Pushing up the daisies

Yesterday was quite a nice day here, we are in a sunny spell but unfortunately the temperature is now more autumnal than anything else. Oh well.
First surprise: the allotment site had been burgled! Lots of us (yes me included) had their sheds forced open. They seem to have nicked my fork, heaven knows what for. So I suppose I will have to buy another one, I can hardly claim insurance on a 10 quid fork can I?
Was more of a harvesting session in the garden. I picked:

• LOADS of strawberries, very sweet,
• A small punnet of raspberries,
• some rocket
• some parsley
• 3 big parsnips
• 2 beets
• a handful of tiny egg tomatoes
• 2 hot peppers
  
• a few cabbage leaves
• a small bag of spinach (too small for a meal, dunno what to do with it yet)

So I felt quite a sense of achievement.
After that, my big task for the day: gathering up the strawberry runners and replanting a strawberry patch. In the end there were so many that I decided I needed to dig an entirely new bed, not just fanny around adding bits onto the existing one. In the end I planted 16 new strawberry plants! Not bad. On black plastic. That I extended well out to avoid weed contamination. So next season we should have a bumper crop of strawbs!
I get the impression that the weeds are coming to the end of their season. Which is good news, means a through tidy up of the plot will be possible pretty soon.
Other things are progressing: a few new courgettes have appeared, the cabbages are coming on splendidly as are the late carrots and beets. The green manure has sprouted, excellent news, and I can see signs of life in the seeds that were sown in the last fortnight.
On the downside:
The leeks have snails, must attend to that soon with a pair of gloves and a bucket (yeurk).
The lettuces have bolted.
The broccoli given to me by a neighbour doesn't look like broccoli, I think he has given me cow cabbage??? Oh well, I guess we will eat it anyway.
Ah the harvest is not really what I was expecting but I suppose that I was meant to consider this season as a learning experience so anything I get is bonus.

Labels: harvest, strawberry, strawberry runners, summer