Pump it up

Heap good

A couple of pumpkin plants doing very well on last year's compost heap, which suits their insatiable appetite for nutrients.

Phat

Pump it up

            A pumpkin starting its thirsty way towards maturity.

Late veg box

                A final colourful harvest before the frosts arrive.

Month of the pumpkin

Into October and the month of the pumpkin. Some of these have a bit of marrow about them. They're not huge either, so no good for lanterns, but smaller ones often taste better.

Pumps away

         Pumpkin, propped up on a brick for protection and warmth.

Squashed

     Difficult to tell pumpkins, courgettes and butternut squash apart.

All Hallows' Eve

Boxed

Squashed

P is for ...

Peas



Pumpkin seeds

Repeat and fade

Equi Knocks

Do You Think You're Hard Enough?

Pumpkin plants grown from seed hardening off before planting out next week.

Flower 'n' Veg Stall

Filled a rucksack with produce today, including carrots, kale, sweetcorn, runner beans, a pumpkin, raspberries, apples, sunflowers, sweet peas, cornflowers and mint.



The sweetcorn's not fully ripened and I wonder if it will, this late in the year.



Still worth eating, if only to save it from the next badger visit.

Late autumn sun

Late autumn sun ensures at least a couple of pumpkins mature in time for Halloween.
Sunflower heads in the shed had got damp and were starting to rot, so I sat in the sun separating a couple of hundred seeds.
Collected gladioli and rocket seeds too.
Planted out broad beans. The ones sown directly into the ground are finally emerging.
Harvested kale, rocket, lambs lettuce and a couple of carrots.

Sow when the moon is low

Peculiarly warm, dark, day, busy up the allotment :
Cycled with a bag of compost from home, dug a trench and buried it
Cleared more space and planted another 50 onion sets
Planted 24 garlic cloves
Planted a dozen broad beans in open ground & a few in a seed tray
Made a small bonfire
Skimmed off some pond weed
Harvested : a marrow shaped pumpkin, the rest of the late new potatoes, a parsnip, some rocket & the last cucumber.

Gorgeous Morning

Gorgeous morning, worth getting up early to enjoy. Harvested more runner beans, french beans, sweetcorn and raspberries up at the allotment and cut back my leeks, which are all infested with leek moth larvae. Checked on and watered the pumpkins - think about five might make it - cabbages, spinach, kale seedlings and carrots. Dug over a dry patch of ground, ready for something later in the month.

Afternoon and evening in the studio, writing, mixing and backing up as I go along.

Midsummer Harvest

Only intended going up the plot for an hour 'cos the weather looked iffy - but in the end the showers never came and I stayed for around five, harvesting, planting, weeding, lying on my back in the long grass.

Harvested nearly 1lb of redcurrants - which I put in the freezer when I got back - a few stalks of rhubarb, some peas, a handful of raspberries and an artichoke head : I made up some garlic butter with a little olive oil and lemon juice as a dip for the artichoke and peas and had the rhubarb stewed with some yoghurt. Yum.

Planted some more rocket, (more like ski-lift - it's really slow this year) 'cobra' climbing beans, the last of the peas, a couple more pumpkin plants and the last of the leeks.