Allotment/Veg patch thread 11 'We bid farewell to rainbow leaves but will keep plotting along'

[bookbook]

Well, nights are drawing in, leaves are starting to turn, harvesting carrying on
What a summer it has been!
Join in with the ups and downs of growing our own into autumn.
Last thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/2951768-Allotment-Veg-Patch-Thread-10-Plotmenters-busy-into-summer-and-loving-James-Wong?msgid=71770088HERE

Not necessarily veg related, but when do you all stop cutting your grass for the year? Please say it's soon - it took me two hours today

Hello. Does anyone have good advice about how to protect winter squash from going mushy/rotten before they mature and ripen. I imagine it's normal to lose a few this way, but I seem to be losing a lot. Should I bed them on straw like pumpkins? Or something else? Thanks!

I was thinking straw but I am no expert.

Evening!
Frouby - you are really motoring on this! Strawberries should be fine - they may look a bit sad over winter, they are tough things, and really want to grow
Gin - I hate to say this but.... up here in Yorkshire, we now cut grass up to November, with maybe a little break until March .... I seem to think you can freeze cooked jacket potatoes, but haven't tried .
goodenough - mmm its been a bit odd this year on squashes. I always stand mine on old kitchen tiles, but have lost 3 or 4 to early rotting.( off two plants ) I am assuming the wet /cold weather, as courgettes were rotting too ( when I had some )
I only popped down to the plot to cut grass today. But at home picked another big bowl of plum tomatoes. They are managing to keep ripening, even though the nights are a bit cold now.

mowing lawn - until december usually. and then again in march when the crocuss are finished.

Yes, we cut lawns until November or so too, though from now it will only be every two weeks. I think we start again in April.

How long are tomatoes supposed to take to ripen? I have a lot of green ones on my plants and it's definitely feeling properly Autumnal up here.

GrouchyKiwi you can take the toms off the plant and ripen indoors. This is what I normally do when the blight starts to hit. I took off all the green tomatoes and put them in a large bowl, added a banana and covered with a tea towel. I've lost some to the blight but we've managed a good crop of tomatoes that way.

Mowing the lawn - definitely at least until end of October. But we only have a small lawn and are a bit neglectful.

Grouchy - I'm still getting ripe tomatoes, but they are in a greenhouse. They are definitely slower to ripen now though. So I will leave them while the weather is still okay, and not too cold overnight. I then pick off all the unripe ones and put them in a tray , stood on some brown paper and cover them . Then I check them every 2-3 days, and use any that have ripened, and leave the rest. Mine lasted for a good 4 -5 weeks that way, just taking out any that were ripe or going rotten . Somewhere cool btw. The banana trick works well too - but they tend to ripen all in one go!

November was not the correct answer guys

At least every two weeks is better than every week. It's feeling really autumnal isn't it? It's quite mild here but the mornings and evenings have that bit of a chill.

I thought I'd be sad when all the veg starts to stop producing, but I'm actually taking great joy in pulling everything out and clearing the soil.

I'll try some straw. I've also removed some leaves so there's more air and light circulating.

Can I use them as very young squash? Like courgettes? I wonder if I should try to eat some before they rot.

You can ripen squash in the sun. Harvest them and then wipe them down and put them somewhere sunny. They should ripen up.

GinGeum I enjoy clearing the plot as well. I think with some vegetables we've eaten so many that we're glad that they've stopped producing.

Hopefully we'll have some time to do some clearing tomorrow.

Afternoon!
Hope everyone is well and busy :)
Just been trundling along the last couple of days. Wet days, dry days...
I have finished prepping up the bed for overwinter garlic/shallots/onions.
This morning I finally got all my spring cabbage planted out .
Harvesting carrying on. I have dug up three cabbages, all a bit sluggy. One was so bad, I put it on the compost heap , I brought two home, along with the last summer cauliflower. Early sprouting broccoli still going, the later purple one getting going .
Runner beans still doing well, though I think they have stopped setting, its just picking the ones when they are ready now. Raspberries going beserk :) Dahlias still doing their thing. Not long before I need to dig them up and get them put away for winter.
Autumn really getting going

Any tips on preparing dahilas for winter bookbook

I've tried before and although it all seemed to go ok, none of them germinated the next year.

Starting to pick the late french beans, still flowering too but think the cold will mean they won't come to anything.

tiz - more good luck than good management I think!
I dig them up when I hear there is going to be a frost ( the leaves go black overnight when there is a frost) , and leave them out for a couple of hours so it is easier to get all the soil off the roots . I then chop the stalks down to about 4-6" . I lay them in trays ( those plastic ones I put my veg in the photos ) in the greenhouse , covered. I think they need to be really dry , and no obvious rot on the roots. I have covered them with fleece, plastic tarpaulin , anything to just stop them getting frosted . I didn't get all of them through last winter - I think I lost three out of about 10 , so not perfect, but certainly better than having to buy more. I think they could as easily go in a dry shed , or somewhere cool and dry .

Afternoon all.

At the start of the year I set myself the challenge of baking a cake where all the ingredients had come from the allotment field. I can now say I have done it.

Congratulations Gnome, have you tried it yet?

Looks great, Gnome!

Thanks for advice re ripening tomatoes. They're still slowly ripening on the bushes, so I'll leave them for a bit longer. Weather isn't too bad here right now.

Think we're coming into a bit of a veg drought for a bit - beans nearly over, courgettes ditto, not many carrots left, and the pak choi, caulis, spinach, kalettes and indoor lettuce are still too little to pick. Chard and kale are still going strong but I'm getting a little fed up of them!

Well done Gnome. You will have to eat it all tonight because swiss roll doesn't store . Lovely colour on it too.

Cake tastes okay. Texture is different as we werent able to make perfect white flour. High fibre swiss roll!

Looks yummy Gnome -
argh Una - its so hard when you have eaten the same thing over and over! . Kale is very good in bean casseroles , if that helps ... ( I do a borlotti bean and kale one which is lovely, if you want the recipe) .
We had a quarter of a crown prince squash tonight, roasted with rosemary and garlic. I usually keep them for when we are fed up of cabbage , but I was just a bit worried that the stem felt a bit soft, so decided to get on and use it. :)

that looks really good gnome
what a great achievement.
have now sorted the sunflower seeds into paper bags (the heads were starting to get mushy).
have saved seeds from a giant red one (over 2m), a multiheaded big one (2.3m) and the giant one (2.7m).
the ones left in the garden are all bending a lot with the heavy heads.

I am glad the cake project is completed. It's probably the most expensive cake in the world! Learnt lots doing it. I now have so much respect for farmers both ancient and modern.

We have started planting for next year. Shallots, garlic and onions are all one in. In a week or two I will get a couple of rows of broad beans started. One season is now rolling into the next.

Well done on the cake Gnome! I am very impressed that you can actually make a swiss roll never mind grow all the ingredients as well

Good couple of hours work on Saturday afternoon. Had DH, DD and her friend helping. DD and friend tackled overgrown blackberry bushes and also cut back some grass. I did some digging and DH helped with various jobs including lugging back the squashes/pumpkins. We decided to harvest them all now and ripen off at home. They haven't grown that big - definitely needed more manure and feeding. We harvested the last of the carrots. We've still got beetroots, perpetual spinach, chard, kale and a few beans but after that not much else. Apart from the many bags of frozen beans.
Next year I want to grown more borlotti beans and also more fennel as that did quite well this year.

Wow Gnome - very impressive!