27th September, 2011

The apples did break the branch!

I've stripped all the leaves off the tomatoes so that all the energy now goes into ripening the fruit.

The cucumber in the greenhouse has done well despite it being an outdoor one. I've got some nice sized fruit.

The outdoor tomatoes and cucumbers are still producing too.

And the chillis are going to be fine. I finally disposed of the dried chillis which are two years old and this year's plants will replace them. The best of the dried chillis were ground up to make chilli powder.

The pear harvest has been superb. The fruit are still hard but are very edible due to their sweet flavour; just delicious. The apples are huge and need picking soon.

The leeks are still quite small but I think they will be fine by next year.

The button carrots have been good. I grew these in the stony soil of the middle bed knowing that normal carrots would have just forked. So that plan worked out OK. I should repeat that for next year. The sweetcorn are beginning to die back so I harvested most of the cobs which I then put in the freezer with their husks on. I've not tried this method before as I have never had an excess so I'll wait and see what they are like when they come out of the freezer.

Lastly, the weather is still quite warm and this week the temperature will get into the mid 20s, so I planted out the purple sprouting broccoli (which I sowed very late), some pak choi and Swiss chard in the hope that the warmth will allow them to put on some good growth.

7th September, 2011

I'm still bringing in the harvest; what a great year this has been. The tomatoes aren't very tasty but they do make good passata. Next year I may grow one or two plants of gardener's delight which produce a lot of sweet tasty toms for salads which only my wife and I eat. Two plants should be enough. I'll then have space to grow more larger toms for passata and soups which the kids do eat with pasta.

The aubergines are finally getting to a decent size but I don't think all of the plants will produce fruit. Next year I may grow more sweet peppers again because the kids will eat peppers rather than aubergines.

The apple harvest is going to be good too. The tree branches are bending alarmingly under the weight. I may have to prune this one as it is shading out the leeks.

There are too many to store so ideally I'd like to make juice, wine and cider but I need a crusher and press. They are so expensive though.