August

It's a funny month. After all your hard work some vegetables growth comes to end like the potatoes and the onions and others really just start to kick in like th runner beans and courgettes.

We currently have courgettes and marrows coming out of our ears. My favourite thing to do with them at the moment is to make mediterranean style vegetables using red onion, courgettes and pepers. Simply delicious! We will be having that tonight with some burgers.

Like I've just said the runner beans are starting to come on leaps and bounds and due to them being so late this year we have only just picked our first of the year today. I would normally expect them by mid July at the latest, but rather late than never as they say. Here''s a picture of today's harvest anyway...

The Maris Piper gave us a really good crop of potatoes. The charlotte first earlies were sensational and our maincrop aren't bad. Blight was quickly spreading over many fellow allotment holders crops so I thought it was best to get them out of the ground straight away. It might have been better to give them another couple of weeks to bulk up but overall we have about 25kg which will suit us perfectly.

So now there are no potatoes there is a huge empty bed on the left and on the right is another where the onions took up residence. The onions were pretty poor and out of the 40 or so maincrop onions we planted only about a dozen are worth keeping. The shallots we planted in May were'nt too bad so this is something to remember for next time! All of the alliums we are harvested are currently hanging on the washing line at Amy's house..

The onions are on the line in the foregrounds and the shallots are hanging on the line in the background!

The produce keeps coming and we are eating fresh vegetables daily. The first cabbage has turned in to the second, third, fourth and fifth so we are doing very well.

I would like to catch up on my blog reading, but with starting a new job next week it is very difficult to do as much as I would like and that does include getting up to the allotment. As you can see in the next picture some areas look like a pit of weeds. Never mind...

Although I must add that a lot of the plots on our site are 'occupied' but people have done a little bit and then let the weeds completly takeover so it is an absolute constant battle. The two allotments to our left were 5ft high with weeds before he came and strimmed the lot (including the veg he had planted) last weekend. There are about 7 allotments which are completly covered with weeds on our site. I wish the council would do something about it!

There is plenty to do when I do get some time, I need to plant the Christmas new potatoes and sow some spring cabbage seeds too! Plenty to be done in preperation for winter in August, so I better get shifting and that includes shifting horse manure on to the two empty beds which will be occupied by beans and pumpkins next year, so the more manure the better!!

Thankyou as always for reading. I hope your harvest is as good as ours. Will do some reading of your blogs before bedtime too, I promise!!

Martin

Ooohh and I almost forgot. We have grapes forming too...