Hunter Hunted !

Welcome back to Reads Retreat.
Just a quick post to let you know we harvested the last Butternut Squash (.v. Hunter) yesterday, and it weighed in at a hefty 1.666Kg - what a whopper!
It's now been moved to a sunny storage place where we hope it will continue to ripen. Also, the skin should toughen up a bit, enabling us to store it a while longer. Thats all for now, cant bring any news from the plot today as my car's MOT expired yesterday and as such cant be driven. MOT is Tuesday - fingers crossed,


TTFN

Tidying up for Autumn

Welcome back to Reads Retreat! Oops ! - I started this post about 2 weeks ago, and forgot to finish & publish it! God, where does the time go? At the time of these pictures, we were having a good run of green toms, so many in fact that i decided to cut these from the dwindling plants, to bring them inside to hopefully ripen up on the windowsill. I'm pleased to tell you that this is going well!

Notwithstanding the plethora of green toms, we are also madly harvesting the rest of the ripe toms. The daily haul includes Moneymaker, Gardeners Delight, and Yellow Pear. We seem to be getting a good late crop, even as I belatedly type this post up (well into October) we are still harvesting them on a daily basis. Yum!





The plants themselves are now a tad bedraggled, and very soon we will pick the remainder of the crop before tidying up and throwing away the remains of the plants. We really have had a bumper crop, and have to lay the blame of late pickings on the weather.




We've had some similair late successes with our Chilli plants. This one of unknown origin (a present from Huw & Jane) has done remarkably well, producing an abundance of 3/4" long hot specimens. They've mostly all ripened on the plant, though some will inevitably be taken inside to finish their ripening.





As for this beauty - we've had loads of these fiery hot "Firetongue". This plant was purchased from Victoriana Nurseries, quite late in the season, and with a bit of TLC has put on tremendous growth. Jen used this variety in our home made tomato sauce!




These Jalapeno "Hercules" are somewhat dissapointing in that they have failed to redden up. We've been using them as they are and have no complaints!







We've been tidying up the raised beds, and this one has a fresh mulch of spent grow bag compost on top. It's uncanny just how much the level in the raised beds has fallen over the last couple of years, and this top dressing should go some way to rebuilding that level. We've had some excellent crops from this bed, including some great tasting Lollo Rosso - cut and come again lettuce. There's still half a dozen or so carrots left to pull, before the bed is finally covered for the winter.





Our Rhubarb crown has done bloomin great this year, providing substantial harvests up to the end of August. We'll let the leaves die back a tad more, before applying our winter dressing of manure / compost. We do this every year and it seems to do well from it. We have a second crown in the borders now (v. Victoria) which should mean an even bigger crop next year.





We still have this Butternut Squash (v.Hunter)in the raised bed. Won't be long now till harvest time, as the weather is deteriorating and the temperature starting to drop. Must get this one in before the first frost.







Our Asparagus bed is doing pretty well. 8 out of the original 10 plants have survived, and we're hopeful that we'll get to harvest some next April. If not, then we'll have the satisfaction of eating fresh Asparagus from the allotment - the plot we've just taken on has an established asparagus bed already!







This runner bean plant (v.Scarlet Emperor) has inadvertently turned into our sacrificial seed generator. To be honest we kind of forgot about the seeds that Ruby planted, and as we had such a great crop recently from the plot, we never needed to harvest these. There's a good bunch of nice sized dry pods, which will yield a good amount of seeds for next year!







And finally a pic of our ever eager helper. Ruby had a fantastic time "helping" us clear up the garden. Cant wait for next year when she'll be a bit more able to understand what we're doing.


That's all for now folks, but check back soon for more updates.






Enjoy your gardens - we love autumn!


TTFN

What's growing at Reads Retreat

Welcome back to Reads Retreat, the home of veg growing in raised beds. Aside from the mornings work at the allotment, there's still a riot of activity on the home plot! This Butternut Squash(v.Hunter) is the pick of the crop at the moment - being quite huge in size and still growing. It's a first for the home plot, and one to be repeated at the allotment next year. There's a good few others growing here, but this is by far the largest. Needs a bit more sun yet to ripen it up. Fingers crossed eh !

The Dwarf Yellow podded French beans are still producing well. We manage to eat them a couple of times a week, and although they're getting fewer in number now, we hope to be cropping them for a good few weeks hence. This is another for the allotment next year. Must remember to save some seeds!




