Sunday 16th August 2009

We all went down to the allotment for the morning to continue tidying up. I removed some more of the branches and blight stricken tomatoes from the greenhouse. I also made little nets to hold the melons up as they are getting heavier day by day ! We have noticed that the cucumber plant in the greenhouse has now started to produce cucumbers - maybe it's because I cut off the ends of the flowering branches and it is concentrating it's efforts into producing fruit now rather than growing ! Hopefully that is the case. The chillies are still growing - there are still flowers on the plant for heavens sake !!!! None of the ones on the plants are red at the moment but we have hundreds that are purple (which is the colour just before they turn red).

In the bad winds the previous day the Corona Del Oro beans had been blown over and uprooted so we had to harvest all of the beans on the plants and get rid of them. We already have some so we gave some to Tina and some to Mum & Dad. We pulled up all but one of the courgette plants as they have gone past making courgettes now - think they put all their energy into making those marrow like ones !!!

Then we generally tidyed up, weeded and put down more bark chipping to make the pathways better. The guy next door chatted to Dave & Henry and said he has Jerusalem Artichokes growing (which we thought were sunflowers) and he will save some for us for next year ! Looking forward to trying those.

We then harvested all the beetroot and I pickled them in the afternoon (Mrs. Beetons Pickled Beetroot No. 2).