polytunnel harvests – tomatoes, aubergine, basil, cucumber, purple peppers “Oda”

… and harvesting too! All of the hard work sowing, planting, watering and weeding has paid off and my garden and allotment is glowing with abundant fruit, herbs, flowers and vegetables. I can hardly keep up, what a lovely problem to have!

After one of the hottest weeks I have ever experienced in the UK, we are now enjoying rain and cooler temperatures. I thought I was going to melt earlier this week, it was so hot and humid I could hardly concentrate and it was impossible to do much gardening after mid-morning. I’ve just been for a walk up to my allotment and you can almost see the veggies slurping in the moisture with appreciation – and there is more rain forecast, hurrah.

Large planter from WoodBlocx

The warmth and rain creates perfect conditions for blight however so I will be keeping an eye on my potatoes and outdoor tomatoes, such as this gorgeous wild Galapagos tomato in my back garden, which is spreading out across the yard with enthusiasm. This is a raised bed from WoodBlocx which I’m trying out – I’ll be reviewing it later in the year but so far everything is growing well.

If I spot blight on the allotment potatoes, I will cut the foliage back (and compost it), harvesting the tubers about 2 weeks later. To help keep blight off my polytunnel tomatoes, I do my best to make sure that the leaves do not get wet when I water, and keep them side shooted so that there is good air flow through the tunnel.

Galapagos wild tomato

I have been away quite a lot recently which means that weeds have snuck into my plot. There is a bit of a myth that squash plants suppress weeds – they can stop some annual weeds from germinating, but also hide them from the gardener’s view until they suddenly pop out in glorious flower, ready to set seed at the first opportunity! I weed one bed at a time, otherwise it can feel overwhelming, using a hori hori or trowel.

sweetcorn, sunflowers and squash

allotment sunrise

my allotment, leeks under mesh

squash and weeds

Gigantes beans for drying

czar beans for drying

radicchio under mesh to protect it whilst small from rabbits and birds

Gigantes flower

Distorted sunflower caused by faciation

brassica bed under butterfly netting

Many of the climbing French beans at the allotment are for drying, including Gigantes, Czar and Borlotti. They are surrounded by squash and different flowers, difficult to reach, but that doesn’t matter at the moment because I won’t be harvesting them until late September or October. French beans for eating fresh are growing nearer to the path.

polytunnel

Around now is a good time for removing the growing shoots from tomatoes to encourage them to focus on ripening the existing fruit, rather than creating more. I will do this to about half of my tomatoes, because I love green tomatoes so an extra crop of those is useful in my kitchen.

I’ve especially enjoyed Brad’s Atomic Grape tomatoes (see below) which shimmer in the sunshine, hold their shape when chopping and taste good too. They are open pollinated tomatoes, so I will be able to save their seed for next year.

The aubergines have been slower than usual. I am harvesting a lot of the familiar fat purple aubergines, but my more unusual varieties haven’t been as happy this year as they have previously. Fortunately they are now starting to crop and should continue to do so until mid-October or even longer, depending on the weather.

Oda purple sweet peppers and aubergines

Brad’s Atomic grape tomatoes

this melon is almost ripe

polyculture of gem marigolds, calendula, aubergine, lemongrass, melon and a sneaky weed!

green shiso

lemongrass

tomato harvest

Every day I sniff my melons to see if they are ready! This is the way to check for ripeness. If the melon smells sweet and fruity, it is ready. I let the melons scramble across the ground and also provide stakes for them to climb up.

We are loving the daily fruit harvests – plums, figs, greengages, raspberries, Japanese wineberries, bayberries, boysenberries, pink blueberries and nectarines that are just ripening: I have eaten two so far, so juicy and delicious! There are still strawberries and the blackberries will be ripening soon.

The medlar is the best it has ever been (the fruit is not ready to pick for a few months) although sadly the quince has no fruit this year, perhaps due to the late frost in May.

This is a Sibley Patio Nectarine which grows in a large pot outside my home office, there are around a dozen or so fruit still to pick. I have eaten two so far – completely delicious! The damaged fruit in the photo is still edible 🙂

On August 1st I sowed more seeds, mostly for growing on outside – see a list at the end of the blog. It’s fine to sow all of these now too, except it is rather late for the bush beans. Mine are for the polytunnel, to pop into any gaps for an autumn crop before the days get too cold and dark. If the autumn is cold and miserable they probably won’t work, so it’s a bit of a leap of faith with regards to the weather! Some years it works, others are not so good, but looking on the bright side the roots are good for the soil and the flowers provide forage for insects.

trays of seedlings

tray of basil for microleaves

covered with plant shade cloth

There’s a lot of planting and pricking out to do now. I had to go away for a couple of days during the hottest days and was worried whether these seedlings would survive – the hot temperatures meant that I was watering at least twice a day in the greenhouse, even with the capillary matting. Then I remembered the shading cover that Vegepod had sent me to try out (it isn’t available in the UK yet) and spread it over the seedlings. It was amazing. I got back the following evening, expecting to find a composty graveyard of frazzled plant babies and instead they were lush, green and moist, the capillary matting still damp and they didn’t need watering until the next morning. (Gardening Naturally sell plant shade cloth which might be the same sort of thing.)

Three of these trays are herbs for microleaves – basil, dill and coriander. I want these quick crops for my preserving. There’s plenty of basil in the polytunnel but the recent hot weather has slowed it down a bit, so this is a back up. There are some videos on my Instagram account which explain all of the sowings here. Follow my account for regular updates and videos explaining how I grow food year round in my garden and allotment.

Other jobs for this week include planting Charlotte potatoes in sacks for winter salad spuds. I grow them in sacks in the greenhouse so that they are easy to protect from blight and frost.

Soon it will be time for sowing for the polytunnel too – a September job – and I explain all in the latest issue of Kitchen Garden magazine. Like most mags, the September issue is for sale in August, which is handy because it means you can make sure that you have seeds etc in good time.

My special offer for the double pack of No Dig Organic Home and Garden and The Creative Kitchen continues through to the end of August.

Seeds I sowed include*:

Coriander
Dill
Chervil
Basil
Pak choi
Kale
Spring cabbage
Florence fennel
Kohl rabi
Mustards
White turnips
Lettuces
Raab and unusual brassicas from Real Seeds
Beetroot
Spring onions
Carrots – outside in the ground, not in modules
Dwarf French bean/ bush bean

* it is pouring down and I am wearing a floaty frock that will get soaked if I try to get to the greenhouse to read all of the labels 🙂