Monday 18th September 2006 - Weather: dull start, beautiful afternoon

Not many photos - took the camera, then forgot to take photos!

What a miserable start to the day! I had big t-shirt on, and jumper on standby as it looked like rain, and of course, the sun came out and I was baking!

First job of the day was sorting out the brassica plantation. They had started to smell....well....cabbagy! There were a lot of dead leaves and quite a few weeds creeping in, so I needed to get in there and clean out before my sprouts suffered. Suprisingly little catterpillar damage, but plenty of white fly. Was squishing, brushing and generally moaning at the little blighters. Am hoping that the improved air circulation, now things have been staked, or pulled out, or cleaned up, will help with the pesties. The purple sprouting brocolli is reaching for the sky at over 6 foot! Is this normal? I can't see if it is sprouting or not! There are about 6 nice cabbages, at least 1 is pretty much ready for harvest, and the rest should hold well in the winter for use as the cold arrives. Hopefully there will be a good one for Christmas, along with the sprouts and cavalo nero kale.

Then I had a general tidy up on plot number one, and filled a bucket with lovely apples. Although there aren't as many this year, they are definately much, much bigger. (As an aside, I have spent the last 24 hours processing apples, pears and plums and have them bottled, jarred, jammed, in cakes, crumbles and tarts!!)

Next onto plot number 2 as I really wanted to harvest all the squashes now as the nights are getting chilly and I do worry about vanadalism at this pumpkin time of year. Have a nice selection - no where near as many as last year - I will do better next year! (Famous last words!) The swan guords are stunning, and the children have one each to decorate or carve as they please. There are still plenty of squashes on the plot, and they will all come home by the end of next week. The other reason for tidying up and clearing the pumpkin patch is that area is going to be the new brassica encampment and I already had kale - red and green, and purple sprouting 'corvet' to get in. Netted them against the darn pigeons, and I'm afraid to say, scattered a few slug pellets as they seemed to be everywhere!

Dug up the last of my spuds, so cleared a row of Edzel Blue - nice spuds, okay yield, no damage; Red diseree - lovely big spuds, good yield, no damage; Cara - HUGE spuds, fabulous yield, riddled with slug holes! Such a shame when that happens. I wonder if it was the location as they were grow on the edge of plot one down by the shed, so in shade. Probably cool and ideal for every slug on site to come for a chip supper! I will grow them again next year though as they were lovely big baking size spuds - just right for this time of year. There are still volunteers that I haven't been able to get to yet thanks to other plantings, so the supply continues.

Am hoping to enter the local village show at the weekend, and I think, (fingers and toes crossed), I will have 13 items to enter. Unlucky for some? We shall see. I shall post lots of photos. If I do win a few firsts, I might be away for a while, maybe cruising the med. Wonder how far 50p will get me?