Autumn is most definitely here

I really did escape the wild weather last week, my fella and I got back last weekend from a relaxing week in Dorset. It was windy and there was some rain around but there was much more sun than rain. Certainly nothing like the terrible scenes of flooding and storms that we saw on the news up north. We went on holiday the same time last year (this is what happens when you live with someone who plays cricket all summer!) and we were in the midst of an October heatwave. Last year we stayed in gorgeous picturebox cottage inland from Lyme Regis but this time we wanted to be closer to the sea, so went for an amazing chalet on the cliffs overlooking the harbour with views to astound. Overlooking the rugged Cobb.

You can see the chalet on the cliffs in this picture on the right in the gardens of the brick house with the pointed roof.

I have to say I've fallen in love with this part of the south coast, it is much quieter than Cornwall with some amazing coastal scenery. Obviously this is a gardening blog so I won't bore you with my holiday photos but I did some garden visiting whilst there which I'll post about in future blogs. We visited Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens which have been voted Garden of the Year for 2012 and Alan Titchmarsh said "One of the finest gardens I have ever visited" and the great Mr T can't be wrong. We also visited a garden I've wanted to go to for a long time which was partly designed by Edward Lutyens and the garden heroine Gertrude Jekyll, Hestercombe in Somerset. I also did a bit of botanising as I was walking round, always on the lookout for wild flowers. Then looking them up when I got home! Sarah Raven's book on Wild Flowers is an amazing book which really helps me with identifying plants. The plants that astound me the most are the ones that you see on the edge of beaches. This thrift was on the edge of Chesil beach.

I think this is Sea Sandwort.

It was really hard taking some of the photos as it was so windy, even that close to the ground and so many of my pictures were a bit blurred but this is the Common Restharrow, apparently named as it develops such deep roots which are strong enough to stop a horse drawn harrow and apparently children in the north of England used to chew the roots like liquorice.

We also went to 'visit' the Cerne Abbas Giant. I probably should censor this photo.

It is Britains largest chalk hill figure at 180ft. The carving consists of a trench 30cm wide and deep in the hillside into the underlying chalk. It is a contraversial figure as people are not completely sure when it was first made with initial suggestions that it has an ancient origin though its history cannot be traced back further than the late 17th century. Who it depicts is also a major argument with hypotheses ranging from a Saxon god, to Roman Hercules, to a mocking depiction of Oliver Cromwell in the civil war. The Victorians also revered it as a fertility symbol. Walking on the chalk hillside however was good for spotting some wild flowers like Scabious a very pretty wild flower, I think the top flower is the Devils Bit Scabious and the second is the Field Scabious.

The Harebell and Hawkbit.

But the plant of the holiday was that lovely daisy, Erigeron karvinskianus, it was everywhere including in the garden of the chalet, in walls on the seafront and in the water channels in the lovely village just over the Devon border called Beer.

It also features very heavily in the garden at Hestercombe but more of that later...

Serene September

Where does the time go? Its mid-September, its dark when I get up in the morning, its getting cooler and it will soon be time for Strictly.....

But before the glitter ball starts to turn there are lots of jobs to be getting on with at the allotment and the best thing is that many of these jobs are harvesting followed by cooking of my home-grown crops. After all my complaining about slugs and cold weather and rain it looks like after all its not been so bad.

The plot in the late evening light is looking lovely, very mellow.

There is still plenty of colour on the plot.

A while ago I harvested my garlic and it has dried nicely and its all ready for use over the winter months. It seems to grow well here, from a mid-January start, in modules before planting at the allotment in mid March. The variety is 'Isle of Wight' which I bought from Sarah Raven the year before and I saved my biggest bulb from last years crop to split and grow again this year. I will do the same for next year.

My Purple climbing french beans 'Cosse Violette' are flourishing and I've been picking for quite a few weeks now. Plenty to eat fresh and also for the freezer.

After a battle with the slugs I'm finally getting heads on my calabrese plants. So I'm sure I'll get a reasonable belated harvest from them.

The leeks are coming on now and I'll soon be able to start harvesting them.

Last year my main disappointment was my sweetcorn, which is a big favourite of mine so this year I was determined to get some and so I made two sowings of them, potting on to a reasonable size before planting at the allotment so that they didn't get taken out by slugs. I grew a variety called 'Extra, tender and sweet' and they certainly are! I planted them in two blocks and they have done well, one block a couple of weeks behind the other in terms of harvesting, I sowed one batch in early April and the other in early May so the second batch almost caught up with the first batch and were bigger sturdier plants. I've picked many and the rest (that is the problem they tend to all be ready at the same time) I have frozen which I've found very easy and successful for sweetcorn.

My squash and courgettes are really growing well now after a slow start. 

I'm not going to get many fruit off the squash though as they have started fruiting too late but the courgettes have been prolific as usual. I'm hoping I'll get some Patty Pan squash soon.

Plus I've just harvested one of my Trobocino squash.

I took a picture of this monster pumpkin plant at my mums local farm shop. Though the pumpkin is nowhere near as big as last years.

Finally I've talked about my alpine strawberries quite a lot here and this year I also sowed some yellow alpine strawberries (seed again from Sarah Raven) they have just started fruiting, the difficulty here is knowing when they are fully ripe! They go very plump and pale when they are ripe. Not sure they are as nice and pretty as my normal red ones though. But a bit different.

