Harvest time at the allotment

Friday, August 05, 2016

Time has flown by recently; my last allotment update was over a month ago. There's been plenty going on recently, with armfuls of home grown produce coming home with us each week.
The strawberries were pretty lousy at the start of the season, when the wet, cold weather was set in, but they massively improved so we got a few weeks of wonderfully sweet berries full of flavour. We gave plenty away to keep up with the rapid ripening of the fruit, as well as eating a lot ourselves and making lots of jars of jam. The raspberries have been less plentiful than in previous years but still the inevitable glut in one go.  
We did spend many evenings walking along to the allotment and picking things which we needed or often picking nothing at all but enjoying poking around in the evening light.

I took selfies regularly to document the growing of the sunflowers but now they're so tall I can't be seen anywhere near the tops of them. It's amazing how tall they've grown!
We harvested one bush of redcurrants and attempted some redcurrant jelly, but when we came to collect the rest of the bushes' fruit they had completely vanished!!! We suspect birds, or bats!


Onions have finished growing so have been lifted to dry for a few days. We have a lots of red onions, plenty of white onions, hardly any yellow ones at all but a bazillion shallots! The garlic have virtually all been demolished with a mouse (presumably with stinky breath).

 Lettuces doing too well, they need constant picking. Beetroots are frequently coming home with us as are turnips, cauliflowers and carrots. The potatoes in abundance have been delightful coated in butter and minty

 We've been harvesting broad beans and french beans like crazy, runner beans as well, plus the constant picking of the courgettes, which are going crazy! These two cuties are having a kiss.

Unfortunately, the babycorn, and two varieties of sweetcorn swwm to be readying themselves for harvesting at the same time. We had planned it so they'd be staggered but nature has it's own ideas.
 I estimate the tallest sunflower to be more than 2.5m tall. Incredible!
The pumpkins and squashes will be getting ripe soon, we also need to put the loo roll tubes on the leeks. There is plenty left to grow such as parsnips, cabbages, swedes, celeriac as well. But clearing away after some of the old growth is one job for the weekend. It's a lovely busy time.
Sophie

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Sometimes I am sent items to feature as part of a post and these will be clearly mentioned as part of each post.Everything else is bought by myself. Any sponsored or collaboration posts will be clearly marked. Each post is my own content and all opinions are honest.