25th August, 2009

The International Kidney spuds definitely had blight; I have had to discard most of the tubers. However, the rest of the spuds (Dunluce and Kestrel) seem to be fine and I got some very large tubers which will be ideal for baking.

The fig tree produce three fruits in the end and they tasted delicious; a great success.

Also a success are the onions. The dry spell was ideal for drying them out after pulling them up. It is important to keep them dry as I ruined the overwintered onions by leaving them out in the rain and they started to rot very quickly. A lesson learned.

The garlic have produced some big bulbs, probably the best I've grown.

Is all this success due to improved soil conditions? It certainly seems easier to dig and hoe, but it still dries out quickly when there is no rain. The compost and leaf mould is looking good so I shall be digging that in soon, probably after some rain when the soil will be easier to break up, but not overly wet when it becomes very heavy to work.

I tried the sweetcorn and it's not quite ready yet. So I looked at the mini sweetcorn and that is ready, perhaps it is too big. It was very tasty in a stir fry.

This picture shows the difference in size between the mini sweetcorn (bottom)and its normal counterpart. Above them are the runner beans which have been prolific along with the chillis (above the runners).



The raspberries and blackberries are starting to ripen both look to have produced a lot of fruit too. The plums are a bit of a disappointment, not much fruit (about six) but they make up for that with taste.

I picked two pears, yes that is all, before they get eaten by wasps. They are too hard to eat yet so they will ripen on the kitchen windowsill.

I am going to try and organise the greenhouse properly next year. It is too crowded, I will grow one less tomato plant and grow about three chillis (I'll try and overwinter the ones I have) instead of six. Then I may not grow cucumbers anymore as they don't really thrive in the crowded conditions. That should give me more room for the aubergines, melons and peppers which I do want to keep growing. But I may revise that decision depending on what I get off the plants this year. The aubergines don't look very promising at the moment.

I have a lot of bare earth on the beds now that the spuds and onions are out, so I may consider sowing some green manure. But I do need to reserve space for garlic and overwintered onions. That means I need to start thinking of ordering next year's seeds. Is it that time already?