans and peas

and this week's flowering 'weeds' - verbena bonariensis and love in a mist

Tuesday 21 October 2014

Picked this week - 19th October

This almost turned into one those 'cupboard is bare' weeks as I didn't get down to the allotment till Saturday - but when I did, I found lots to pick.

probably the last of the lemon cucumbers but it IS October.


spinach

a huge bunch of radishes

tiny cabbages - not much bigger than a tennis ball

raspberries, a few blackberries and a single strawberry

the last large pumpkin/squash - the green one at the top. Both of these should have made round pumpkins but I accidentally broke the bottom one off early and the top one which grew afterwards hasn't has time to grow big and round.

courgettes again - down to one cropping plant now

peas
french and borlotto beans. No more runners though
and a bag of mixed, ripe and unripe, tomatoes

Sunday 19 October 2014

Autumn allotment

 We're now at the time of year when most crops are being lifted and the ground dug before frosts really start.
There are still several sorts of brassicas that will hopefully grow and crop over winter - cabbages in the foreground, floppy brussels sprouts behind and, to the right, kale. Elsewhere we have more brussels, red cabbage and some broccoli. If everything grows,we'll have plenty of winter veg.
Most of the 'orchard' fruit has been picked - just a few apples left - and the leaves are turning golden, especially on the cherries and the mystery tree in the background. We've still to discover what this is as although it was filled with blossom this spring, it's still to set any fruit.

Monday 13 October 2014

Picked this week


It rained so many days last week that I thought that this might be all we could get to pick, but Friday was lovely and sunny so we managed to get a 'few' more things...

more raspberries, a couple of blackberries and strawberries







 mouldy peas

 Clearing the greenhouses so ... green tomatoes
 small peppers...
 red tomatoes....
 chillies and jalapeno






 baby-sized cucumber and courgette from the cold frame





 spinach and a few kale leaves







radishes








and a brief trip on Sunday, when this mixed batch of veg were found while digging up weeds



 and a couple of tiny cabbages were picked
and a few allotment 'weeds' - love in a mist and feverfew


Wednesday 8 October 2014

Picked this week - 4th October


The lovely sunny weather continued for another week - though by the time I'm writing this up, Autumn is really here with rain every day.

Lots of fruit to be picked again - in fact more raspberries this week than from any summer week!




The last couple of smallish pears






More dodgy-looking peas

Squashes cleared after Saturday's ground frost. The smaller ones have now been covered with fleece and netting in the hope that they'll still grow.







First leeks of the year

Tomatoes and chillies from the garden greenhouse


and lots of tomatoes again from the allotment greenhouses















Early in the week, I picked these two peppers, then on Sunday (worried by the frost) I cleared all the reasonably sized ones - and some cayenne peppers and jalapenos.







I also cleared cucumbers and courgettes - still surprised to have either cropping in October










Tiny cabbages





Some more seasonable crops - though sadly this is all of our carrots
but just the start of the parsnips
Both french and runner beans - though with colder nights I don't think they crop for much longer