Harvest Part 1 of many

I feel sure that spring is a busier time for the vegetable grower than late summer. Even so, it does seem to have been quite an active time on the plot; there has been little of the 'sitting back and watching things grow' that some books and magazines promised.

A couple of weeks ago Al and I lifted the main crop Picasso potatoes. The foliage had died back and it was time to get on with the job we thought. With a little of the blight scare still in out minds we set to work. The yield seemed to be good but rather than blight being a problem for the tubers we found that eelworm and slugs had done quite a bit of damage. In fact, I think that there was never any blight affecting potatoes on the site at all. We were the victims of scaremongering by some folk with a bit of knowhow but a far from comprehensive understanding of potatoes and their problems. As my RHS guide says, 'potatoes are a crop that suffer from a great many problems'. It would be a very smart gardener that knew about them all.

We divided the potatoes into long term keepers, eat soon and no hope. I put them into sacks and they are now hanging up in the garage. I took some of the 'eat soon' and used them for a potatoes dauphinoise dish this evening. There were lots of holes, made by small and probably needy creatures, but they seemed otherwise rather good, as they were last year.

Since the potato harvest we found that our sweet corn was ready. We cooked some, boiling for 8 minutes, and the result with butter, salt and pepper was absolutely wonderful. It was sweet and crunchy and I loved it much more than any sweetcorn that I have ever eaten.

Cooked

Raw (apologies to Claude Levi-Strauss)

I also lifted some of our carrots, reasoning that I had better start on them soon before any nasty creature got to them before me. I cooked them with butter, garlic and cumin and we both thought that they were excellent. I think it is fair to say that they were what supermarkets call 'baby' carrots but they were none the worse for that.

The unwashed...

...and the washed (apologies for the rotten joke)

This evening I finished the lifting of our main crop onions, a variety called Autumn Gold. They look good and, at present, are drying on our garden table. I took a picture of them before bringing them home.

Our French beans have been a great success and we have eaten them with garlic on a number of occasions. They seem to go well with fish pie. They are getting a bit stringy now and we think we will allow both Prince and Borlotto varieties to make beans that we can pod and freeze. We tried one last night and it seemed almost ready; a job for autumn proper.

Other crops doing well are beetroot Pablo, lettuce Salad Bowl, squash Celebration and spring onions, Barletta and Apache.

Barletta/Apache (good with everything)

Salad Bowl (just super)

Pablo (good with vinaigrette and goat cheese)

Celebration (made a fabulous balti)

 Last and not least I add a photograph of rudbeckia Marmalade. Al's pride and joy and very lovely it is. We would not have grown it without having been given a plant by Mark, our colleague and fellow allotmenteer, last year. It is a great joy.

Bruschetta and a tiny carrot...

We tried out some of the frozen broad beans today. I made broad bean, mint and ricotta bruschetta and it turned out just fine. I boiled the beans for about a minute and they were cooked to just about the right point. I was very pleased with the result which we ate in the garden as the sun was setting.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of three of the Lady Christl potatoes that I am cooking for supper this evening.

...and finally. A very tiny carrot of which I am disproportionately pleased. I sowed them late but saw very good germination rates. I haven't thinned and I may well regret that but I couldn't bear to do it. It was crunchy and carroty and I look forward to eating the rest if they ever grow big enough...

Broad beans

Al harvested the broad beans yesterday. They were a combination of pot sown and direct sown plants. We had already taken some pods, mostly used to make a broad bean, lemon and mint bruschetta, but the main crop was ready. I got home to find Al with a shopping bag stuffed with pods from her work that morning. She shelled them and they were blanched and frozen. There were nearly two kilos of Jubilee Hysor beans, a much better result than our first year.  They'll provide a little bit of summer through the autumn and winter.

I made some potato salad using Lady Christl potatoes for lunch today. Vinaigrette with some tarragon from the garden and a little mayonnaise. Al thought it was very nice.

Taking a chance to tidy up

I went down to the plot today in the hope that I would get a chance to tidy things up. The weeds seemed to be the single most obvious growing things on the allotment and I feared that they would soon be too well established for me to deal with them.


I took a light azada as well as a hoe with me. My colleague and fellow allotmenteer, Mark, had shown me the azada he uses at his plot one lunchtime and I was taken with it enough to buy two. One is medium weight and seems to be good for turning over previously cultivated ground. On the experience of today the light one makes an excellent hoeing tool. I was able to work between rows much more effectively than using a push hoe. I was able to prepare ground for seed sowing using it too. All in all I was delighted with my purchase and I can see myself using it a lot. Thanks to Mark for the the tip.


After a couple of hours the plot was looking much better, despite enforced some pauses due to rain showers. Once the potatoes are lifted it will all look much tidier overall. Now that the foliage has been removed from them the potato rows are a happy place for weeds but I'll be able to remove them as I harvest the potatoes.


I took a fork and did some gentle exploratory lifting in a corner of the main crop Picasso potatoes. I was disappointed at first finding only very small tubers but I tried harder and was rewarded by the sight of a decent sized and reasonably numerous potatoes. I'll lift the whole lot in a week or so.


Elsewhere on the plot the sweetcorn is doing well as are the dwarf french beans, main crop onions, beetroot, lettuce and broad beans. Most improved crop has to be squash. They took a long time to get started but the squash Celebration is taking hold of the bottom left corner of the allotment. We have pumpkins (Invincible) and a butternut variety too (probably Hunter) but their effort has been half-hearted so far at least.

Pumpkin Invincible - just a flower so far

Squash Celebration - one of many...

Sweetcorn (of course)

Dwarf beans - Borlotto and ?

Spring onion Apache

 While I was down at the plot I decided to sow some more spring onions (Apache) and lettuce. Is is probably too late but I think it is worth a try at least - it at least possible we will get some Little Gem lettuce in October...