September 2013

Read on to see my update of September 12th, with advice for some imminent colder weather.

Visitors to the open afternoon on 1st September enjoyed a good look around and we all had lots of nice chats about growing! Thanks to your generous donations I was able to send to Africa, via Send a Cow, some seeds, magic muck (!) and a wheelbarrow, all for £150 - see www.sendacow.org.uk — Visitors to the open afternoon on 1st September enjoyed a good look around and we all had lots of nice chats about growing! Thanks to your generous donations I was able to send to Africa, via Send a Cow, some seeds, magic muck (!) and a wheelbarrow, all for £150 – see www.sendacow.org.uk

In Somerset it has been a wonderful August in terms of weather, I really cannot imagine a nicer month with only just enough rain (most of it at night or in brief storms), plenty of sun and the warmest August for nine years. Even the outdoor tomatoes are ripening and I have barely seen any blight on their leaves.

The results of a fine summer: outdoor Gardeners Delight, and the bed on left has just five squash plants which carried on growing into the bed on the right after I harvested its potatoes.

All growing on undisturbed pasture with 3-6 inches of compost/manure on top.

Best growth was plant on right with compost added to soil, middle sack with added grochar is showing more yellow leaves than one on left which has woodash, rockdust and seaweed.

All the tomatoes are delicious! On right is compost of a heap I just turned, looking good for using in autumn or winter.

My experiment of Sungold tomato in sacks against a south facing wall has concluded with ALL of the fruit ripening on all three plants: do try Sungold if you like early, sweet fruit. Only drawbacks are it grows tall, so might be tricky if headroom is limited, and the fruit are prone to splitting as they mature. Bu the flavour, oh my! The experiment emphasises the value of compost, and asks questions of charcoal used in this way – it does not bring nutrients. Likewise I found that seedlings in charcoal potting compost went yellow more quickly than in West Riding compost.

View in late August and I have filled most gaps, from earlier harvests, with plantings of fennel, spinach, chervil, mustards, rocket, endive and chicory.

I re-carded the edges where couch grass was creeping in.

Uchiki Kuri squash are looking fantastic with quite a few ready to harvest now, although I shall leave them until after the open day, and longer if it stays dry. Runner beans Czar and borlottis also are drying off but with no rush to harvest the dry ones unless it rains a lot.

On that note, there is NEW MOON on September 5th and it may usher in some autumnal rain, which will be welcome, and winds plus cooler air which is seasonal but less exciting.

Lettuce root aphid and outdoor salad

Pests have been tricky with noticeable lettuce root aphid, as plants are stressed in dry soil and the best plan for summer lettuce is steady watering to help them grow as long as possible, with no remedy for their root aphid – except to grow endive as well, because they do not suffer the root aphids and grow so well in autumn. I pick hearting varieties of endive for outer leaves, in the same way as for leaf lettuce; endive leaves are more bitter (healthy!) so are good when mixed with lettuce, basil, and the imminent new leaves of orientals and rocket. The first two or thee harvests of endive are of large leaves, then they grow smaller and are a nice size through autumn.

There is still just time for last outdoor sowings of rocket and oriental leaves, in southern Britain and only in September’s first week; lambs lettuce and spring onion too.

30th August, frizzy and scarole endive: on left is DUG bed, on right is UNDUG bed.

A striking difference and they are growing where I harvested the onions in mid August, see This Month archives August 2013. Onion harvest was again higher on the undug bed with 10.24kg compared with 8.46kg on the dug bed.

Image on right shows the Shumei experiment where the first two beds had no compost, and growth in the first (dug) bed was initially faster but now the second (undug) bed is catching up and it will be interesting to compare harvests.

Larger plants are in the third bed, undug with two inches of old manure on top.

Salad leaves undercover

Mainly now it is time for sowing salads to grow through winter, under cover of any kind. Pretty well anything you fancy! sow the slower growing ones now, such as chervil, winter purslane, chard and land cress, then faster growing ones in mid month, such as oriental leaves, rocket, spinach and lettuce. Lettuce and endive can be sown now as they stand the winter well when a little older and do not risk flowering until next May at the earliest. I like batavian lettuce especially Grenoble Red and find that cos varieties get slug eaten in winter, and are less frost hardy.

Different ingredients: in seed trays the oriental leaves are growing in (LEFT) West Riding multipurpose compost and (RIGHT) green waste compost.

The beetroot on left are from a bed filled with old compost, on right from a bed filled with good topsoil: I took the photo because of how different they looked although it is hard to capture that in a picture, the compost-grown ones were darker and smoother-skinned with more shine.

Summer vegetables undercover

Peppers, chillies and aubergines should continue through September. We visited the Michaud’s at Sea Spring Seeds and Joy proudly showed us her amazing range of home-bred chilli varieties. They are growing more and more into the seed business and for part of that they grow many varieties to find good ones for stocking and selling seed; we tasted some tomatoes and confirmed the super flavour of Rosada cherry plum, also of Apero cherry (oval shaped).

