Time to play catch up!

Well it's been a busy few weeks, and unfortunately I don't mean on the plot. The past couple of weekends we've had visitors to entertain - and whilst the thought did cross my mind to hand them each a spade or a hoe, and make use of free labour - I thought better of it for the health of my marriage, and decided to place a drink in the hand of each of our guests before I changed my mind!

Just reading through my previous posts I'm amazed at how long it is since I've last posted let alone done any meaningful work on the plot.

I've been harvesting runner beans now for a few weeks, and they show no signs of letting up - flowers are still appearing and I'm giving away a fair number, but all to good homes I'm sure. The same can also be said of courgettes - some of which have ended up the size of small children!

The peas I think have had it. They have pretty much all succumbed to mildew. The old plants managed to produce a decent drop before being struck, but the second lot didn't really get going before they were covered in the white powder. I attempted a spray solution of milk/water, but I think I may have been too late...

In other news, my onions received a little bit of praise from our award winning plotholder. He was wondering around the allotment taking photos for a slide presentation (do people still do that!?) somewhere locally, and he asked if he could take a photo of my onions. Well, who was I to deny my onions' moment of glory!?

This is the exact same onions taken about a week later, during their "drying out" phase (which it turns out, is nothing to do with The Priory?!) - so when you see them on the cover of.....

...ok, so I'm running away with myself, but I was proud as punch!

The Dwarf, or French beans are romping away nicely now and I'm harvesting them pretty much every week. For such small plants I'm amazed at how much they produce - and like the runner beans they are still flowering, so who knows how long they'll keep it up.

Cabbages and cauliflowers (seen on the left of the below photograph) are coming along nicely. I've left them netted over, but they still have a few holes which I suspect are evidence of yet more slugs. Generally I'm quite pleased at how they're doing and am hopeful to have them ready in time for Christmas. Likewise with the sprouts (on the right) - although I spotted a few caterpillers on them only yesterday when I ventured down to the plot. Needless to say, the offending caterpillers were quickly "dispatched"!

The straw cowboy hat in the foreground is a little more difficult to explain...

I recently even managed to get the lady wife to venture down to the plot with me on the promise of some sugarsnap peas. Here's a rare photo of my glamorous assistant...

I did eventually manage to get the carrots planted, though how well they'll do I've no idea. I hear baby carrots are in this year....

Dad recently bought over a load of edging slabs for me, and until recently they just sat in a pile. Then like a bolt out of the blue I thought "I know, I'll use them to edge a bed!" Genius!

Here's the resulting bed:

Yeah, I though much the same - it's missing something, like a headstone and a pot of flowers or something!?!

Anyway, I sowed (?) some Corn Salad - or Lambs Lettuce to see how I get on.

Maybe lillies would be better...

Ooh, I nearly forgot! I spotted some half decent looking butternut squashes that I'd almost given up on - what do you think?

It's quite obvious that the season is now coming to an end, and reading the books I have, and the advise I've received it seems that the fun really starts now - getting the ground ready for next year!

Looking back at what I started with in February - I'm quite excited for next year!

Here's how things looked in February 2007:

Hopefully thing will look a little different in February next year...