Week 35 - Bed DD6

We cleared the bed of the remaining beetroot over the past 2 weeks, to provide space for the cabbage and Brussels sprout transplants.

Week 35 - Bed DD4

We pulled everything up from the bed and laid the harvest on the surface to dry a bit.

The onions (left) to the left are a nice size, the shallots (top right) are quite big, but a lot of the garlic (bottom right) are small.

There were quite a range of onion sizes, with the two on the right representing the smallest and largest of the healthy plants. A few of the onions were rotten like the one on the left, and a few more (second from the left) seem to have been pressed into the soil at an angle when they were young possibly by one of the local dogs walking across the bed and were unable to form a decent bulb.

Week 35 - Bed DD3

The borage is growing quite quickly, starting to hide and overshadow the north end of the bed.

Two weeks after transplanting, these leeks in the foreground are still bent over, but are not as wilted as they had been.

The borage has started to flower, and will continue to flower for most of the season. The primary purpose for planting borage in a garden is to attract bees and other pollinating insects.

Week 35 - Bed DD2

The remaining courgette plant is healthy but still quite small.

The runner beans are climbing up the canes, though a lot of them are quite bushy at the base due to the pruning that the have suffered, and some of them have sent up more than one vine.

Week 35 - Bed DD1

The tassels (male flower) at the top of the sweetcorn are starting to form.

The Genovese courgette continues to produce fruit along the lengthening central stem or vine.

Week 35 - Bed EX8

We were going to clear out the broad bean and pea plants, but noticed that there are new shoots appearing at the base of many plants, so we cut off the old growth and left the younger parts of the plants to see what will happen.

The new growth at the base of the pea plants - the broad beans are similar.

There are several new shoots appearing at the base of this pea plant that we dug up. We were not able to locate any nitrogen fixing nodules on the pea roots - a common occurrence with the beans and peas in these plots.

Week 35 - Bed EX7

We cleared out much of the bed this week.

The potatoes have died right back, but we will leave the tubers in the ground until we need them.

We started to pull up some of the broad bean plants, but noticed young flowering shoots at the base so we trimmed them off instead to see if they would produce a second crop of beans.

Many of the broad beans had this secondary growth. This was the same with some of the peas and we left the young shoots in the ground to see what will happen.

We were not able to locate any nodules containing the nitrogen fixing bacteria on the roots of these broad beans. It is possible that the soil does not contain this bacteria and we may need coat the next batch of seed with the bacteria to introduce it. This lack of extra nitrogen may be part of the reason for the poor yield of beans as the plants could not take advantage of the extra boost of nitrogen.

The stems of the beans had grown over 120cm tall and will provide a lot of material for the compost.

Week 35 - Bed EX6

The Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli plant in the foreground was not transplanted (it was much too big to move and we left it in the original position) but it has been attacked by caterpillars (below).

Caterpillars have appeared on a number of the plants and we picked them off and squished them.

But some of the plants have been untouched.

Week 35 - Bed EX5

A few of the Swiss Chard plants have bolted (gone to seed) and will be pulled out.

The recent cabbage transplants, including this savoy cabbage, are doing reasonably well, and have increased in size over the past two weeks.

Week 35 - Bed EX4

We pulled up all of the remaining allium bulbs and set them to dry at the north end of the bed.

The onions (top) are very large, as are the shallots (bottom left) but the garlic harvest was not as good. The total yeild from this bed was smaller than that from bed DD4, though it is hard to compare because different plants were planted.

But this bed did produce larger individual onions, with the largest of them (above) weighing in at .75kg.

Week 35 - Bed EX3

The parsnip tops have grown quite large and have started to fall over onto the adjacent crops.

We pulled the last of the carrots, to give row for the leeks, which are being forced to grow in the shadow of the parsnip foliage.

Week 35 - Bed EX2

The bed has really filled out, especially at the far end.

An immature fruit from the Blue Ballet squash, that may not have been pollinated ...

... and one Connecticut Field Pumpkin has set and is starting to swell in size.

The runner beans are ready for picking 14 weeks after planting.

There are many purple flowers of the Blauhilde Climbing French Bean and a few small pods are forming.

Week 35 - Bed EX1

Both the Genovese and Nero di Milano Courgette (above) plants are very strong and have been producing a few fruit each week, some of them quite large.

Both of the Yellow Straightneck Courgette plants have produced many flowers but all of the fruit have been aborted, with rotting ends. this is most often due to insufficient pollination, but it is hard to understand why with so many flowers around, including on the other varieties (below) that they should be able to easily cross pollinate with. Perhaps it is the very compact form that is hiding the flowers from the few pollinators that are around.

Week 33 - Bed PC8

This bed is ready to be dug up, but there are still a few peas (bottom) and broad beans (top) to be harvested, so we will wait a few more weeks.

Some of the pea pods have matured and dried, producing seed ready to fall to the ground.

Week 33 - Bed PC7

The potatoes are really dying back, but the broad beans seem to have got a second wind late in the season.
These plants now look like others of the same variety did several months ago. It seems that the potatoes really stunted their growth.

Week 33 - Bed PC6

Nothing in this bed is thriving, which is not unexpected given the poor soil preparation and the weather.

The swedes are small but growin.

The brassicas are doing fairly well, but the beans (lower left) are struggling.

We transplanted a few more brassicas into the bed to replace ones that we had transplanted earlier which were not doing very well.

Week 33 - Bed PC5

We cleared out a lot of the larger beetroot to eat, the weeds and the other plants that had gone to seed, this makes the bed look more straggly. Into the spaces we transplanted a few brassica plants.

Week 33 - Bed PC4

The plants in this bed, and other parts of this plot, are not thriving. Although we dug this bed more thoroughly than the others, we had removed much of the fertility and organic matter from the soil when we removed the sod. We did not add any fertility or any other soil improver to this bed, and this has been compounded by the lack of rain earlier in the year, the wet cool weather for most of the summer and the fact that we did not harvest quickly enough to make room for other plants.

All of this has left the bed in a poor state where nothing is growing well and what we are harvesting can have a more bitter taste. We have learned a lot from this bed.

Week 33 - Bed PC1

A lot of growth in the last two weeks. We moved the vines which were starting to grow into the surrounding grass back into the bed, and pinched off the growing tip of a few to encourage a bushier growth.

More flowers ...
... and a few young fruit, but none of the older fruit seem to have been pollinated, and are rotting away. Some of the fruit seem to have vanished, perhaps eaten by whatever ate the sweetcorn.