The weather has been lovely for the past week or so though, at the time of writing, it's all grey skies and drizzle. Seeing the forecast, I put my back into the plot and got everything as tidy as I could over the past few days.
The first job to finish off was the bed where the Winter squash and runner beans had been. I started digging over this area last month but got sidetracked with other things. I'd left two of the four courgette plants in the bed too as they still looked healthy; sure enough they were producing courgettes right up until this week when I dug them up. (Pic - courgette 'Atena' still producing mid-October).
The only plants left in this area now are the Musselburgh leeks. I decided to remove the enviromesh cover and frame on the basis that most of the leek moth threat has passed and the plants could do with the extra light during the increasingly shorter days. The plants have suffered some damage, mainly due to holes in the enviromesh, and I spotted and removed three caterpillar/cocoons.
Still, they aren't too bad with damage mainly on the outer leaves which were stripped off. I weeded around the leeks and added a sprinkling of fertilizer to give them a boost going into the Winter. There are a number of decent sized leeks so I dug the first one of the season - lovely! They should continue to swell now and put on a bit of growth.
This side of my allotment is now completely weeded and roughly dug over for the Winter. I'll cover as much as I can with black plastic as I find that this helps to preserve the soil structure which can get very heavy and boggy as it's clay. Covering it allows me to get on it early in the Spring.
The last main bed to be dug over is the one with the main crop potatoes in it over the other side. I started harvesting them early this month and have finally got them all up. I wasn't too hopeful about getting a decent crop looking at the plants themselves as they looked rather stunted and poor. Of course, they have mostly gone over now but the blight resistant Sarpo Mira seem to go on, growing well into Autumn when all the other potatoes have long gone. (Pic - digging the Sarpo Mira spuds at the start of the month - finally finished!).
Nevertheless, once they were all dug up the Sarpo Mira's have performed well again this year. There was no evidence of blight on them and there were enough decent sized spuds to make them worthwhile. Last year there was a lot of scab on them but I had grown them in soil that had been limed the year before for the brassicas. This season I grew them in a different rotation order and there was very little little scab evident.
The grass around my plot was longer than I thought so I borrowed the communal strimmer and gave it a once over; I've also weeded and covered the potato bed. Talking of strimming, the full plot next to me is vacant again; this plot needs a lot of work as it's really overgrown. Myself and the site secretary strimmed the weeds and grass down in the hope that a couple of people on our waiting list will take it in hand. It's been decided that we'll split the full plot into two half plots, less work for those involved and hopefully a greater chance of someone getting at least one of them straight.
I'll end this post with a picture of my plot on a sunny 20th October 2015. Most of the plot has been covered and the grass cut. Bye for now.
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