Know your onions

Parts of the UK are having some terrible weather. But here in London it's been nice a sunny and warm. Albeit a bit breezy.

We've never really had much luck with onions. But we keep on trying. Either because of stubbornness or stupidity, not sure which. So here we go again with a different variety of onion to see if will fare any better.

These were being sold off cheap at the local garden centre so I thought I'd give them a go and see how well they do. After all, it's not likely to get much worse that our previous attempts.

Other than that, there's not a lot doing down the plot at the moment. We've cleared out most of the beds, leaving just carrots, beetroot, strawberries and Cape Gooseberries in place. We've got some grass that's made itself at home in the various paths, so it needs to come out. But of course, it's couch grass which is the perennial nightmare of allotmenteers.

But I'm sure there will be plenty of other jobs over the winter time. There always are.

Clearing beds

End of the season, and time to clear up the mess. We wanted to get stuff done yesterday (Sat) but the weather put paid to that. So instead we worked today to get things cleared up.

The outside tomato beds need to be cleared and cleaned. They're definitely a mess.

After a couple of hours, and more than a few of them actually deciding what to do with the squashed tomatoes, they were looking a lot clearer.

Now the biggest issue is that there were a few weeds in these, but we didn't want the tomato seeds in the beds. So that means we have to dig out the squashed ones, which means losing top soil which we really didn't want to do. After all, it's damn good soil. In the end we decided not to bother and we'll make sure we pull any rogues next year. The whole lot, including a few spadefuls of soil went into a strategically placed compost dalek. Hopefully the worms can do their job over winter and we can just dig and sieve the soil straight out again next spring.

Mean while whilst digging through that lot, I found a few more courgettes and marrows.

I thought we'd finished with the all last week. But no, it seems they're still coming thick and fast. However that it the definite last of them... apart from the ones we're keeping for seeds next year.

On the subject of surprises. We had a couple in the strawberry bed. Late bloomers anyone?

We had to be extra quiet down the plot today, so as to not disturb the Vulpine Overlord who decided that the afternoon sunshine was just right for a nap.

Sweet dreams Frankie.