Tomatoes are now...

Sweet courgette relish

    The tomatoes are now passata! Well, some are. Like to think most are but I took a look outside this morning and I suspect that there will be a few more seed trays worth to come yet! So far three bags of Gardeners Delight (grape tomato) in the freezer, eight jars of passata and six jars of sweet courgette relish. Oh! Forgot the dried bay leaves. Good start. Shallots to make into pickled onions yet to do!
 This has been a good year for tomatoes despite the onset of blight. Rain and sunshine has happened at the right time.For me it has been a poor year for french dwarf beans. Potatoes have been good and I look forward to digging up the main crop soon. The melons, both water and 5 dessert have done well. I really like the 5 dessert melon and will be growing them again next year. A lovely taste and texture.
    Is it a record? Six round courgettes picked of one plant! The courgette planting this year has been about right. Still overrun with them but not excessively, well not yet anyway. I notice there are still more coming, however, the plants are showing signs of giving up. There is butternut squash, vegetable spaghetti and I think another type of squash which for the moment its name escapes me. Much to my surprise and delight my pumpkins are producing fruit and fingers crossed I should have a few pumpkins for halloween. On my return from New Zealand I thought I had lost them.
    It is still a very busy time in the garden. Maintenance, that is, weeding, mowing grass, preparing and planting winter crops (leeks, winter cabbage, swede, beetroot, carrots), watering and harvesting . All requiring ones time and effort at the same time not to mention the need to process tomatoes into something that will keep for a while. 
   One thing is that the weather is being good. Cool early mornings, hot middle day, warm late afternoons and evenings. Wonderful sky at night. Sheer magic. I love this time of year. The season is changing, autumn is on our doorstep. There are black berries to pick. Big and juicy this year as it rained at the right time for them. 
    

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes

   The weather has been a bit of a mixed bag over the last ten days. One day showers, one day sunshine, one day cloud and an odd thunder storm! A whole mixture. Mind you the garden likes it particularly as I have just planted out Champion Red Top swede and Sanguine beetroot. They need a few days of cool weather to get themselves established.
   What has been exciting in the garden this week? Water melon! Picked and eaten the first couple of water melons. They are always a exciting crop and for once we ate one on a hot and humid day! Yum! Other produce beside tomatoes of all types (Gardeners Delight, Ukraine purple, French heritage, Jens orange) have been round courgettes, Touchon carrots (love them Touchon carrots such a nice sweet flavour), beetroot, Marketmore cucumbers, the last of the outside Wautoma cucumbers and the last of the Belle de Fontenay potatoes. This variety of potato has been quite a light crop. Seem to remember this happening in previous years. In the squash bed the spaghetti plants are showing signs of autumn and the butternut squash is turning that corn like colour. A good crop of butternut Waltham butternut squash this year. They are a good size and they even look like a butternut squash. Strange thing to say but often I get ones that do not look like butternut squash at all! The sweet peppers and chili's are now coming into their own. The cooler weather will also suit them at this time but a little sunshine very soon would be nice. That would ripen them up beautifully. Still 5 dessert melons to come and there are still a few water melons. Haricot vert have been a disappointment this year. Note to self. Try a different seed merchants varieties.
   Tidying up and weeding continues as produce is removed. There are some spaces now so I am thinking of getting more winter leeks. The winter produce, white cabbage, savoy cabbage, sprouts, carrots, leeks are doing well. There could be sprouts in September! Looking a little ahead a major job to do is to dig up the Desiree potatoes. They still have green tops and I am reluctant to dig them up until the tops have died.
   So lots to do and the autumn is coming on fast. 

Champion Red Top Swede

Time to enjoy the fruits of ones labours

   Well I am glad to say that the last lamb has been born on the 1st August 2017. We are really going to make sure the rams are kept away from the ewes this September!

Last lamb to be born 2017

   August is a magic month. The garden produce is rolling in! Tomatoes, cucumbers (by the tens!), potatoes, beans, beetroot, onions, shallots, tree onions, carrots, sweet peppers, chili's, water melons, 5 dessert melons, cabbage - wow!).  The outdoor cucumber Wautoma has exceeded all expectation this year. I have picked over forty since returning from New Zealand.
   The end of July and the start of August is the time to think of the winter crops. I have planted white cabbage (dutch type you make cold slaw with), savoy type cabbage, leeks, sown swede and beetroot in modules for planting out in a week or so and lots more carrots! I am determined this year to have lots of carrots in the ground over winter. As an experiment I have sown some peas and more haricot (Bollotti) to see if I can get another crop in before the frosts come.

One bed full of weeds

  The picture on the right shows what the vegetable beds were like when I returned from New Zealand. I was away for four weeks at the start of the growing season! Weeds, lots of weeds, some almost four feet high! Now after a couple of weeks I have pretty much regained control and all beds are now weeded. Lost a lot of sweat doing those weeks. Beer shandy has never been so good! I have to thank my son in law for cutting my grass short while I was away. It gave me time on my return to get on with the weeding and the planting of the winter crops.
  Here is a picture of some of the tomatoes that I have picked. Gardeners Delight (grape type variety) has been particularly successful this year, followed by Roma (plum type variety). Others have grown are a Ukrainian purple tomato, Jens orange tomato and a couple of french heritage varieties.

   Haricot vert (french dwarf bean) and buerre (yellow french dwarf bean) have not been very successful this year. Probably because it was too dry when the beans were setting. Also the cauliflower has not been as good as it promised. The sprouts are still on course to produce a reasonable crop. Still, one cannot win them all!