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.

It's chilli time

The Chillies have been ripening in the greenhouse. The plants themselves are starting to look a little sorry for themselves, but they sure have put out a whole load of fruit.

I have only picked those which are red. There are a lot more that are green or just starting to turn so they will be left to mature a little longer. There are also a couple of other plants which I haven't yet touched.

Meanwhile we have culled all the remaining tomatoes. It's easier to trim off the vines themselves rather than pick all of the small cherry tomatoes directly.

We'll probably be picking through these for the rest of the week.

And finally, there are the very large of the squashes and courgettes. We have enough of these, so we're going to leave them at the front of the plot for anybody who want them to grab.

We're definitely into the tail-end of the season now, so I'm starting to clear the beds, fill those that need it with manure. But I do need to start getting some covers made to ensure Mr. Fox doesn't dig through them too much. And I supposed I also need to start thinking about next year. Perhaps once I've cleared the beds, I can put down all the Stuttgard onions sets that I got on sale at the local garden centre. Would be nice to actually try for decent onions, given that I don't seem to have much luck with them.

Rainy day

It seems odd to be posting about a rainy day when we've had one of the longest and hottest summers on record. But it's nice to have the change.

We're now at the tail end of the season and things are starting to die off. Firstly the courgettes have just about run out of steam.

There are just a few left buried in the dead foliage.

Then the petunia troughs have finished.

Mind you, one of them did succumb to the high winds we had recently and fell over.

Not a major issue though. Just stand it upright and throw the dead petunias in the compost. We have more than enough seeds.

The courgettes were sorted out into those destined for food, those destined to become "Georges" (ie seeds for next year) and those to be given away to anybody who wants. We simply leave them of the water tank lid next to our plot and people can help themselves as they walk past.

We also grabbed a few of the remaining cherry tomatoes and thought we'd dig out some spuds from bags and buckets for dinner tonight. But we weren't happy with the quality of the spuds. A lot of them that we dug out were the tiniest spuds you've ever seen.

We barely got a decent plate's worth from 3 buckets and a bag. I think we might have a reason for that. Normally we find bags to work better than ground spuds. They're certainly easier to harvest anyway. However, as we have already mentioned in the past, we're on London Clay soil. Now we've put a lot of organic material into the soil, but that still doesn't solve the problem of the fact that the clay is there. Being bags and buckets, they're raised off the ground, where they can dry out and more to the point, they can be hit by the sun.

Emptying out the buckets, the soil at the very bottom was like rock. I suspect what has happened is that the long hot summer has baked the clay into bricks, thereby hampering the growth of the potatoes.


The leaves are turning brown now, and starting to fall. So it's time to think about winter crops, and covering the beds ready for next year. Well some of the leaves are brown. The Blueberries are starting to turn bright red which makes a nice splash of colour on a dreary day.

Time to head for home and a nice hot cup of tea.

Bucket'o'Toms

Remember the bucket'o'spuds? Its now Tom time. The tomatoes are coming to the end of the season. Time to get picking.

The Tomato Jungle has definitely seen better days. So It's time to start digging through and removing the old plants before the dreaded blight gets hold.

As you can see, the tomato beds have been infested with courgettes from the neighbouring bed. In fact we never actually planted courgettes here. They are rogues from previous sowings which seem to have got themselves established. Not such a bad thing, but it does make clearing up a bit of a challenge.

But we did manage to clear a couple of beds fully.

There are still three other beds to go, but they can wait. This bucket of toms will get turned into juice and sauce tomorrow.

We're kind of lucky with the blight this year. The long hot summer has kept it at bay. But now we're heading into autumn there is the possibility of infections, so it's best to start clearing up before it does so. Blight can hang around in the soil for years and allotments are particularly prone because you have to rely on everybody to manage blight at the same time, which is not always possible.

We also picked a load of apples from the tree.

All this work was being watched over by our Vulpes Overlord, Frankie.

And it's still the seed season. Despite the fact that we have a shed load of seeds already, The Wife just can't help but pick a few more seeds for next year.

Meanwhile, I was shovelling s41t, filling the vacant beds ready for next year.

These will eventually get a cover and left to the worms to devour over winter before being dug in. I've kind of over filled the beds because, although we have a large deliver of manure at the moment, the manure has to be shared by everybody. In previous years, by the time I got my beds ready there was no manure left to fill them with. So this is my share ready. It can be transferred to other beds as needed.

We spent a full day on the plot and it was extremely exhausting. Even Frankie needed a rest.