Not Abandoned!

I haven't abandoned my plot, promise! I've not been for 3 weeks now, sure, but through no fault of my own. I was going by my fortnightly visits plan when I was struck down by a horrible bug last weekend and my car also went kaput which means that unless I get on a bus looking like a muddy creature from the deep I can't get to my plot at the moment.

When I do get there I will need to do general tidying and some weeding and that's about it really until the weather brightens as I hate Broad Beans so won't be planting any! I never did plant any garlic, am I too late now that it's frosty or can I still bung it in? Must read books!

Planning will begin soon for next year with the catalogues and books and I figure I will keep up the fortnightly visits until it's warm enough to do anything major, promise I'll keep you up to date when I do make it back!

I'm a tad annoyed that I didn't make it back before the first frost as my butternut squash are sure to be gonners now, I was hoping to at least get the small ones off the plants and see if they were edible... Oh well, next year!

Backdated Photos

These pictures were taken almost 2 weeks ago now. Since then I've not visited the plot as it's been so wet and horrible and there really wouldn't be that much I could do with the soggy soil.

I seem to be winding down for the winter and only visiting the site every fortnight now, but with the growth slowing right down this hasn't seemed to bad.



This picture is from beside my shed towards the back of the plot. After I took this I dug up the potatoes in the front bed. There weren't too many of them but they have lasted us about 2 weeks which at least saved a bit of money, and as always they tasted better than the shop bought ones! When I'd dug them up I threw all the soil from the tubs I emptied in the shed onto that bed and a tub of calcified seaweed as well and raked it all in. Won't do anything with that bed until Spring now.



This is the back of the left side. You can see the courgettes are slowly starting to die off and the kale at the back is going insane! There's also cauliflower in there and in the middle bed there are turnips which I'm only getting half of as I have a very hungry mouse who is eating them all before I can pick them!




These butternut squash decided to make a late appearance. I doubt it they're still there after 2 weeks of almost solid rain. I'm chuffed that I got them to grow though and will be working on getting them out earlier next year.



These are 2 of the 3 beds on the other side of the plot, the first one is empty and will take the garlic when it's not so muddy (Tescos garlic as I can't find any to buy that won't cost me a fortune so we'll see how it goes!). The middle bed has Charlotte potatoes which are doing really well. I earthed up around them a bit and uncovered a few close to the surface by mistake but at least I know that they're growing! These should be ready in December and all 10 of them came up.

The farthest bed is onions which are doing well but need weeding now that I can see them. Again the rain has kept me from doing this properly and it will be one of the first jobs I do when I get down there next.



And finally the bounty! Big courgettes from all the water they've had, potatoes, half eaten turnips, last of the runner beans and parsnips which are really really lovely and smell wonderful when you dig them up!

I am hoping to get down the plot this weekend and do the weeding and some more tidying up such as taking down the pea netting and throwing the bean plants on the compost heap. The weeds to the quarter of the plot that's not been dug over are horrible but I'm ignoring them until Spring when they will be weedkilled, no point in doing it now really when I've no intention of doing any major digging for a while.