Onions

The last of the summer onions is going in tonight's phat thai. They have been lovely, but small and we didn't grow enough. the winter onions won't be ready until the middle of next year, so quite a gap on shop onions.

There was never any idea of self sufficiency and our plot would be hopelessly too small, but it is good to eat your own produce for as long as possible. This year's onion crop suffered from being too dry, but we also didn't grow as many as we could have done, so next year I might plant another row or two and try to keep up with the watering when it is needed.

More digging of the plot is still to come.

Garlic squeezed

We planted the garlic today. There were more cloves than would fit in a single row so we squeezed it up a bit, I hope that was a wise move.

There were lots of beetroot to take and we took some more leeks. The beetroot is great, the leeks are wonderfully crisp and tasty, but they are quite small so we will go through them rather quickly. next year we must water them if it's dry.

Take a leek or two

The courgettes have finally finished so we dug them up. The last few tomatoes were ripe too. There were some great beetroot ready and one chewed by a mouse. I pulled up the last of the red cabbages, they have been a big disappointment: very tough, tasteless and boring. Jean lightly dug some more of the plot and planted a row of broad beans planted in pairs.

We took the first leeks of the season.

Onion time

Some winter onion sets were planted today, two rows each of white and yellow. The winter onions we harvested this year were great, so I hope these do well too.

We also sowed three rows of spring onion seeds. We've only had success with spring onions sowed in pots and planted out, but we've not sown spring onions in the autumn before.  They should grow over the winter so we can harvest them, well, in the spring.

Getting ready

Yesterday the first batch of autumn digging started. There has been very little rainfall this year, but lately there has been more rainy days, so I expected that the ground would quickly become a muddy mess, as usual at this time of year. I was wrong. The rain we have had has not soaked the ground at all, so digging it over was easy and the resulting tilth was lovely, crumbly, damp soil not great clods of mud and not dry, unbreakable lumps either. In fact it seems almost perfect.

We now have enough ground turned for our onions, spring onions and garlic to go in, but first it wants a bit of blood-fish-and-bone raked in to give the onion sets and garlic cloves a good start. The spring onion seeds need really fine soil so an extra rake over there is needed too.

The next spot to dig will be a space to plant broad beans to stand over the winter as an experiment. If that doesn't work we will just plant broad beans in the spring as we have done before, so there's no risk of not having broad beans which would be a big loss.

All of this is using up space when we haven't yet planned out the layout for next year. I will make a plan up, but as usual it will only be a starting point rather than a strict plan.

The extra rain has helped our leeks a lot. They are still not as big as last year, but they are doing well now. They were covered in rust earlier on, but now that seems to have gone. Reading about rust on leeks has left me feeling that people may have mixed their ideas about it. It's called rust because it is small, rust-coloured spots on the leaves. People equate rust on iron with water, so I think people have followed that thinking through to leeks, but I think that is wrong. The rust was there this year, and last year, during the dry spells. When there was plenty of rain it disappeared, so I think leek rust is a disease of dry weather and not wet as my books say. This time last year we were already taking big leeks, we will start taking some next week I think.

Next plantings

Today we bought some onion sets and garlic. The onion sets were fifty each of white and Japanese yellow which should be planted about now. The garlic will be ready to be planted in a couple of weeks. We want to try growing some spring onions over winter too, so  the seed needs sowing while the ground is still warm.

Disappointed

The crops on the allotment have been a bit poor generally. The extreme lack of water through the whole year has been broken to some extent recently, but still much more water would be welcome. The leeks are beginning to fill out, but they should be twice as big as they are by now.We'll start to take a few leeks soon but even though we planted more this year and that almost all of them have grown we will have less to eat because they are so small. They also have a bit of rust.

The sweet corn is delicious, but many of the cobs have not been fully pollinated, so some of the kernels have not swollen. I expect to grow sweet corn next year, but I'll have to improve the pollination rate. I have read that the male flowers on the top of the stalks can be cut off and the pollen introduced to the female tassels, so I'll try that.

We have continued to take courgettes and beetroot, both are good, but the courgettes have not been as plentiful as expected. The tomatoes are almost done. They have been good and they were spared the drought by being watered in the greenhouse almost daily.

It's time to start thinking about the winter crops and any changes in the layout. Winter onions and garlic are certainly on the cards again and we will try growing spring onions and broad beans over the winter too.

We are planning to move the fruit bushes to the back of the plot and digging up at least half of the rhubarb. I'm also thinking about moving the fence so the fruit bushes will be outside of the fenced area. It should make access to the compost bins easier. Moving the fruit should give us much more space on the very best soil too. I hope the weather lets us make the most of it next year.