A look back at the season...
It doesn't seem long since I was writing the first of these blogs and now I'm looking back at the season...
Luckily we've been having some nice sunny days lately so it's still a pleasure to mosey down to the allotment at lunchtime and see what can be harvested. We're still digging potatoes and there are lots of beetroot and parsnips to be had, as well as kale, the neverending chard and apples from the trees outside our walled garden.
All in all, this year has been a very good one for our allotments. We learned a lot from our first year of growing and have been able to be more efficient and organised in our planting. Everyone has been scattering seeds more thinly and then thinning out the seedlings so we've been harvesting fewer, bigger vegetables. We've also got the hang of successional planting a bit more, so have enjoyed seeing crops like mange tout and salad leaves become ready to pick over a period of months rather than needing to be eaten in a couple of weeks!
The star crops this season have been Ann's yellow courgettes, which kept us all in gorgeous yellow fruit for months, Kim's brilliant beetroot and the potatoes grown by a number of us in the whole of one big bed. Cucumbers, peas, borlotti beans and spring onions also did very well, and our tomatoes didn't suffer from blight as they did last year, but no one was successful in growing carrots, and the parsnips don't seem to have grown as well as last season either.
The chard that many of us tried has grown very well and looks beautiful in the plot, but no one likes eating it all that much - maybe we need a few new recipes!
Now, the allotments are looking rather sad, with weeds shooting up and the last of the produce in need of picking. Hopefully we'll have a few more sunny days this autumn so we can put the plots to bed in a good state for the winter. Roll on spring!