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So much for staggering the planting to help manage the harvest. Everything still seems to have come at once. 4kg cherry tomatoes every two days for the last two weeks, runner beans suddenly appeared, as did the french beans, cabbage (although somehow caterpillars got in) and now aubergines all coming at once. Kitchen going full time to make jam, chutney and sauce: sweet, spicy, pickled and fermented. Apples and pears not quite ripe yet but we picked the plums - now jam - when the wasps started showing an interest. Raspberries and blueberries still only a few ripe each day, but enough for desert. Rhubarb looks like a forrest but first year so not pulling any yet.
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Catastrophe with my outdoor tomatoes. Some sort of infection developed that was affecting the leaves on a couple of the plants and the very wet, warm weather hasn't helped. Recently spread to others but wasn't affecting the fruit. Then this week, fruit affected. Dreading it is some sort of blight, so removed all the plants and bagged them up. Salvaged what fruit I could, a lot still green. I'm keeping fingers crossed it doesn't spread into the green house. Bonfire of culled plants tomorrow.
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Not much activity in the garden this week with all the wind and rain. Mould is claiming more aubergine victims in the greenhouse although some still doing OK and harvested a couple. Butterbush squashes almost drowned in the rain - again, one half eaten by enourmous slug. In desparation resorted to pellets. Must get something more organic for next time. On positive side the brassicas I planted last week all look good and I harvested my first ever straight carrots. Tasty too. And tomatoes finally turning red outdoors and in greenhouse.
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Harvested the last broad beans and cleared the bed. Brassicas planted yesterday survived the overnight storm but Gardeners Delight tomato plants, outdoors in containers, didn't fare so well. One has suffered a broken branch. It is heavily laden with green tomatoes but is now barely connected to the main stem. Left to see if it survives. If not I'll use the green tomatoes, maybe another pot of tomato marmalade as made today with last weeks plant collapse.
Recipe: 180g green cherry tomatoes, halved; thumb of root ginger peeled and chopped; coarsely grated rind one large lemon; juice from the lemon; 180g preserving sugar. Put tomatoes, lemon rind and ginger in pan and heat until tomatoes soft (add couple of spoons of lemon juice if necessary to prevent tomatoes sticking to pan); when tomatoes soft add remaining lemon juice and heat until boiling; gradually stir in the sugar until it has all dissolved; boil for further 10-15 minutes in meantime sterilise and heat storage jar; pour into storage jar and allow to cool and set.
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Brassica plants arrived. Set up the cloche for the new bed - 10 x 33cm rebar posts stapled to the wooden bed edging and 5 x 2.15m lengths of blue polyethylene piping. Planted forty plants (10 x cabbage, 10 x cauliflower, 10 x curly kale and 10 x broccoli) spaced as per the advice. Six of the broccoli needed to go into a 2nd bed. Then discovered insect mesh was too narrow (we had cut off strip to act as carrot-fly barrier earlier in the year) so adjusted the design. Instead of hoops, we constructed a flatter, lower structure by connecting the piping at a diagonal (as in picture). This will do while plants get established but also ordered more mesh for when plants are bigger. Fed greenhouse plants a day later than usual as I missed regular weekly feed yesterday (feeding Friday).
More red tomatoes; some aubergines eaten by slugs or snails. If it's not the mould its the molluscs! Caught a slug eating half grown butternut squash.
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No more mouldy aubergines and several fruits developing well. Still only one or two ripe tomatoes a day and they are picked and eaten straight from the vine. More patty pan squash than we can eat and many butternut fruits now setting. Finished digging up the early potatoes and carrots, although no longer early. First batch of French beans almost ready to start harvesting. Early flowers on runner beans didn't produce much fruit but more of later flowers setting. Lack of pollination due to bad weather earlier? Onions and garlic have dried, so now need to string them up. Cabbages hearting up nicely but I missed a crop of broccoli spears which have started to flower.
