Don't Lose The Plot: Now Its Freezing

June 26th was my last blog post, during the few breaks in the weather since then, my visits to the plot have been a mixture of fruit and veg picking, hoeing, weeding and repeated grass cutting around the plot. The fruit and veg which hasn't already been eaten has been frozen for future use. The huge amount of time spent picking, shelling, cleaning and preparing the produce, (and still doing some decorating in between), is and will be time well spent. I picked 15lbs of peas (2nd pick) and 8lbs of Gooseberries (1st pick) on Friday, along with another 2lbs of Strawberries. The Rhubarb just keeps coming. The only challenge with Rhubarb is manuring and protecting it during the Winter months. Rhubarb generally appreciates a fair amount of water to grow well, so it should be good this year.

More Stormy Skies (Last Week)

A High Water Table?? (Or Not)

Most of my Strawberry plants have now exhausted their bounty of fruit. Despite the wet weather approximately 1 and a half lbs of fruit per day has been produced since early June. My Potato plants seem to be looking good so far although the "earlies" seem a bit slow growing. I planted a couple of rows of "supermarket specials", earlier this year in between my "earlies" and "maincrops", so I didn't expect much of a harvest from them. I dug up a couple of the plants on Friday, unearthing enough small and medium sized potatoes for one meal. Their taste and quality was good, which bodes well for the "earlies" and "maincrop". The old tip of only sowing good quality tubers holds true. From the Turnips which were sown earlier this year I have used a couple of dozen good specimens with the rest running to seed. This is not unexpected due to the current weather conditions. My back up of Swedes have just been thinned out last week and look to be coming along o.k. Lettuce (4 varieties) is in abundance, adding great flavour to my salads. Again my Tomatoes and Cucumbers (outside) are slow in developing except for a couple of Tomato plants which are in well sheltered positions. Runner and French beans are also struggling due to lack of warmth and sunlight. After a brief warm, sunny spell last weekend most plants started to flourish, but the torrential rain and wind is back, so we will see what they look like by next week. My Blackcurrants are in abundance but not quite ripe enough yet for picking. The Red & White currants are ready for picking but this year have been well devoured by birds, so it looks like the addition of fruit cages is called for next year.

My Brassicas, Carrots and Leeks are continuing to do well this year along with Spring onions and Parsnips. I intended to lift the first of my first batch of Onions on Friday but rain stopped play before I could. I have my suspicions that Onions will be difficult to store, long term, this year after all the water they have had to ingest. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has successfully stored Onions, after such a wet growing season, in the past.

DON'T WASTE IT FREEZE IT

(go to my freezing guide link on the right)