BeetrootandSpuds

I've been away for a few days, but given that we are at the end of the vegetable season I wasn't expecting to find much had changed on our plots when I got back.   And then, hidden away behind the beans on Plot B I found this pumpkin, Syd. He weighs in at one and a half stone (1 6 8 to be exact).  Looks like I'll be having soup for lunch for the rest of this year

    Alert readers may have noticed that a certain lack of posts on Beetroot and Spuds    recently, and there's a reason for that.  The vegetable season is drawing to an end. There is, in the words of Instant Sunshine, "No News Today" (click Read More below to hear all about it

    Rootling around on Plot B yesterday I came across one or two plants of which I had given up all hope, now happily fruiting, of which a round squash and a striped marrow were perhaps the most exotic  

 Hot ? So am I.  In fact over the last 24 hours, the temperature has hit 42.5 ° C in our poly tunnel (on Plot A), and during the night, it got no lower than 15.9 ° C.  15.9 !  In fact it was probably hotter, as the thermometer is attached to our potting bench in the mouth of the tunnel.    I think that next year a few iceberg lettuces could be a good idea.  

  Last year we planted our fennel quite late (around early August).   This year we were ahead of the game (it went in in June) and we have been rewarded with some splendid bulbs.  One thing to watch out for with fennel is that ic can, if planted in bright sun,  easily bolt.  Ours was shaded by a seemingly incorrigible butternut squash (12 butternuts, and counting) and that seems to have saved it. Last year we only had enough to roast as a side veg, but this time round we had plenty for some  fennel-and-apple chutney  

     If truth be told, carrots have not been a huge success for us this year.  The germination rate was poor, as it was for almost everybody else on our allotment - the probable reason being that the soil is too rich.  There is nothing carrots enjoy more than growing up in poor thin, sandy tilth.  Still, we have no complaints over the size and voracity of those that did get started. It seemed rather a shame to use them simply as vegetables, so we have begun with 4 pots of spicy carrot chutney

    I am almost pickled out.  Over the last few days I've pickled green tomatoes, red tomatoes, nasturium seeds and cucamelons.  The plan is to move on to cucumbers and courgettes, which thank goodness are now slowing their rate of productions. There are  myriad recipes for pickles on the internet, all different and many of them mutually inconsistent.  Keep your eyes on Beetroot and Spuds Recipes where I will, in due course,  be posting my own - tried and tested - recommendations. Our tomatoes are also drawing to an end for this year, but they're not quite over yet. So I'll finish with this parting shot of Flowerdew, on guard:    

 About 6 weeks ago we began clearing the "reserve" plants we had prepared to be ready of take the place others that, for whatever reason, succumbed.   These included tomatoes, courgettes, squash and marrows; but, unfortunately, in several cases their labels came adrift.  Tomatoes are simple enough to recognize, but the other 3 could easily be mistaken for each other.  Nevertheless, we had a spare greenhouse (Plot B now comes into play) with space in it, so as an exercise in curiosity we planted a couple in the far corners. And they have flourished ! And fruited, so I now know that they are butternut squash: Finally, it may be worth mentioning that the yellow cosmos I planted outside the greenhouse a couple of months ago are now flowering and proving a great attraction for bees and other insects.  Perhaps less attracted are a few of my acquaintances who assured me that I was muddled and that they were nothing more than common or garden marigolds.  Right...