Monday, 29 July 2013

why do cucumbers hide?

I have three cucumber plants in the greenhouse and once they start producing fruit we have to go flat out to harvest and find uses for them all.The trouble is they sometimes hide as if determined to grow as large as possible.

This is a Spacemaster which managed to fall between two containers and keep out of sight until it was the size of a marrow. It weighs over 700g and will be going into a pan of cucumber soup tomorrow.

I keep going on about the size of the blackcurrant harvest this year but it really is exceptional. So far we've picked over 11kg from three bushes and we haven't finished yet. Tomorrow we're going shopping for a juicer to give us another way to use up our harvest. The apple crop is looking good and I do like apple juice...and cider!

Some of the onions are now ready for lifting so I have the first lot drying outside but will bring them into the greenhouse if it rains too much.

These were grown from sets planted close together in order to give small bulbs but the rest are wider spaced and are thickening up nicely. I have about 150 onions which have survived the hot weather without mishap but now that we've had some heavy rain I notice that a few have bolted. A sudden change of conditions seems to be the trigger for bolting but the weather is something beyond our control.

The squash plant that has decided to climb through the privet hedge has produced one large fruit with several smaller ones. The big boss fruit is about five inches in diameter and I've had to support it on some string in case it breaks free from its moorings.

Although my wife knits and crochets she point blank refuses to make little hammocks for my squashes!

2 comments:

  1. Your onions look great, mine have been awful this year though my currants have been fantastic too.

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  2. I'm growing onion for the first time and not sure when to harvest, suppose it will be soon.

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