#gardeningSE26

[Tim Lund]

Like the gooseberries and red currants, the blackcurrants are now all picked, bar a few odd ones which will barely fill half a 1 litre tub. Following the rain, those remaining on the bushes we went to pick had started going squidgy, so it's lucky we got pretty well all picked in time.

I'm now thinking more about my apples, and getting round to thinning them out, which even now I guess is going to help





These aren't the worst for being overcrowded, or at least don't show the number of small fruit which will never develop. Many of these are on the ground



It seems rather a waste, but however red they look, they're not sweet enough to eat yet. The reddest looking ones on the tree are OK, although my neighbour didn't agree. Last year I was harvesting them - Discoveries - in July.

Some also had bitter pit, although not too many - it seems to do with lack of calcium in the soil and drought - the latter would figure, and being clayey, the soil isn't going to be calcium rich.

I suspect that in a couple of weeks we'll be picking most of the Discoveries, and the other tree - Charles Ross - more like the beginning of September.

Along with my beans, which are still not thriving, apples are something I'm going to concentrate on getting right next year.

It's also the beginning of the potato harvest - at least for the Picassos, where the haulm has largely died down



Digging up one row - with the assistance of new plot holders daughter, aged about 5 - produced 9kg. 4 more rows of these to go, and three and a half of the Pink Fir Apples, which are still photosynthesising away.

There's still fruit coming on the blackberry, but today I also set about starting to train next year's fruit bearing canes



both the blackberries on the right and the tayberries on the left. They now look rather tidier than this.

I've just got round to googling to see what variety of chilli it would have been I'm growing from Wahaca. Apparently Serrano, which likes a pH of 7.0 - 8.5 - so fairly alkaline, unlike this soil, and liking temperatures above 24°C - so no wonder these are barely more than 30 cm high. Even so, they're developing some fruit



I'm also watching the butternut squash taking over more space. One of the fun things about them is how squash hide under the leaves, so that when you harvest them eventually, there are generally one or two more than you expected. Here's one lying low which I only just spotted today



In my own garden, figs have also started coming - five so far this year - and also mulberries, in quantity. They're more easily seen from inside the tree, so here they are, looking out



We're also getting a reasonably regular supply of tomatoes, although I suspect I should be removing some of the leaves, so that the sun gets to ripen them faster. All these green tomatoes will eventually ripen



even when picked green and put in a bowl indoors, which is what happens at the end of the season.

Finally - hardly that remarkable, except to me, are these auricula seedlings, which I had the idea until this year were hard to grow from seed. I don't know what colour the flowers will be either. It's a bit ridiculous, but that's almost part of the fun

[Pally]

Why not stew those apples on the ground for a lovely apple pie ?

[Tim Lund]

Why not stew those apples on the ground for a lovely apple pie ?

PM me to arrange a time to collect them

[Pally]

Cant I'm away ..but thanks anyway!

[Tim Lund]

I'm short of time this week, and more has just been lost to my phone needed an update to the drivers to transfer pictures - so those of the large white butterfly caterpillars munching away at some nasturtiums will have to wait - and of another butterfly setting on the plant, presumably to lay more eggs.

The idea of reducing the foliage on the tomatoes seems to have worked - they are now ripening up much faster, so much so that I suspect they will get processed into passata.

Mulberries are also in peak production, and I happy to give them away. Please get in touch

[Tim Lund]

I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself, having come to accept that whatever it was I did to my right shoulder hasn't got better in over five weeks, so stretching it - e.g to pick apples - of using it to lift weights - e.g. digging potatoes - is probably not a good idea for the time being. About the same time I must have done something to my left thumb, because it is also painful whenever I try to grip anything, or just rotate it. I should be getting a referral to Lewisham Hospital soon, but I've not been down to the plot this week, although my wife has, and come back happily with more potatoes, and both Discovery and Charles Ross apples - with by no means all damaged by codling moth.

The damage I've inflicted on myself will also get in the way of preparing an area of rough grass for some seeds of yellow rattle which I have bought, with the idea of reducing the vigour of the grasses, and allowing more wild flowers to bloom. The seed packet tells me to cut the grass short, and remove it altogether over about 50% of the ground - which is going to take hard work wielding a mattock.

Anyway, the last picture I have from my plot is the shed with tayberries and blackberries canes for next year more or less properly trained to cover its walls



In the salad growing bags near the kitchen, here are some of the large white butterfly caterpillars -



and here one coming back to lay some more, I guess



Here are the tomatoes, benefiting from having foliage removed, so speeding up the ripening



from which it occurs to me there must be a balance to be struck between removing leaves, but leaving some axillary shoots to grow, to continue the plant's fruiting season.

