still here, still gardening

For one reason or another I've not been able to keep my blog up to date. I suppose it's mainly down to the long awaited decent weather which has meant a stack of work to be getting on with. The harvesting, preparing and storing of food has to be dealt with on top of all the general work such as weeding, grass cutting, hedge clipping, summer pruning of the fruit trees, etc.

I finally did get blight on the potatoes but I recognizedt it in time, chopped down the haulms and managed to get a reasonable yield considering they were lifted three or four weeks too early. Top performer and one I'll definitely grow next year is Picasso which has the potential for some huge yields, given decent weather conditions.

This morning I noticed that one of the trusses had broken from the tomato plant stem due to the weight of fruit it was supporting.

Three and a half pounds of juicy toms on one truss ain't bad. I've had to tie up the other trusses with strings from the greenhouse roof to stop them suffering the same fate. The variety is Hildares F1, seed bought from Lidl.

And on the subject of tomatoes I'm picking a couple of pounds a day at the moment. Some are being eaten fresh but a lot are chopped and frozen to use in the winter.

These are Amish Paste, supposed to be good for making sauces, etc.

Cabbages have done quite well this year, they must like cool conditions. This one is 'Greyhound' and weighed in at over two pounds.

Earlier in the year there were very few cabbage white butterflies around which was a blessing but they seem to have appeared with a vengeance now the weather is better. Most of my brassicas are under debris netting but I do have a few unprotected and it's a pain having to constantly check them for butterfly eggs.

Well, I'm blogged-out now but I will try and keep things up to date as the harvest progresses.