Wednesday 27th September 2006 - Weather: hot and sunny

This great weather is really keeping everything on the allotment going. And the rain, followed by sunshine is making the weeds cheer! GGRR! However, as fast as they grow, so do my seedlings, and my toms ripen, and more cucumbers swell, so I am not really bothered by the few weeds. Not long and a cold snap will nip them all off anyhow. So, this afternoon was really only a picking session and to just survey all I own. I have 2 fabulous rows of French Beans, brought in France and the packet said they could be sown up until August. Now I know they probably have milder weather for longer in France, but I plan to move my coldframe from over the melon and cucumber plant and onto the French beans. I am hoping to have a crop in November and maybe through to Christmas!! Also have a thick row of black radish, and a patchy row of white mooli. Also a row of baby beetroots, but no spring onions or lettuce have yet germinated. I don't mind, it was only a pinch or two of the seeds.

Picked a huge trugfull of toms again. Great white, white beauty, reisentraube, gardeners delight, galina, orange berry, texas wild tom, a plum, omar lebanses, alicante, momarte, and lots of cherries from unamed plants. There are still hundreds of fruit, and what I thought was blight, might just have been natural die back and a cold snap as the plants are all so very healthy! Fingers crossed they keep ripening, I am loath to pick them and bring them all home, just in case they colour up naturally. I will wait until I visit and there are none ripe, then next visit, if still none have ripening, I will clear the plants and bring the green fruits home.


Harvest 12, YES 12 (!) lemon cucumbers, from just one vine! There are at least another 24 baby cucumbers on the vine so as long as this good weather lasts, we will have cucumbers every day! Thing is, I just don't know what to do with this amount and I can't bring myself to just chuck them on the compost heap! Even daughter number one is fed up with them, and is now taking apples from the trees in the garden in her lunch box instead of cucumbers.

Picked 3 corn on the cobs. These were a late sowing, made directly just to use up the 8 seeds that were left in a packet when I was having a sort out. There are 12 cobs still there, but they are a long way of ripening. They may come to nothing, but the 3 cobs have been a lovely late summer bonus that all three children will enjoy at the weekend. Courgettes are still coming, although it is (thankfully) much slower now. Next year I really will try to make an earlier sowing to start the season early, and a very late sowing like I did this year with the pattypans, and most importantly, 2 or 3 plants is MORE THAN ENOUGH! Also pulled a handfull of lovely, damage free carrots. They were a late sowing so no problems from carrot fly.

The runner beans have started flowering and producing again. Lovely long slender beans - the variety is Enorma, one I would recommend. Again, if this mild wet weather lasts, I could be picking runners into November. I know we should be, and are worried about the changes in the climate, but the bonus for us allotmenteers is the extended growing season. Will the time come I wonder, when half hardy veggies survive a winter?