30 September 2009 - Harvest shmarvest

A busy couple of weeks on the plot, aided by beautiful autumnal weather and punctuated by energetic communal effort on reinforcing our site with Council-donated fencing. Hard work from the various willing volunteers with just a bit left to do. We at last have made a noticeable impact on protecting our site - by ourselves.

N took some pictures last week of an artistic bent so they will be appearing in their own gallery in a separate posting. Meanwhile, we have been consuming broccoli (yes, still - even though most are now uprooted), cabbage (white and red and they are huge), beans, beans and more beans, courgettes, raspberries galore, corn (yummy when eaten raw - how sad that we have only just discovered this), parsnips, onions, tomatoes, chard, carrots and of course, potatoes. It is truly astonishing how much produce one small plot can supply.

We are beginning to do the autumn clearing bit by bit. It's odd how one day is broadly summer and the next - just by a hint - declares the beginning of the end. The courgettes have slowed down and are covered with downy mildew. We have cleared away one of the squash plants and its fruits for storage. The other is going great guns and has produced 12 offspring. One lot of beans is finished and we'll leave them up to get pods for next year. We've left the maincrops in the ground still but one of the beds is half empty and covered with good manure. On the right is a picture of one of our compost heaps with the leeks on top that we left to flower. When we pulled them up they had little bulb thingies at the bottom.

We're very pleased with the late sowing of runner beans which have been prodigious and the lovely apples about to be harvested. A triumph of hope over adversity. Also with the emergence of spring cabbage seedlings in - where else - the carrot bed, which we think we will make into the strawberry bed next year, as they are hard to weed in the Pagoda. We have cleaned and prepared the seed bed to accommodate overwintering onions - a red variety - and we are doing these as sets for the first time as an experiment. And, just to keep us on our toes, the old strawberry patch we think will be the new seedbed. This means we won't have to run the gauntlet of the raspberries to get to the seedlings next year - currently I have scratches all up my arms as they are very prickly.

What is so good about our plot is that there is always an answer to the question "where shall we put X". Often we come up with something quite unexpected (see above paragraph). Why should the seedbed always be the seedbed? Why can't the strawberries move? N is contemplating making a new carrot bed at the top where we now have green manure, rye grass. We are lords of this plot and we can decide - always observing where possible the primary laws of crop rotation.

While the summer crops are beginning to doze, the winter crops are beginning to look more feisty. The leeks are definitely improved as are the kale and winter cabbages. We think that we should be able to leave the few carrots in situ until needed, a lesson sadly learned with our parsnips, which have not stored well. It is at this stage that we realise that our winter crops do not include brussels sprouts which N loves with his Christmas dinner. We shall have to barter.

On the home preservation front, we have made another lot of chutney and pickled red cabbage. The neighbours have kindly donated some apples from their enormous tree so we will no doubt make some chutney - that's Christmas sorted then. The garlic is all plaited and neat and tidy looking, and has already received commendation in addition to the mighty victory in the Show. We endeavour to use our produce as much as possible, for example, in a beautiful minestrone soup or braised red cabbage and apple. Mostly we manage to keep on top of it and nothing is wasted which is the main thing.