Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness

I’ve been so very busy over the last few weeks on the allotment – it seems I’ve totally neglected the blog!
As John Keats wrote in his ode To Autumn in 1820:

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;”

My plot has certainly been blessed with a super abundance of crops – although the grape vine back at home has sulked this year after removing the dilapidated greenhouse that was falling down around it and leaving it to the elements of the English “summer!” So no grapes and no delicious grape jelly this year to grace our roast chicken and lamb at the dinner table.

But down at the plot I have been harvesting potatoes, courgettes, butternut squash, runner beans, spinach, swiss chard, summer cabbage, spring onions, strawberries (yes really!), autumn raspberries, beetroots, and some really pathetic tiny carrots. I just cannot seem to grow carrots – they don’t grow beyond the miniature stage – but with our predilection for miniature vegetables in our supermarkets, I can at least pretend I grew them that way on purpose!!

So the plot cannot be dug over and put to bed for the winter as other plotters are doing around me. My winter cabbages are growing well now, as are the brussel sprouts, hopefully ready for Christmas, along with the spinach and swiss chard, that only deep frosts will finish off. Not to mention the parsnips which are now swelling up. Unlike the spinach they will benefit from the first frosts – it improves the flavor!

But I have given all the grass borders a good mow and edged all around to make the plot look neat and tidy, and I have carted loads of horse and cow manure over to the plot. The latest delivery of horse manure is very fresh, so I have put it onto the overflowing compost heap. There it will rot down well over the winter, hastening the rotting of all the other material there at the same time.

All I need do now is keep an eye on the plot, ensuring pigeons cannot get at the brassicas, harvest as necessary, turn over the earth as it becomes bare and keep the weeds at bay.

Squash Harvest

These were my spoils today. All these squash will make lovely soup, or will roast well, and the beauty of them is that they will store well through the winter at room temperature and be decorative into the bargain.

I place this green plastic on the ground beneath the trailing plants to raise them above any puddles when it rains (not that we have had much of that this summer!) and it also gives some measure of protection from slugs.

More Harvest

Yesterday was dry and warm; in fact it was almost unbearably muggy and humid. But in spite of that I spent several hours at the allotment doing lots of tidying up, harvesting, getting more barrow loads of manure to spread on bare patches, trimming the grass edges and keeping any stray weeds at bay.

I dug the shallots up and rather than leaving them to dry on the surface of the soil I have brought them home and spread them in the garage to dry - I am tempted to make ropes of them in the same way as garlic, (right) to hang in my kitchen for use throughout the winter.

I also took home all the remaining cauliflowers. They are slightly damaged by caterpillars and I soaked them in a bowl of water to flush the caterpillars out. This also brought forth several earwigs. All the creatures were given a new home in the compost heap!

With so many cauliflowers to deal with, I made some soup, using home grown shallots and garlic, with vegetable stock, and blitzing the softened mixture with cheddar cheese in the liquidizer. It tastes delicious and has been frozen for the winter. Those cauliflowers not used for soup will store in the bottom of the fridge for a week or so quite happily.

Also coming up ready for harvest are several of the squashes. Many of these store well through the winter or make delicious soup for freezing. Otherwise they roast well with a mixture of other vegetables for a hearty winter meal. More about those another day.