Our late sowed Courgette is still producing! We managed to cut another 6 incher today, but will be using it tomorrow. There's still plenty growing too, despite the white mottled leaves and the plants poor appearance. Might as well get what we can from it!





The even later planted Zucchini are growing well too, though the plants themselves are way smaller. I reckon if we get enough sunshine in the next 6-8 weeks, then we may be able to get a crop from these too. Nothing to lose by waiting a little while.





The toms are reddening up nicely. We're picking these almost daily now and loving the taste. The Yellow Pear ones are fruiting well, but I'm not as keen as Jen on their taste. Elsewhere around the plot we have a half dozen or so Moneymaker plants, which are currently full of trusses, but none of them are ripe yet!




That's about it for today's update - hope you've had a good read!

Dont forget to visit our new blog - Reads Recipe's - which Jen is updating on a regular basis.

Hope you are still enjoying your gardens as much as we are.

Take care all

TTFN

End of the month update

Welcome back to Reads Retreat, our blog diary of growing your own veg in Raised Beds. Sorry for the lack of updates lately, regular readers will know that a lot of our efforts go into the Allotment, which is going well, whilst less effort is seen on the home plot. That said thought, we are still making rich pickings from the raised beds. Pictured here is our runaway success: These are dwarf yellow podded french beans which we had never grown before, but will definitely grow again next year. The plants stand about 18" tall, and bear large trusses of beans that start pale green and mature into bright yellow. They make a fantastic addition to the dinner plate, and add a splash of summer colour. Prior to planting I erected some 4' canes for support. I'm laughing now!!

Despite the messy appearance of our tomato plants, the yield is looking good as the toms are now starting to ripen at quite a pace. We have 3 varieties growing: Moneymaker, Gardeners Delight, and a Yellow Plum variety - the name of which escapes me! We have had minor issues with Blossom End Rot, but those affected were picked "green" and discarded. The rest it seems are doing ok. We have more plants dotted around the raised beds, some hidden behind other crops and some wherever there was some vacant land!
Our late planted Courgette plant is putting on good growth too. At first it seemed intent on just growing leaves, but now it is finally bearing fruit! We have lost a couple to slugs etc but that is to be expected. Now though it's looking good. There's at least 3 there ready to be picked, ranging from 4 - 6" long. Next year we are planning on growing many more of these up at the allotment, as they are a lovely tasting veg, and they can easily be frozen too. Maybe we can save a few for Christmas dinner ?

Talking of a "vacant" space in the beds, this Tomato (v. Gardeners Delight) was placed in a sunny spotand left to it's own devices! We grew far too many tomato plants for the space available - or should i say far more germinated than we had expected! I even gave half a dozen or so plants to my neighbour as we had no room left. Mind you, I always think that some of the fun from growing your own is giving some away!






Talking of late sown plantings, these 2 courgette plants were only transplanted to their growing position a few weeks ago. They were "found" in the conservatory, and we thought it best to get them in. Even if the planting is too late to provide some fruits, then at the very least we'll get this show of late summer colour! And if pushed, we could just eat the flowers!!




Another late sowing (a trend here perhaps ?) was this Sweetcorn (v.Swift Early). We had never grown this before and we were eager to try. We have been astonished by the growth rate, and have already harvested our first cob! Shared 4 ways at the dinner table, it was delish.
It seems a bit hit and miss when it comes to harvesting - are the brown silks really the best indication of ready ?






A lesson well learnt now, is that you cant plant 4 x Butternut Squash plant (v.Hunter) in a bed that is 3' x 3' ! Well, you can, but the leaf growth soon romps away from the bed. We have had to cut stems back at various times throughout the summer, but the result has been worthwhile:








This specimen is at leat 8" long, and about 4" girth. All we need now is a bit more sun to ripen it off! And there's me only yesterday praying for rain! There's a few more small fruits too. This is something we will grow more of next year too. Its only recently that we started to eat them, and they do taste superb. We got the seeds from from the BBC Dig In promotion, details of which can be found here. Go and have a look, and bag some free seeds!



Final pic for today, is this Passion Flower which is growing wild in the border. It seems that the bounty of fruits are ripening off, so maybe we can harvest these too. I've not tasted them before, so am keen to give them a go.

Thats all for today folks, hope you've enjoyed our update!



A quick hello too to Aunt Ann, who is visiting the UK again at the moment - hope you have a lovely stay.

Pop back soon all, for more updates from Reads Retreat.

Enjoy your gardens,

TTFN.