Busy, busy!

We've been very busy the last four weeks or so. We've pretty much been to the plot every weekend and can really see a difference. The plot is looking much tidier (if rather bare - note to self, PLAN FOR WINTER!!! - I've got next to nothing in the ground now).

Update - OCTOBER

I've planted some daffodils and tulips for spring, a job lot thanks to Wilkos. They are mixed varieties and should look great.

I've sown 2 rows of Broad Beans (Aquadulce) ready for an early crop next year. I didn't know if I would like them, but were very sad when ours ran out so quickly. This year we will also sow some more in spring to keep us going into the summer.

I cleared the beans and saved loads of the seeds to have dry or for next years sowing. On my allotment alot of the old timers have permanent bean beds - so I'm going to try this and put them in the same place and start a bean trench.

I picked all the pupmkins and am storing them on the shelves in the spare room and the windowsill in the kitchen. It was a good job I did as we had our first frost on 28th October. We had left the butternut squash on their vines but these really suffered after the frost and didn't last well at all. I had to cook straight away.

Below are Jack-O-Lantern (orange) - by the way, this made a fantastic halloween lantern! The round white one, second from the left is called 'Snowman' we only had one of these and haven't tried it yet. And the squat greeny-grey ones are Crown prince and very yummy! We also had many 'Jack-Be-Little' small orange ones which are nice, good to look at and scramble over the arch, but a bit fiddly for me I think!

We sorted out the strawberry beds, weeded, rearranged and added manure to the bed under the blackberries.

I cleared out the tomatoes from the greenhouse. Picked the last few and added the plants to the bonfire. I then tidied out the greenhouse. The growbags had a bit of a shake up and water with seaweed, then a variety of salad leaves were sown in them for some winter salad.

The onions are doing well (much better than my too deeply sown disasters of last year!). They have produced lots of little green shoots already.

The rocket plant I let go to seed happily seeded all over the place and I now have an abundance of rocket to last me through the winter.

NOVEMBER

Hubby has been busy with the digging (SOOOO much easier than last year). We only have about 3 more beds to dig and we are then ready to add manure etc.

Below is a view from the shed down our plot. In front is the carpet that we thought was so great in spring. However it is now starting to rot away nicely and with mud on the surface it is as slippery as it was before we put it down. So today we changed it for some of the blue carpet bed covers, that seem to be holding up much better. It is much safer now and looks much less 'muddy'!

Below looks deceptively just like an empty bed - but it is not!! :0) In it are more onion sets, sown much closer together (3in) to pick as amaller onions (and so as not to waste the massively over ordering of onions!). There are also 3 rows, 40 ish Solent Wight garlic that came with my seed order today. I planted them 7in apart and rows 6in apart.

We decided to have roast for tea and so tried to pick as many of the veg in my plot as poss - so have beetroot (bolthardy and yellow cylindrical), 3 small green khol rabi, and MASSIVE parsnips!! I could bring myself to eat these two monsters so prepared 2 smaller ones and if they are okay I will then cook these ones tomorrow. Honestly they are the size of melons at the top!

Well, off to put the dinner on now in time for Strictly!