Guildford in Bloom 2009

We were very surprised when we were awarded Silver in the Best Allotment category, Guildford in Bloom 2008. This year we were a bit more confident of receiving an award and were delighted to be promoted to Silver-Gilt.

Our friends at Compton featured in the prizes : Mick & Sue and Beth & Mark gained Gold whilst Sue & David, Heather and Nicola were awarded Silver.

The incentive now is to go for gold in 2010 !

Mr.Mole

This pesky varmint (or one of his close relations) is currently creating a little bit of upheaval in our vegetable plots.

On the positive side, the soil is being broken up into a really fine tilth !

Compost Corner

We shifted eight large bags of compost this afternoon !

The compost was cleared from the bin in our garden and taken down to the patch where some of it was spread and dug into the areas we have cleared for our Autumn sown broad beans, peas and shallots. The remainder was dug into the area we have allocated for sowing onion seeds in the Spring and then covered with black plastic sheeting to keep the weeds down.

The last of the celery has been cleared away and left for the pigs to feed on. We have decided against growing this again next year as the returns are not commensurate with the amount of effort needed to produce a crop.

By contrast, our celeriac crop is looking really good and we will be harvesting this before the first frosts and then storing them for use over the Winter months.

Also looking good are the late-sown broad beans. The courgettes are still producing and the late-sown carrots appear to have avoided the dreaded carrot root fly. Cabbage, kale, leeks, winter radish and parsnips will remain in the ground to be harvested through until early Spring.

As Summer drifts slowly towards Autumn...

The crops on our patch at Compton are coming along quite nicely.

We have already picked Sweetcorn from the Three Sisters plot, the Cherokee Vale of Tears beans have full pods and our Squashes are getting bigger each day.

Butternut squash is the most prolific :

Winter squash Festival F1 is also looking good :

The pumpkin Marina di Chioggia is less prolific, but still producing some large fruits.

Away from the Three Sisters, our borlotti beans are living up to their name Lingua di Fuoco (Tongues of Fire) . We pick them when the pods 'rattle' and dry them for use over the Winter months.

Our experiment with broad beans sown in late-July has proved very successful. We have had no problems with black fly or other pests and are now enjoying tender young beans before the plants are killed by the first frosts of the year.

Lifting potatoes

We spent a late afternoon down at the patch in the September sun.

We checked some of the potatoes we lifted last month and found that quite a few had already gone bad. These were mainly the International Kidney that we left too long and had grown rather too large... the Desiree all looked fine.

I am now lifting the Cara so that I have space for our Autumn sown broad beans and peas.