Mid October and still harvesting -pumpkins/squashes, tomatoes, peppers, chillies, potatoes and peas

Mid October and still harvesting

There are all sorts of jobs to be done at this time of year – usually!

·         Preparing for winter – cutting back artichokes and covering with straw in preparation for the winter frosts;

·         Pruning fruit bushes and canes – well, I have started pruning my red-currant and blackcurrant bushes though, this is difficult as the weather continues mild and wet and many of the bushes are slow to go into hibernation though, I do see that my year-old rooted red-currant cuttings have lost all their leaves and could now be potted-on. The raspberry canes are still producing fruit, albeit only a little;

·         Harvesting pumpkins and squashes – I’ve had to harvest some of these too early as slugs and snails were demolishing some varieties. Now, however, most of the plants are dying back and I can harvest a few at a time and take them home for drying. I am setting them out on my patio until they have hardened off. I would really like to use some of the seed again. While I acknowledge that these plants are very promiscuous, I would like to use some of the seed from my Baby Bears. My preference is for smallish fruit which will keep well over winter and next spring I will be exploring different seed suppliers for varieties which will, I hope give me a greater variety.

Do try some of these sites for interesting varieties:

www.nickys-nursery.co.uk

www.vegetableseeds.net

www.realseeds.co.uk

·         Digging potatoes – any other year I would have put ‘digging and storing’ potatoes. However, while I am still harvesting my poor crop, I am only digging up what I need from the sodden ground and many of the tubers have been decimated by slugs. My last variety for harvesting – Sarpo Mira – while it might be resistant to all sorts of pests and potato blight, it has, nonetheless, succumbed to an immense army of slugs and snails. Those potatoes which I am able to rescue are excellent but I can understand that, even in years where blight was not a problem, poor weather conditions would have threatened those communities, in the past, that depended on the potato crop for their winter food – And I am not living in the poor conditions of the West of Ireland.

·         Peas and Beans – I can see that a few of our plot holders are still harvesting a few runner and French beans for eating fresh [mine have long finished]. This has been a late year though, beans for drying have been quite good, especially the pole or climbing varieties. I did plant a late crop of peas in mid July, after I had harvested and frozen all my other crops. I had been advised that late sowing of peas were more inclined to be attacked by pea moths and be full of maggots. However, I am now harvesting and, while I don’t have a crop heavy enough to justify freezing, I can enjoy eating fresh peas every other day [and no maggots!]. This is good as I didn’t eat too many fresh with the earlier crops. It is almost time to start sowing broad beans again. I will sow now..ish! and again in the spring. For the last couple of years I have chitted the bean seed then planted in pots in my poly-tunnel to be transplanted in November. [this method has worked well for me, giving me an early crop which has had little problem from black fly]. But, my poly-tunnel is not yet cleared, nor even close. So, I have decided I will sow directly into the ground this autumn. I had stopped doing this because of poor germination [ or perhaps predators were eating my seeds], this year I will sow directly, cover with a coarse net and lay slug pellets. I will report back in the spring about the success or failure of this method.

·         Well! tomatoes, peppers and chillies – while the ripening and harvesting has slowed down, the ripening process has not yet stopped. I had expected to be looking at recipes for green tomatoes and green peppers and I am certainly working on that. However, these vegetables are still ripening.

·         I still have too many tomatoes to eat but, not enough to consider making another round of roasted pepper and tomato relish or another lot of tomato ketchup – each of these takes quite a lot of tomatoes and many of my ‘now ripening’ tomatoes are the small salad varieties [I guess I could just manage a final tomato ketchup!]. The chillies, three plants are Joe’s Long, are, as always very prolific and are ripening nicely, despite the lack of sunshine. I have one plant, given to me by my daughter, I have not identified – pale green through the ripening stage and now turning orange then red – was hot even at the green stage. It has been quite prolific so, I might give most of the fruits back to my daughter. The other chilli plant she gave to me has been slow to flower and fruit but the growth type, she tells me, is likely to be Bird’s Eye – she realises now that she had given me her only plant!. I think Bird’s Eye will be much too hot for me – even at the green stage – so I will allow them to ripen as far as possible and give them back to her [I’m really not into pain when I’m eating!]. I have harvested bags full of not-quite-ripe peppers. The plants have been so heavily laden that the fruits are sitting on the ground and are prone to attack by all sorts. I have grown Capsicum F1 Denver sown in March in my propagator and Corno di Toro Rosso, sown in April in my propagator [both lots of seeds from Dobies]. The germination rate was excellent and the young plants grew on well. Although I gave lots of them away, I still planted far too many in my poly tunnel, planting 3 x 6 across an area  1.5 x 3 metres. Yes, I know I planted them too close for them to ripen properly but, each plant has produced abundantly and, although I have given many away and I will still harvest a few which will ripen, I am still left with several pounds/kilos of peppers which will never reach the fully red stage. [ but, they might have in a hot sunny year] In a few weeks I will blog on suitable recipes for using green peppers and green tomatoes.

·         Of course, now is the time for autumn digging. Always, if you can, dig during the autumn. I have found that spring dug ground just does not break up so well until late into the season, after lots of rain. A few weeds may well grow over the area again but, don’t worry about that. Come springtime, this ground will be easily tilled. A few weeks ago, I fell and broke a rib [or two] and was not able to water my poly-tunnel. As this was a job which much needed to be done, I paid someone to do it for me for a couple of weeks. As this man was there for an agreed time, I also asked him to dig over my cleared ground. What a luxury! What would have taken me a couple of weeks, took this man a couple of days. I do still have an area to dig but I just might be able to do that on my own! Yippee!