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.

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.