Autumn thoughts

The dark evenings seem to arrive so quickly it's scary. Gone are my twice-weekly visits to the plot as it slides into semi-dormant state again until March next year. But there's still plenty to be done; not quite sure when I'm going to find the time to do it all.

Visited the plot at the weekend and retrieved all my maincrop potatoes and some nice carrots, before they got washed away or destroyed by slugs. Quantity not that great but did get some absolutely huge spuds, variety Sarpo Mira, unaffected by blight and some single potatoes at least twice as big as your fist. They will make good bakers, although one potato could feed three or four people! Very hard as usual to dig them without spearing them with the fork. Had just enough time to transfer them to the shed, but will need to check through them properly and sort out the non-damaged ones for storage.

Next I need to prune the raspberry canes, finish tidying up the strawberry patch and prepare the ground for onions and garlic to go in for next year, I had forgotten that autumn can be as busy as spring down on the allotment. Wise Mike's Autospade should come in very handy for winter digging. 

Each year I think about giving up but I would miss it now, maybe one day we'll move somewhere with a bigger garden, but not yet. What I really need more of is not space, but time!

The allotment year begins again

I have decided that October 1st is the beginning of the gardening year. This is because harvesting is pretty much over for the season and it is now time to start planting and preparing for next year. I think I've mentioned on here before, how viewing the autumn as a time for new beginnings turns the seasons around a bit in my head and makes the winter that little bit easier to deal with. Rent was also paid on time this year after last year's fun and games with the local council. Their date for rental payments is something that new plot owners could take heed of. Most people who take on a new plot in the autumn seem to do a little bit of clearing then disappear until the first warm day of May, when they will realise they are already behind and give up.

Having said harvesting is over, I still have carrots in the ground and cucumbers keep on coming (see picture). I've been very pleased with my cucumber harvest, after a bit of a false start the one remaining plant has provided me with a steady supply of tasty fruits that store well once picked. To someone with a busy life who might not get down to the plot as often as they would like, they also have the desirable characteristic that they don't become monsters overnight like courgettes.

Spiny cucumber, plus weeds.

This weekend we had some clear weather and I unexpectedly found myself with a couple of hours to get to grips with the plot. I haven't done anything useful down there for a couple of weeks so was pleased to clear a large section at the front of the plot which had become overgrown, dug it all over, added a bit of compost from the heap and planted 50 onion sets (variety 'radar'). This year I used a nice big spool of sturdy orange string to help make neat rows, although if the birds pull up any of the sprouting sets it's never quite clear where to put them back in.

Next job is to plant some garlic in time for halloween to keep the vampires away. I wanted to get a good French hardneck variety but can't find any in the local garden centres, so I may have to order online or just replant some of my bulbs from storage.

Tidy

It seems hard to imagine, standing on a sun-baked plot in September that just a few weeks ago we thought it might never stop raining. One of the benefits of having had most of my crops ruined by this year's weather is that I can find time to do all those tidying up jobs that I never normally get round to. So the plot is looking quite tidy at the moment and I've even managed to do some autumn digging. Today I managed to dig up and burn a lot of weed roots and got rid of a big bag of rubbish. When the plot is tidy I feel more in tune with it, I hope weather and time continues to let me keep on top of it.

It's easier to see the structure of the plot when it's tidy too. I'm thinking of making more of an effort next year to get the top part of the plot shaped a bit more like a garden, with flowers for cutting and maybe some shrubs or herbs. The end of the plot closest to the shed is never very productive for veg growing. I think maybe some wild flowers would work better if the soil is poor. It was always my intention to have the plot as a garden with a mixture of planting but sometimes, like this year, I don't plant as many flowers and I always miss them.