For the time being, I picking about this much a day



which goes well with fennel



as well as the more regular basil



Last picture is of some pansy seedlings coming up, as well as shiso (Perilla frutescens).



I tried growing shiso once before, and it was a complete failure. I suspect the difference is the warmth - I think previously it was in the spring.

[JRobinson]

Tim, to get apples right you really need help from the weather - yes you can water lots yourself when it's dry, but if it then rains too much at the wrong time you're still scuppered. You also need the right weather in spring for the flowers/insects for pollination.
recently we had a late spring which put back all the fruit blossom, which meant that when it did arrive there was a lot more of it around, and more pollinators as well, and we had a really good year, with a long warm summer, with enough rain at the right time too.

[Tim Lund]

You're probably right, Jon, but there's still things you can do to help, I think.

Varieties and soil type make a big difference too.

My allotment neighbour has a Cox's Orange Pippin, which is probably my favourite apple for taste, but it's prone to a condition called bitter pit, which is related to the soil not having enough calcium. I had another variety which had the same problem, so I grubbed it up last year.

There's an incredible amount of science to growing seriously, which is why modern growers can be so much more productive than our ancestors were.

Apart from just being a hobby, and produicing a good amount of things to eat, another benefit of growing your own, I think, is the respect it gives for professionals.

[JRobinson]

and if you do have any spare apples, you know someone who'll take them off your hands and turn them into craft cider!

[Tim Lund]

and if you do have any spare apples, you know someone who'll take them off your hands and turn them into craft cider!

You know where I live, and you have my email, so suggest a time to call round

[Tim Lund]

Please Jon, let me know who can use these!





On my other apple tree on the plot, a Charles Ross, I noticed what I guess is the result of poor formative pruning - this branch unable to cope with the weight of the apples at the end of it.



And here's some bitter pit on some of the Charles Rosses



I'm still suffering from a fair bit of shoulder pain, and not yet had an appointment at Lewisham Hospital, but on looking up on NHS choices, it seems it's a Rotor cuff disorder, and I'm right to avoid straining it further, but my pride makes it difficult to let my wife do all the digging of potatoes. It is a difficulty, however, which I overcome, and we now have all the Picassos lifted. The foliage on the Pink Fir Apples is also starting to wither, so they will also be ready for lifting.



With potatoes, or any other crop, such as maize, which is or has once been vital to the survival of the people harvesting it, I often reflect on how vulnerable I would be if my life depended on the success of my crops. Now I find myself with similar thoughts about how vulnerable subsistence growers are to injury or disease. Families would have been essential without savings, a modern commercial economy, or the welfare state, but quite likely they wouldn't have been enough.

With trying to rest my shoulder, and some rain, the weeds have taken off, and the plot isn't looking that tidy. Among the weeds, however, are two plants which I know are edible, but which I don't feel curious enough to try taking home for cooking. They are


Fat hen (chenopodium bonus-henricus)

and

Callaloo, which comes from the genus Amaranthus

Both of them are normally cooked like spinach, and I have eaten Callaloo - it tasted OK.

But something which intrigued me about this, having previously thought of it as just a Caribbean vegetable, was when I read in this book I posted about a while back, that both these genera were eaten by hunter gatherers in Eurasia before the introduction of grains, and not so much for their leaves, but also their seeds

I think there are probably very good reasons why, but it's still remarkable how much narrower diets are now than they once were. It may not be very scholarly, but here's National Geographic on the Evolution of diet

So, to return from these musings, I find something odd about my butternut squash - I would not have expected them to get this big



That's more like a marrow, and I'm wondering if the flesh is going to ripen in the way a nice squash should. I can only wait and see, but I think I'll make a note of where I bought the seeds, and go for an alternative brand next year.

On a more positive note, the canes for next year's blackberries and tayberries are shooting ahead, and are going to need more training to the walls of the shed



Back home, the carrots I planted in a bag, filled with compost rather than soil, are at last a reasonable size



I think it probably is a worth trying this again, even though I hoped they would develop faster - I suspect it was this year's weather.

I'm also still getting large amounts of tomatoes from my greenhouse - and also understanding what is attacking them



It seems it's the tomato moth.

Not sure if these are edible - but evidence that the wood from an old and unproductive plum tree I got taken down some years ago (five? six?) is at last rotting down. With large logs, it's much better than burning or having them taken off to the dump.

I'm more confident that this is edible



and I did suggest it to my neighbours, who were having a barbecue last night, but they declined.

