A Toad in the Netting

This warm November weather is quite amazing. Yesterday I spent several hours up at the plot generally tidying, weeding and harvesting, with just a thin tee shirt and summer weight trousers. I'm very glad I went up there because I found a toad caught in the netting around the brussel sprouts. He seemed exhausted from struggling to get free. I carefully disentangled him, gently put him amongst the strawberries where I knew I would not be working, and he seemed to recover well and crawl away beneath the leaves.
This summer I ran out of space for the courgettes, marrows and squashes, so I covered one of the paths across the plot with black cloth (the sort used to smother weeds) and piled manure onto it before covering the resulting heap with soil into which I planted the cucurbits. They thrive on this treatment - the heap becomes warm as it rots beneath the plants, and they are provided with a rich growing medium, which they love, and it doesn't dry out in the driest of summers. The benefit now at the end of the year is that I have a plentiful supply of well rotted manure which I am using to top dress all around the plot where needed - for example on the asparagus bed, around the flowers in the flower bed, and around the cabbages, sprouts, spinach, etc. which i am still harvesting.





I am well pleased with my handiwork. The plot is beginning to look very neat and tidy, ready for the quieter winter months ahead, and there is still an amazing amount of produce to see us through the next few dreary winter months.

Self sufficiency

These photos show just how busy my allotment plot still is even at this time of year, when many around me have cleared their plots and started digging in manure before leaving fallow for the winter.
What a waste of space!
The brussel sprouts are swelling up well and we had our first meal off them last week, with many more pickings to come over the next month or so. By that time those spring cabbages will be ready for eating, and I have plenty of red cabbages to last all through the winter as well. We have already cooked plenty of red cabbage and frozen it for use later when other fresh vegetables may be scarce.
The lettuce is also growing well and providing some welcome winter salad.
And those carrots I sowed only 4-5 weeks ago are producing the first edible thinnings - with the promise of some lovely roots to follow soon.


But these are just a few of the vegetables I am harvesting at the moment. To add to the list are spinach, swiss chard, parsnips, beetroots, leeks, celeriac, jerusalem artichoke, and a little late fennel that the frost didn't catch! Not bad for a stony field that 3 years ago no one imagined would come to anything at all!

harvesting

Today was dry and windy with some sunshine - an ideal day for harvesting potatoes. Here is one row; I need to dig up 3 more over the next few days, weather permitting.
I left these on top of the soil to dry a little whilst I did other work on the plot, and now they are spread out on the garage floor to finish off before I store them over winter in special hessian potato sacks, in a cool dry and frost free place (garden shed or garage).
Whilst other plotters have suffered blight on their crops, mine are, so far, blight free, but it can hit overnight and spread very rapidly - I have used blight resistant varieties though and this seems to be effective so far.

The Swiss Chard (Bright Lights) is doing extremely well.
This is lovely chopped up, leaves and stalks, and steamed for a short while. The leaves are pulled off the plants from the base, from the outside inwards.The biggest surprise is the way the carrots and spring cabbages that I sowed recently are thriving. I hope we have enough autumn left for the carrots to produce some sort of crop for me. It's looking promising for now!
I finished off my work up there by picking some more runner beans and carting two more loads of manure on to the plot.