Making the most of the light nights

The nights are definitely drawing in. I'm avidly following the weather forecast at the moment (which seems to be nice one day then raining the next) for nice evenings for me to go up to the allotment. Tonight was perfect. I left work on time, quick tea and then up there as soon as I could. I went round the back of the allotments which is a bit of an overgrown path which dog walkers use. It leads to an area which contains a communal orchard. I had a walk round there but there are hardly any fruit on the trees. Is this another victim of the poor weather, the cool spring meaning less bees around to pollinate the flowers. I've got an old apple tree in my garden and this has quite a few fruit on but they don't look very healthy this year. Anyway I digress, on this path there are some fences covered in brambles and as I showed in the post last week, the blackberries are ripening already.

I disturbed a flock of sparrows on my way round who've also found this treasure and though I don't want to deprive the sparrows some fruit I'm sure there is enough for all.

So first batch of jam making ingredients, will pick a couple of more batches, there is plenty of fruit on them waiting to ripen. Its handy finding my own patch.

However my friend gave me a 'cultivated' blackberry bush, not sure of the variety, which she had grown in a pot in her garden which wasn't doing too well so I've planted it at my allotment and its taken off. I need to get some wires on the fence and properly train it. But I've got quite a few flowers and small developing fruit. The flowers are quite pretty.

Had a good weed up at the plot tonight, I've definitely been more on top of the weeds this year but it is never ending. Good job I find weeding therapeutic! I've cleared one bed tonight (my failed roots bed) and I'm going to give green manure a go, I bought some seeds at the Tatton Park Flower show.  Will post on that when I get going with the sowing.

Whilst going round my plot tonight I noticed I've got a healthy crop of mushrooms growing in some places. Should I be worried or is this just expected as the bark chippings start to rot down? Should I do anything or just leave them be? Any suggestions?

Allotment Show

At my allotment site we have recently set up a committee to try and address issues on the site, to combine resources such as buying seeds and compost and also to get together to work on communal areas of the site. We have been meeting for about a year now and for me it's been nice, as I'm fairly new to the plot, to help me get to know the other plot holders.

We have created our own little shop, have set up a website and reinstated a mini-show of our produce. It used to be a big annual event in Paddock but as allotment usage dwindled it got dropped but now our site is thriving again with all plots taken and the council are relatively on top of people who don't look after their plots. All our work to improve the site has been recognised by the local council and the big show in Huddersfield where our site was awarded the most improved site in the Kirklees region.

In addition one of our plot holders was awarded the prize for best novice gardener across Kirklees.

At a meeting early in the year we decided we'd like to have our own show but we wanted to start slowly to see how much interest that we would have and if it was a success that we might extend to other sites in the area in future years. As this has been such a difficult year we decided a few weeks ago to have a general  entry which is a basket of mixed produce of your choice (the term basket could be loosely interpreted as any container or if preferred produce can be displayed on the table top which will be covered with cloth). First prize was a memorial shield with certificates for second and third prizes.

The show was to be held on Sunday 19th August in our communal hut on the site. We had a Kirklees official judge, Roy Jackson and we had to exhibit our produce between 6 and 7p.m. on 18th August or between 11a.m. and 12 noon on 19th August. Judging to place at 1.00 and then we all in the hut for tea and cakes at 1.30.

Here was my entry.

It really has been difficult, I've no beans or peas ready at the moment (my first sowing of peas is finished and my second just starting to flower now!) I've not grown runner beans this year and my dwarf beans and purple beans not quite ready yet! So my exhibit consisted of some potatoes 'Pentland Javelin', my garlic which I'm really pleased with, one fennel bulb, 3 varieties of courgette ('Best of British', 'Summer Ball' and 'Tondo di Toscana') these add a bit of colour and 3 globe artichokes and just to decorate some 'Carvelo Nero' and 'Scarlet' Kale. I'm not sure the edible flowers of Borage and Marigold were approved of by the judge but it added some colour! I was pleased but as you will see below the competition was fierce. It was funny at the allotment on sunday morning picking the last few things and seeing people looking at around at what everyone else was doing! For me it was a bit of fun to get involved and meet my fellow plot holders, but it obviously meant alot more to some of the male plot holders as it sparked their competitive spirit.

So here are a few of the other exhibits.

Its an amazing display considering the year that we have had.

Can you guess from looking at them which one first prize?

The winner of the first prize and the memorial shield was our chairman, Barry. Who exhibited the vegetables in the picture straight above. The second prize went to Peter, the first picture above and the third prize to Johnathan the one with the two cauliflowers (which to be fair are brilliant) I've never managed to grow a cauliflower. This won the Haighe trophy for best in show.

But I'm sorry boys size isn't every thing! There was a definite gender divide in the show, the women more interested in having a good harvest and a tasty crop. Maybe we should all strive for perfection but then I think of the amazing mis-shapen tomatoes and peppers that you see in markets in Spain or Italy where they are really more interested in taste, rather than the uniform fruit and vegetables that you see in the supermarket in the UK. Anyway it was a fun sociable afternoon with lots of talk of the weather and pesky snails. Plus lots of lovely cake.

What do other people think about these vegetable shows?