To my joy, I also saw a Roman (edible) snail for the first time for some years



From wikipedia, I find it's a protected species in this country, so obviously I wasn't going to suggest my neighbours barbecued that as well. I've read somewhere, also, that you have to be careful about what snails have been eating, if there are poisonous plants around.

And finally, I notice that my cyclamens have appeared.



They came from my Granddad's garden, so I think of him when they emerge each autumn.

[JRobinson]

apparently you keep snails in a jar for three days, with just carrots in with them, until their poo is orange, and then three days with nothing in with them, until their poo is no longer orange, and then you know they've purged of any poisonous things before you picked them up.

I may well email you about collection of your excess apple crop - thanks.

[Tim Lund]

apparently you keep snails in a jar for three days, with just carrots in with them, until their poo is orange, and then three days with nothing in with them, until their poo is no longer orange, and then you know they've purged of any poisonous things before you picked them up.

I may well email you about collection of your excess apple crop - thanks.

Watching poo sounds like a reversion to the early days of parenting.

[Tim Lund]

(At the time of writing, it's a mystery why the photos which should be portrait rather than landscape are not showing as such. I'll try to fix it after dinner

Still baffled. I'll ask Admin. Particularly mysterious, because it's not happening to all of them. Something to do with PHP BB? I've tried it in Firefox as well as Chrome, and still the same issue )

I'm still suffering from shoulder pain, but something had to be done to control the weeds on the plot, especially with next weekend being the KHLGA Autumn Open Day



for which I have volunteered to show visitors round. It would not look so good if my plot looked as if it needed a weed notice, although the strawberry patch on its own would risk it.



However, the ground was very soft after all the recent rain, and I worked out a way of dragging a long handled hoe through the soil which didn't hurt, and at least half the tidying up is done.

In the course of this, we grubbed up all the french beans, collecting a few to eat, but accepting that this year just hadn't worked out for them. In among them there were also two parsnips, from last year's seed I'd sown to see if anything came up, so I dug these up too



and a couple of the chioggia beetroot, which are still producing



They don't look that smart, but they are definitely a success.

I also harvested the chick peas, which probably weren't really worth bothering with



With the Atlantic weather systems sweeping across ATM, the light was quite poor, and even though still August, it felt distinctly Autumnal, especially as I cleared bits of twig which I'd used to prop up low branches of the currants and gooseberries into a burn pile. The rhubarb is also starting to die down



With the black currants, before I started nursing my shoulder, I pruned back a lot of the older branches, with the idea that next year the bush will focus on these new central shoots, and not trail so much on the ground



I'll do something similar with the gooseberries when I feel up to it, although, seeing how easily they take root, I think I'll make a few cuttings, and extend my idea of a potager style gooseberry hedge.



And, although the pictures are a bit dark, here are the apple trees, now largely picked




.
and laid out to dry at home



before being packed away - at least those undamaged by caddis fly or whatever.

We've also started harvesting the Pink Fir Apple potatoes. These are relatively ordinary shaped for the variety - doubtless some more vulgar shaped ones will appear in due course



In my own garden, I'm pleased with my leeks



for having survived the summer without going to seed. This ground is at the top of a slope, so quite dry, and the soil quality has had to be built up with lots of kitchen & garden waste compost over the years.

I'm also pleased now with the carrots



although these were grown in multipurpose compost, in bags such as the one at top left of the photo of the leeks.

[JRobinson]

I have some spare drain pipe which I'm thinking of cutting to 1' lengths and setting up for growing carrots in. apparently you can just use sand to help avoid the carrot splitting from hitting a stone.

also - storage of apples can be an issue unless you've got the time to wrap each one individually in newspaper, and keep them in layers, somewhere relatively cool (like our office at the moment! I'm sat here in my coat!).

I'll always take any spare apples from anyone who's got them, to turn into cider.

[Tim Lund]

For those of you who missed our allotments Open Day today

[Tim Lund]

We got the plot looking semi respectable ahead of the open day, although to the trained eye it would have been clear the space was not as well looked after as it could be. I plead again the shoulder pain I'm suffering - and it was nice to find one of my fellow plot holders reads these blogs, and sympathises, saying she's had similar problems for four years. That I didn't want to hear, although her plot looks pretty good.

Anyway, here's the strawberry bed, previously overrun with bindweed



but of course there's loads of bindweed still in the soil.

And here are next year's blackberry and tayberry canes, with this year's largely removed. Evidently I should have bought more vine eyes



Impressive how long these canes get. I think I might try layering them, as I'm thinking of with the gooseberries. As anyone who has tried clearing brambles knows, layering is largely how blackberries take over ground where it is not wanted.

