Easy like Sunday morning...

It was a lovely Autumn morning down at the patch.

Having constructed a compost bin out of three pallets during the week, I transferred a large pile of compostable material into it and generally tidied-up the surrounding area.

We removed all of the weeds from the mounds where the squash and sweetcorn were grown and gave it a good raking over. The weeds were fed to the pigs who enjoyed them immensely. In this area we will be laying down some flattened cardboard cartons covered with soil to keep the weeds down and will plant our potatoes there next Spring.

Inter Alium

We planted three rows of garlic and two rows of onions yesterday.

The pack of 50 Radar onion sets was produced by Taylors and bought at Secretts Garden Centre for £1.49

These sets produce "excellent yields of mild tasting summer onions from late May. Particularly resistant to bolting. Superb when eaten fresh. Stores well into the autumn."

The Solent Wight garlic bulbs were purchased from Edwin Tucker.

This variety is a "superb softneck garlic, producing large, top quality bulbs. If the cloves are planted early, mature bulbs will be ready to lift and use from July. This variety produces cloves that have an exceptional bouquet, full of depth and strength. Kept cool and dry, the bulbs will store for months."

We planted the onions and garlic in beds that we had prepared by digging-in compost and giving a dressing of bone meal. It will be necessary to keep an eye on them and replant any that the birds have pulled out of the ground.

Squash

We harvested our squash this morning, including an excellent crop of large trailing butternut squashes Avalon F1 and small round squashes Festival F1.

There was one small Jumbo Pink Banana squash to add to the very large one we picked in the Summer. Added to these were four large round squashes : The two 'turks turban' type are probably Marina di Chioggia and the other two are likely to be Musquee de Provence.

Most of the squashes are being stored in the shed with the remainder placed on top of the kitchen cupboards at home.