It's been quite cold in the mornings these past few days and the large leaves on the squashes have shrivelled up quickly. The squashes still on the vines won't be getting anymore nourishment so I thought I'd best get them picked.
The pumpkin set quite late on, around a week into August. Nevertheless it has done well in seven weeks weighing in at 15lb and is a good size for carving in October. The butternut have loved the hot Summer, I actually brought one down to the house and measured it - 9.5 inches long (24 cm).
The harvest has been excellent for the butternut, they are large and well formed. There's the odd runt; the first few that developed earlier in the season stayed relatively small with others on the same plant going on to get much bigger. I also did my best to pick off any that formed too late as they wouldn't have chance to develop - there's no point in letting a plant use up energy on hopeless cases.
I've also taken the nets of the brassicas now, the Cabbage White threat is over and the plants are large enough to cope with the odd peck from a pigeon. I cleaned up and weeded around the area and then moved on to clear the butternut bed. The plants were put in the compost bin and the ground given a rough dig then broken down further with the petrol tiller.
That's it for now. Bye.
