Happy pickings

 As the nights turn cooler it's time to protect crops at the allotment, so we're now closing the greenhouse doors and windows, and popped a cold frame over the late lettuce - anything to lengthen the cropping season!
This afternoon though was warm enough to potter about in short sleeves - a great day to have just lazed in a garden chair but things needed to be picked.



 A lot of plants are reaching the end of cropping - tomatoes, runner beans, the 'bean' beans - borlotti, cannellini, red kidney - peppers, chillies, courgettes, sweet corn ..... all summer crops that won't survive a frost, so I'm picking them all as fast as I can!

 The sweetcorn has been slow to ripen but has at last! I've also picked some of the cobs as small 'baby corn' for stir fries - these had no chance of developing into larger cobs, and picking them might help the others grow and ripen.

Peppers seem to be the best we've ever grown - we've actually got a surplus right now. Although in a greenhouse, the tomatoes have a touch of blight so I'm now picking green ones before they're affected

cauliflowers have been disappointing though - this one looks good, but is barely bigger than a tennis ball 

 some of the lettuce from the cold frame - I'm pulling odd leaves rather than waiting for a whole 'head'

 courgettes keep coming, though a little slower now - and the weird curled up thing is a cucumber!

Out allotment is at the edge of the plots, next to a hawthorn hedge now turning to suitably autumnal colours, glowing in the afternoon sun.

A Quiet Sunday - perhaps...

After a gap of more than a week, we spent yesterday 'morning' at the allotment - and came home about 4 o'clock laden down with runner beans, tomatoes, courgettes, borlotto/cannellini/kidney beans, apples, pears, rhubarb, raspberries, blackberries, half a dozen plums, peppers, chillies, tiny cabbages and cauliflowers, potatoes, broccoli, radishes, blackberries, raspberries......

 Now I just have to work out some menus for the week to eat it all up!

More seeds to save.

 Following on from last week's post about saving my own seed - here's another!
I've been really impressed with the peppers and chillies we've grown this year, but can't remember what sort of seed I'd set - so I'm having a go at saving some. I'm not sure if this will be ripe enough but there's only one way to find out....





I also plan on saving seed from the chillies - for now though they're drying over the dining room radiator.

 I also harvested more radish seed - all of these pods came from one plant!

and collected some more flower seed; these thistle-shaped seedheads are from rudbeckia, another 'new' seed for me. I love the bright yellow orange flowers so hoping seed-saving works

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

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

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