Most of the other photos I have this week are from other people's plots, or stalls, so there's not so much I can say about them. But on my plot, and in my garden, we're getting on with harvesting stuff, including, a first this week, some pears. Nothing like as many as last year, but to compensate marginally, those we have a bigger, with the first, a Williams, getting too heavy for its stalk, and falling off. It weighed over 1/3 of a kilo.

There's also an apple, of unknown variety, which was in the garden when I moved here, but a keeper of some sort. It will soon be time to pick this, but not time to eat, since the fruit sweeten up noticeably between now and November. There's a decent crop this year, while last year no more than three or four.

Far more reliable, it seems, are figs, which have just passed last year's total of 124.

So - back to the images from other plots on our Open Day

Quinces - which will be ready in about one month






Another type of fig - this one edible when green



A lingering jostaberry (gooseberry / blackcurrant cross)



its fellows maybe preserved here



and honey - the jar on the left from the hives on our site



This I wonder about - I guess it's a swede



A dahlia from one of our longest standing plot holders - and perfectionists


matched now by a perfectionist plot holder whose only been on site a couple of year


who also grows dahlias


and cucumbers


And for sale


and

[Tim Lund]

(Admin - what's going on with these portrait images appearing landscape? It's only recently started happening, and it doesn't happen with images from other websites, just the ones I've uploaded to my own space. Any ideas? I appreciate this will not be your top priority ...)

Last week's update was swallowed up by the great Board Catastrophe, but that's probably no great loss, since it was a bit whiny, complaining about my painful shoulder, and running out of space to store the pink fir apple potatoes now coming back from the plot.

This week, I have been down to the plot, and the potatoes are now nearly all harvested, drying ATM outside the kitchen door before being stored - space having been freed up somehow, maybe by discovering how many apples were damaged, so starting to rot. Action has been taken, and the good parts are being sliced and bottled, while paper funnels in jam jars with cider vinegar at the bottom are controlling the fruit fly. In fact they work as a warning device for apples (or potatoes) which are starting to rot, since fruit flies notice first, but also notice the vinegar traps, and so alert us.

The first two pictures this week are slightly cheating, since they do not come from SE26, but at least these sloes are going to get made into slow gin in SE26



and these quinces aren't from these parts either



but it gives me hope of a good quince year, so I'm hopeful for when I contact my neighbour with a quince in her garden.

On my plot, one Wahacca chilli has now gone red



and there's still a useful supply of Chioggia beetroot



along with a rather meagre number of runner beans.

The butternut squash - so called - continue to puzzle. This is the only one which looks approximately



as expected



Here's another, which, as cucurbits often do, has given up on ripening up, and is starting to rot, letting itself get eaten by woodlice, slugs and snails



Alive and kicking still, though are these, which don't look much like the packet





Hmm.

Back home, here's some grass scoured to provide a seed bed for yellow rattle, the semi-parasitic wild flower which should fight the domination of the area by perennial grasses, and so allow more wild flowers to grow.



I'll be really pleased if it works, although it may well not - it seems getting yellow rattle to grow is not easy, and it will help if we get a hard winter.

More reliable, perhaps, are the cyclamen visible in this photo, which somehow got there on their own, although these, elsewhere, were where I'd planned them



Since they came from my grandfather's garden, I'm very attached to them.

I'm also getting a second flowering this year of my delphinium



and, in a bag filled with multipurpose, an experiment to see who well carrots with overwinter is progressing, a line of seedlings appearing beneath the chicken wire placed there to deter cats.

[mosy]

Did you catch my post (now lost) about possibly storing your potatoes in breathable bags, e.g. cheap duvet storage bags, or see the link I gave for a breathable fine woven mesh sold by the metre with eyelets, which I assume could be tied/pegged down like a moisture-escapable tent? I'll try to find the link again if you're interested. (An old - but clean of soap - woven shower curtain might do.) Neither is truly waterproof, so would still need a plastic rain shield if outside. Maybe straw as well, or perhaps those moisture absorbers sold for indoor window ledges which drip condensation?

As soon as you have free freezer space, you can parboil spuds and freeze them (can't freeze raw ones).

Great yield - hope you can give your shoulder a rest soon. Does work ever stop on an allotment through the seasons?

[Tim Lund]

Mosy - yes I did see your l link for potato storage. The problem has been solved by other stuff being moved up to the roof.

Meanwhile, the final Pink Fir Apple crop being dried off before storage



and some other plants here

Pansies grown from seed this summer - with some auriculas behind them. I've brought them down the garden so we see them from the kitchen



and a perpetual sweet pea, keeping on blossoming



and, evidently more attractive to slugs and snails, here's the only surviving purple pirella (shi-so)



Next year, I'll need to give this some more protection ...