Allotment update ... ... winding down.

Well it's September, the weather has got colder in this neck of the woods, not that summer was hot, at least not as hot as previous years.

The allotment has been left alone for a few weeks, so the other morning (at 7am) I decided I should pay it a visit and maybe start sorting it out, it'll need regular digging over, and weeding throughout the winter, it's not been easy, but I think I've got a handle on the weeds, don't think I'll ever beat them though, just keep them at bay.

I had hoped the pumpkins that had started to grow last time I was there were okay, they were and they seem to be doing alright, I had thought I'd harvest them, but decided to leave them for longer with a view to harvesting them for halloween :-)

This was how big they were last time I saw them -

Baby pumpkins :-)

I wondered whether they'd been eaten, or damaged by the weather, but as it turns out they are doing quite well, hopefully they'll be bigger for halloween, I doubt they'll be huge but they should be alright for carving and we can make some pumpkin pies and pumpkin soup, and any thing else we can think of.

The pumpkins now -

They don't look it, but they are bigger :-)

 I started to dig the bits that did have things growing, like the section where the spuds were, once the pumpkins are done I'll go over the whole plot, and then just try and keep on top of the weeds over winter, I may also plant some things for an early crop.

There are other things I can be doing though, I have to build some kind of compost bin / box, part of it is already there, I just need to add a front to it to stop the waste from falling out of it. I also have a poly-tunnel to build, but first I'll have to clear a space for it, I have the frame work already to be put up, just need to get some large polythene sheets, then I'll have an extra green house, which reminds me, I need to fix the one in the garden, why is it to do lists only ever get bigger ? even if you cross loads of stuff of them.

I did come home with some rather large courgettes, which is good as I've eaten more or less all of the courgette relish my wife made (was meant to last until next year, oooppps) if you fancy making courgette relish you can find the recipe on my wifes blog ---> here (opens in new window)

Monster courgettes -

Okay so it's more like a marrow now :-)

A little less curly :-)

I also got 2 small winter squashes, they look really nice no idea what we'll do with them yet though.

I'm sure we can think of something to do with them.

A table full of squashes (and the odd corn cob)

The curly courgette weighs nearly 2kg !

So we have enough for a new batch of relish, which I'll try not to eat before next year, well not all of it anyway ;-)

I think we did pretty well considering we got the plot later in the year than was really helpful, and we'd already planted a load of stuff in our gardens, next year we should get much more produce.

You may remember me saying that around the allotment site are loads of hop plants, and there's a load between our plot and the one next door, so I thought I'd pick some, apparently you can use them for a few things, apart from making beer, you can make a relaxing pillow filled with hops and lavender to help you sleep for example, still looking into other uses, but I'm looking forward to finding interesting uses for them.

A bag full of hops -

They need drying out.

And that's about it, the next allotment up date will probably be in spring time, unless I get round to building the poly-tunnel before then :-)

Thanks for reading.