September has continued the theme of strong winds and rain. Yet another cardoon has been battered to the ground. Work on the plot has been frequently interrupted by sudden heavy rain but despite that that we have managed to spend some time on the plot. We have sown winter salad crops, (spring onion – Guardsman & White Lisbon, radish – April Cross & Hilds Baur und Winter, lambs lettuce and lettuce – Winter Density), in one of the cleared beds.

We also planted spring cabbage ‘Excel’ in another bed, and planted a variety of young plants in the nursery bed.
Oullins Gage, the largest of our plum trees has been cut back. According to one piece of advice it was the right time to do this but after reading contradictory articles we now wonder if this was a bit too late and so have refrained from pruning the other plums. We will just have to keep fingers crossed and see what happens.
The old cordon apples that we inherited when taking over the plot need greasing this year to try and discourage the winter moth. As the base of the trees was rather overgrown we have tided and laid down weed suppressant membrane. This will hopefully also make it more difficult for the apple sawfly whose larvae overwinter in the earth.
All the Sarpo Mira potatoes have now been dug. These were the only potatoes to have kept the green haulms. They provided a good crop of fairly large potatoes although a couple of roots had been ruined by blight. This was maybe due to the fact that we hadn’t cut off the affected haulms as we had for the other varieties of potatoes.

There is an ample supply of grapes from the garden greenhouse and tomatoes are still ripening on healthy plants. Chilli plants have plenty of fruits now turning red and the sweet peppers too are doing well. A less prolific plant is the aubergine which at last has managed to set fruit. Just one fruit which will hopefully reach usable size and is better than nothing – this will be in our must do better category next year!
Winter onion sets – Red Cross & Troy arrived this week and the bed destined to house these has been dug over in readiness for planting.
A couple of young hedgehogs were spotted browsing under the bird feeders. I just hope these will grow to a size that will survive hibernation. To view the video of them ‘exploring’ click here and scroll down.

Harvested this week
Vegetables:
Sweet Corn – Sweet Nugget
Beetroot – Sunset Mixed
Carrots – Ideal Red
French Beans – Delinel
Climbing French Beans – Cosse Violette
Salad Leaves – Baby Leaf Salad Mixture, Provence
Spring Onion – Guardsman
Cabbage – Picador
Potatoes – Nicola & Sarpo Mira
Onion – White Prince, Fen Globe & Red Baron
Lettuce – Yugoslavian Red
Cauliflower – Kaleidoscope Mixed
Cucumber - Burpless Tasty Green
Tomatoes – Gardeners’ Delight, Brandywine, Amish Paste, Moneymaker, All Blacks, Shirley & Rainbow Mixed
Fruit:
Apples – Discovery, Peasgood Nonsuch, Golden Delicious, Queen Cox, Fiesta & Bramley
Plums – Victoria
Raspberries _ Autumn Gold & Joan J
Strawberries – Flamenco
Alpine Strawberries – Migonette & Alexandria
Pear – Conference
Grape – Himrod
Blackberries