Highs and Lows of the Season. 5th October 2018

Largely due to the good weather it has been a pretty successful year on the allotment and the sunshine has made it pleasant to be there. There have been some crops however which haven’t liked the excessive heat and we have learnt quite a bit about how different ones cope.

It’s been our best year ever for fruit and we now have masses of strawberries and raspberries in the freezer for using this winter. I like to eat some berries each day and it’s good to know that the ones we will be using are not sprayed with chemicals.

The courgettes have loved the warmth but then they seem to do well most years. Friends on another allotment grew butternut squash this year (the same family as courgettes) and they obviously like the heat (and water) as two plants have nearly taken over their allotment and they have far too many to use. They are begging people to take them away which is fine with me.

We have found that the French beans love heat more than runner beans do. The runner beans flowered well but the beans didn’t set in the very hot weather whereas the french beans have been prolific. However the runner beans started cropping once the heat subsided and we are still picking them.

The failures this year have been our caterpillar eaten kale, leeks that have developed rust, probably due to a lack of water, and our first batch of chard which went to seed. We have eaten well and saved a fortune not having to buy organic fruit and vegetables.