Hiding behind her thousand-chilli plant at Sea Spring Seeds.

Peppers growing for seed (they are delicious!).

Indoor tomatoes are ripening steadily now and you can water less, especially when there are few fruit left to grow and swell. I stopped the main tips three weeks ago and am sideshooting every few days, picking loads and have had success with drying slices in a dehydrator. I was amazed to compare weights before and after: the largest beef tomato of 530g shrunk to just 27g! with a weight (water) loss of around 95%.

I sliced tomatoes about 6mm or quarter inch thick.

Varieties include Brandy Boy F1, Sungella F1, Matina, Black Russian, Purple Ukraine.

he dehydrator can take 9 trays, I put 7 in for 12 hours at 57 then 52C, with dired tomatoes on the right.

Energy use id 60 watts with a noisy fan!

The larger pieces on left are one Brandy Boy tomato, the biggest at 530g

Here it is dry on the right, weighing 27g.

Red spider mite has been more prevalent in this summer’s dry conditions, especially on cucumber and aubergine. Best remedy is regular moistening of leaves but now is mostly too late for that and plants with leaves half-yellow are best pulled out and composted. The pest does not overwinter in compost or soil, but might in structural crevices. however, don’t worry, as moist soil with compost should be enough to stop it recolonising plants next year – or it may be a wet summer! Do you remember all the worries this spring about slugs taking over?

Pests! I put the mesh on these calabrese late, after they had been visited by a butterfly.

This one I had the mesh on in time (early July in this case)

Onions, garlic, storage

Even if some leaves are still green, you need to have all onions out by now, so they can dry off before winter. Bulbs of onion and garlic continue to swell after pulling as the goodness in any green leaves goes into their bulbs. Also with garlic, when bulbs are not fully mature at harvest, I notice how they continue to differentiate into cloves, for a month or so afterwards. All root vegetables are living plants, dormant in winter and waiting for spring to grow again. But don’t go dormant yourselves, as we can stay active through winter, just a little less than in summer.

Mid-September update, posted 12th

There is a strong theme now of overlapping seasons: autumn is upon us, while summer lingers, and winter looms! There is even a ground frost possible next week around 18th, although latest forecasts suggest it may be too unsettled and windy for a frost; just cool. So summer jobs like picking tomatoes are merging with the first autumn harvests of squashes, and now (up until 15th-20th) is prime time for sowings of winter salad to grow undercover.

Lovely veg on the dig/no dig experiment (dug bed on left).

Kale is Redbor. Basil on right is after removing early courgettes.

Autumnal mist, seen from the conservatory, and I love having the flowerbed there.

3.5kg elderberries for wine! There is a great abundance of fruit in the hedgerows here.

I buried these logs in February after inserting dowels of spores (see March post I think), recently unearthed them.

Soaked the ends in water for 24hrs, now they are standing in shade, their ends on stones, and I await some mushrooms.

Sow now!

As soon as you can after reading this, unless you already have, is time to sow oriental leaves, salad rocket, winter purslane and any other salads you fancy for growing undercover through winter and into next spring. You may already have sown lettuce, endive, spinach, chard, land cress – if not, there is still just time: plants need to be established before it turns cold, but if autumn is mild you will have some harvests up to Christmas as a bonus.

Harvests – Winter Squash

Winter squash have ripened well after all the sunshine: look for the necks to be shriveling before you harvest but as long as the skin colour is strong (eg dark red for Kuri, deep grey/blue for Crown Prince, dark beige for Butternut) then it is fine to cut squashes even if the neck is still a little soft, as long as you then keep them dry and on the warm side: anywhere in the house is ideal, so they can finish drying before winter. Of course you can simply eat them now, but any fully dry squash will keep through winter and give you options to cook them at any time until March or thereabouts.

After harvest you could sow a mustard green manure as above, or plant garlic and onions of over-wintering varieties, or broad beans later in November.

I harvested these Uchiki Kuri squash, now in the conservatory, then sowed mustard for green manure – this is part of the Shumei experiment where I am using no compost on two beds.

The zlata mustard should be killed by frost in winter so no need to mulch. Remaining squash are Kabocha, not ripe.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes need care now, to water just enough for remaining fruits to swell, but as little as possible, to encourage ripening of existing mature fruits. Watch those forecasts and if frost is likely, pick remaining outdoor tomatoes; indoor ones should be ok for a while. Keep removing any new shoots. I reckon to pull indoor plants around mid October as it is usually so cool then that ripening becomes really slow. Outdoor plants may go on until late September unless frosted or blight appears: if so, cut off any infected leaves and remove infected fruits, then beyond end September best pick all mature fruit off outdoor plants to finish ripening indoors, on their trusses.