It certainly feels like Autumn has arrived with cooler mornings and nights, this September is more like the ones I remember as a child, going back to school when there was that nip in the air. I really don't mind this time of year, by the end of August I'm ready for a new season and a new start and the colours everywhere are so lovely, I love decorating for Autumn as much as i do for Christmas
On Monday I spent a good three hours down the allotment tiding everything up. We've had a bit of a disaster with the cabbages and some of the broccoli and cauliflower, they were covered in cabbage mealy aphid. I thought at first I would be able to wash it off but the further I went I discovered that all of the plants were covered, I didn't want to risk it spreading any further so ripped the whole lot out!
Looks disgusting, and this is one leaf that wasn't that bad!
At the moment the other broccoli, we will need to keep an eye on it though, if you can catch them early enough you should be able to wash them off.
Everything else seems to be doing ok.
We have a few lettuce, and behind that we have squash, no fruit yet but loads of flowers and there are still a few courgettes to come
Sweetcorn
Carrots, salad onions and peppers. We probably won't get anything now on the pepper plants.
The kidney beans were slow to start but are growing nicely now
We were keen to get things in the ground when we got the plot and should have given more thought to the layout, we've been talking about how we want to set it out and what we want to grow next year.
Mark is going to make us a brassica cage, the cabbage, broccoli and cauli I dug out was under one of those mesh tunnels and we reckon that exasperated the aphid issue, because they had got so big the air flow wasn't so good and perhaps if other friendly bugs had been able to get in the aphids wouldn't have gotten hold. Oh well, it's all a learning curve isn't it
At home I've taken out all the tomato plants, what a disappointment. We've had a few that ripened but the majority stayed green.
I have a couple of bowls in the conservatory and they are slowly turning red.
-X-
6 comments:
Put your green tomato's in a paper bag and they will ripen, Lynda Ruth
Your allotment looks really healthy, like you it's my first season, after so much lost at the beginning of the season, I'm getting some good harvest. I really gave up on tomatoes and cucumbers, and like the comment above, my green tomatoes are in paper bags to ripen.
I like your Autumn decorations.
All the best Jan
Love your Autumnal display and your garden looks amazing.. we've tomatoes ripening all the time, so don't give up.
There's definitely a nip in the air now that autumn is making its presence felt, though I must admit that I'm always sad when summer comes to an end so I'm not admitting that autumn is here just yet. That mealy aphid looks horrible but the other plants on your allotment look really healthy and I think you've done a fabulous job with it. Wait until you taste the sweetcorn though, pick it and eat it right away, there's no better flavour than freshly picked homegrown sweetcorn.
We too have had a teriible produce yeild, almost non existent. All we can do is hope for better things next year.
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