As I discussed in my last post (17 Jul 2017) I'm going to reduce my plot by half at the end of the season. As part of this plan I've been clearing the mass of strawberry plants which are now a real mess of runners at the moment. I've chosen a selection of newer plants and have potted up around a dozen and have placed them near my shed. I can add a few pots as time goes on and take runners off them in a cycle so that pots are no more than four years old. The rest of the plants in the plot I'm giving up will be given away and/or slowly cleared by the Autumn.
I've also cleared a bit more room where the compost bins are, pushing the compost 'daleks' about five foot back giving me a much larger space down the side of my shed. I've already started digging a trench there which I will line with a tough membrane and will back-fill with soil and enriching compost to accommodate a line of Summer and Autumn fruiting raspberries. Raspberries do have a tendency to spread underground hence the tough membrane which I hope will help keep them localised.
The picture shows the contents of the bins, the left pile being the remains of last year's compost, in the middle a pile of leaf-mould from the Autumn and, the right-hand pile being 'fresh' which I forked back into one of the bins. The composted piles will be added to the new raspberry trench and to improve the soil around rhubarb plants which I also plan to move.
The onions have now 'gone over' though the leaves are still green so I'll leave them in the ground a bit longer. Hopefully we'll have a few warm, bright days in the next week or two so I can pull them up and dry them a little. The Sturon sets have produced a good crop once again.
The rest of the plot is doing OK. I've still got stacks of early potatoes, too many really, the foliage is really yellow now and is quickly disappearing. The broad beans are in desperate need of picking and freezing and the beetroot are large. The carrots in the barrel are looking pretty good when I dig around with my fingers though they could look like an octopus underneath! I won't know until I pull them up of course. The first runner beans are appearing now though I've been picking Cobra French beans for a few weeks; they're always earlier than the runners, one of the reasons I grow both. I've also been taking Summer cabbages and the kale, Winter cabbage and Brussels sprouts are growing on as planned.
The Summer and Winter squashes look OK too. There's already too many courgettes which I'm trying to off-load onto other people! The Crown Prince squashes seem to be forming nicely and I'm hoping there will be up to a dozen decent sized squashes come September/October. I've also got a good sized pumpkin too, it's fairly large so I'm hoping it will be a whopper by the time it ripens. We don't really like the taste of pumpkin but I always grow one for Halloween.
Well, that's it for now. Until next time ...
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