Pushing up the daisies

Yep, still no rain. And the potatoes are suffering a lot, most of the foliage has died, even on the maincrop... Not sure what I will get in the way of potatoes this year...



Anyway, apart from that, some regular watering has kept the rest going. The baby pak choi have struggled on, hopefully I will be able to start harvesting leaves from them in a few weeks.


I checked the root veg and they are still hopelessly small. Must water a bit more. I got one beetroot, a Cheltenham Greetop, so a long beetroot. It's all alone but it looks very nice. I shall grate it raw in salad I think, hardly seems worth cooking it.
The pumpkins are going great guns - on the butternut pumpkins, there are already several small fruit forming!


I must keep adding some compost and watering. The non-bush types are starting to throw vines down the edges of the lottie. I love how pumpkins take over everything!
This is a Qld Blue:

And this Trident variety is running for dear life!


Tomatoes - well, I had a bit of a prune, as they were really getting thuglike.
On the right there are the tomatoes, on the left the beans:

And the tomatoes...


They need tying in again too. But already by eliminating part of the foliage, I could see more light and air getting through to all the plants, which will do them a world of good. I tried to remove the bottom leaves and I chopped off quite a bit of leaves to give them some room to breathe (note to self, plant much more spread out next year. Or maybe not be too ambitious in the number of plants! 30 seems too many!). The aubergines and peppers got a little weeding too, they are being suufocated with couch grass :-(

Harvest:
Still harvesting raspberries and strawberries (and made 4 pots of jam from the leftover gooseberries! so a good fruit harvest in my opinion).
Beans are in full swing, although they are a little stringy (wonder if the weather is to blame?). Green Fin des Bagnols and yellow Kingwax.
I got loads of yellow courgettes and finally a green one. The green ones seem slower. Must try some different varieties of green ones next year, I just got some ordinary "Diamant" type from Lidl.

The potatoes are puzzling: I lifted another ratte - the spuds are healthy but very small... The foliage has all died. I don't know if they will swell further but as rain is expected I am going to leave them for a while yet. I have not dared to try the maincrop, they also look very unwell.
Finally, I got around to harvesting most of the onions, except for the odd few I planted with the carrots and strawberries for pest control.
The onion plot just before harvesting (Gave me a chance to weed it too!)


I got an absolutely terrific harvest, several kilos, 3 big boxes full!

And the onions are very swollen and healthy looking, even the Red onions were excellent this year.

The echalotes are great, really big bulbs. It was a good idea to invest in a good variety (jermor drumstick variety).

Labels: beans, courgette, echalote, onions, pumpkin, red onion, summer, tomatoes