Early September on the plot

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Early September on the plot

Well September is already half way over & we think !What happened to the summer? Goodness me it’s gone already & autumn is just around the corner!

Time for harvesting the results of our labour throughout the growing season. Gerry told me the other day he had never had so much produce from the plot – as I gave him yet another bag of Runner beans, French beans, Tomatoes & the last potatoes!

Here are a few photos of the crops I’ve begun to harvest:

Tomatoes Gardener’s Delight:

These were so delicious that I’ve been eating them like sweets!

Tomatoes Gardener’s Delight Ripening:

I shall grow some of these next year on my balcony!

Tomatoes Ripening, close up of Alicante:

Tomatoes 4th September: (Didn’t get around to weighing these)

We have so many tomatoes we don’t know what to do with them all!!! I eat many of the cherry tomatoes straight off the plant & I’m going to grow some of these on my balcony next year & maybe in the greenhouse as well! I’ve really be smitten by these lovely sweet tomatoes!

Potatoes: These are some of the very last spuds I dug up! They have also turned out to be some of the biggest we’ve had! These were growing behind the Sweetcorn bed & in front of the Pinto bean patch at the far end of the half allotment.

I cut off a couple of the Green Peppers as I found that water had accumulated in the top of the biggest & had caused it to rot. :-(

You can also see the final picking of the very first patch of Pinto beans – I’m definitely going to sow more of these next year!

The resultant beans we had for lunch a few days ago & my wife said they were the best she’d had this year! Tender & cooked very quickly & no shucking off of the skins.

Here are the resultant Pinto & Garbanzo beans and the Lentils after I had spent several hours shucking them! Unfortunately the Garbanzo beans were too green & in a few days a hairy mould grew all over them even though I had left them exposed to the air on a sheet of kitchen paper to absorb any moisture. So I ended up throwing them away. :-( The Lentils are still OK.

French beans:

Runner beans:

Sweet Peppers (aka Bell Peppers):

I managed to get a close up shot of the peppers by holding the leaves up while taking the photo with the phone cam in my other hand!

All the peppers in the next photo came from just one plant. I’m not sure if it is the same plant as the photo above because they were taken 10 days apart.

The very biggest pepper of them all unfortunately rotted when water became trapped for a few days in the hollow that forms at the base of the stalk. :-(

Here is a photo of the very last of the Beetroot I grew from seed at the top of the allotment. A couple of weeks ago I dug up half of them & now these are the last. They are called Bolthardy & I’m very pleased with the result. I’d never grown beets before this year either!

You can see I’ve put the shelving from beside the shed in the greenhouse now, that way I can have pots to hand & I can also use it for other things without reducing the light very much. I shall raise it up higher in a few weeks time.

The shelving has come in useful to aid the ripening of the tomatoes from outside on the plot. Gerry spotted the first signs of blight about 10 days ago & immediately sprayed the plants with a fungicide which seems to have stopped it – at least for the present. Therefore I’m taking off the tomatoes that are beginning to change colour so as to save them & at the same time give the others on the plants time to start to ripen.

You will also notice Sunflower heads drying. These are for my wife – she’s been pestering me for weeks about me getting her some! I brought home a head last week & she’s eaten most of the seeds! So here is her future supply!

There are also Runner beans & French beans waiting for me to bring them home. The last of the Beetroot is on the floor.

The tomatoes that have been growing in bags are now beginning to ripen. I’m a little disappointed at the relatively few tomatoes they have produced but I should remember that I lost all the fruit on the very first truss on all 6 plants due to Blossom End Rot.

The plants in pots under the shelf have done very well considering how late I planted them. In 2 weeks time (3rd October) we will have them on display in the church for our Harvest Thanksgiving services. Gerry is growing Runner beans at home & several other plants for the church display which he organizes each year.

In one of my last blogs I showed you a picture of my new strawberry bed, well this photo is an update & the plants have taken very well & are making new growth. I have some more small plants in the greenhouse which I shall put out at the end of the month.

Here are Gerry’s pride & glory – his Sunflowers! Nobody else grows so many! They have been flowering for weeks now & they look to continue till the end of the month at least!

And to finish … (Drum roll please …)

Eileen’s lovely plot from across the way! It’s first class for colour! Still going strong but when you look a little closer you can see they are beginning to come to an end of their fantastic flowering season!

I could go on … (Oh. no, spare us, PLEASE! I hear you cry!) Well I’ll leave it here then & not torture you any more … for this month!

• 16 Sep, 2010
• 6 likes

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