Where Did Autumn Go?

Wow, it seems like a very long time since I last posted an update on smallholding life (if you don't count the onion and potato posts). The main reason has been my devotion to a very special craft project which can't be revealed just yet but has now thankfully been completed. At last I can switch my focus back to all those other jobs which I have been ignoring for so long and give you a bit of a summary of what we have been up to for the last few months.
 
September

This has always been really busy time of year, harvesting and preparing our fruit and veg for storage and this year was no different. Indeed, most of this month was spent going back and forth between the garden and the kitchen.


As usual we had a lot of runner beans; last year we made runner bean chutney while also cutting, blanching and freezing a batch. The chutney was gorgeous and disappeared very quickly while the prepped veg was a major disappointment. Despite my attempts to de-string them they were still stringy and not very pleasant to eat. This year all the runner beans were destined for chutney, 2 batches made and a total of 9 jars really for the winter.

After a consistently wet summer our tomato plants were looking rather grim but, despite the lack of green leaves we had a bumper harvest of 9 different varieties, some more successful than others. A selection of the varieties are above, from top left clockwise we have Marmande, Tigerella, Gardeners' Delight (just one here), Sungold, Golden Sunrise and Red Pear. The Moneymaker, San Maranzo and Orange Queen were really poor and I probably won't bother with them next year.


I hate to waste the food we grow so when there is a lot of fruit and veg I normally try to find some way to store it. I recently discovered that I like homemade tomato and chorizo soup, this is the second batch using up 2.5kg of tomatoes and it is handy to have in the freezer.

Food plays a major role in our daily life and with all the extra pork in the freezer we have been experimenting with new recipes. This was our first attempt at barbecue ribs, they look a little well done in the photo but they were really just caramelised with some beautiful pieces of onion and garlic in the sticky sauce. They were absolutely amazing, such tender pork with the sweetest stickiest sauce.

 

As a side we sliced a Marmande beef tomato, some mozzarella and drizzled it in balsamic vinegar. Although it didn't look good enough as a Masterchef contender it was gorgeous.

From our 5 plants these were the best of the Cucamelon crop; a major disappointment from a promising start and we are definitely not going to bother growing these again.

Some of our brassicas were badly attacked by caterpillars but we managed to get a couple of decent cauliflowers which M made into a very tasty cauliflower cheese dish.

Although our little orchard is only a couple of years old and is yet to produce much fruit we are fortunate to have a few older apple trees around the smallholding. M was keen to try some pressing and have a go at making some cider. It will take a few months to mature so I'll update you later once we have completed the taste test.

M has been busy in the kitchen, mincing pork and making sausages. We've had both chilli flavour and a milder herb variety but the chilli ones are my favourites.

Planning Ahead - October

I think I may have mentioned (maybe once or twice) how I long for a carpet of Bluebells in the woods, well this year we thought we'd go for a mass bulb planting session. However, we don't just want Bluebells as we really would like some colour and some naturalising bulbs throughout the woods. After much research and time spent on every bulb website I could find I made our orders in the hope that buying in bulk would be cheaper!

 First order: 250 Wood Anemone, 250 English Bluebells, 100 Naturalising Tulips.

Second Order (mostly for the White garden): 10 Erythronium White Beauty, 50 Narcissus Thalia, 25 Tulip White Triumphator, 25 Tulip White Dream, 20 Wild Garlic, 100 Crocus Joan of Arc and 20 Erythronium Pagoda.

Order 3: 165 Mixed Alliums.
This photo also has the 2x5kg bags of mixed Daffodils and a couple of extra packets (another 50 bulbs) we picked up at our local garden centre. All in all I think it's safe to say that there were lots of bulbs to plant.

M was a little aghast at the number of bulbs but we had said we would plant loads this year, see how they got on and hopefully if they started to naturalise we would not have to plant any more. It took us about a week to get everything planted. The white bulbs (Tulips, Crocus, Daffodils, 6 Wild Garlic, Wood Anemone and Erythronium white beauty) were all put in the white garden with 2 other areas set aside for the Wild Garlic. The Alliums were used to fill an entire area on the edge of the woods where a few Alliums successfully flowered last year. The Bluebells, Erythronium Pagoda and the rest of the Wood Anemone were spread throughout the largest and most accessible parts of the woods. The Daffodils and Tulips were planted around the edges of the deciduous trees where they should get plenty of light before the ash are in full leaf.

While out planting bulbs we also managed to get a few Primroses, Ferns, Jack Frost and a couple of Viburnum planted in the woodland garden. Unfortunately it doesn't look good at the moment as the leaves are falling and all the colour has disappeared. We are really hoping it will be blooming in spring.

Our usual end of season tidy up included potting this little chap up. This Fig has grown so much this year but was starting to look a little yellow that we thought we'd go one pot size up in the hope that it would have a little nourishment before hibernating for winter. We were very surprised to find the beginnings of fruit but as it is such a baby plant we removed the fruit to keep all the goodness in the plant growth.

We trialed our sweet potatoes in old coal sacks in the polytunnel and throughout the summer and autumn they grew wonderfully but under all that lush foliage this was our meagre harvest. I love Pweet potatoes and don't feel totally defeated yet so we may have another go next year, space permitting. As the rainy season continued we cleared the greenhouse ready for overwintering our geraniums and dahlias and M spent some precious time building new deeper raised beds for the polytunnel.

This week we have had our first frosts, scrapping the car windscreen in the mornings and walking across the frosted paddock reminds us that autumn has nearly gone and winter is just around the corner. Thankfully the garlic has been planted and most of our outdoor chores can be put to one side for a while. I guess what I really need now is another craft project which will help justify my position on the settee in front of the fire. 

Good Old Potatoes

Who doesn't love a potato? Thankfully we do, they are such a most versatile veg; whether boiled, baked, roasted, chipped, fried or mashed they are definitely a firm favourite in our household (oh, and I might be slightly addicted to crisps). I know these days there is much interest on low carbohydrate diets and the humble potato is often viewed as a no-no. However, I prefer the approach of 'everything in moderation' as even an extreme excess of water can be detrimental to your health. If you take away the deep fat frying preparation then the humble potaot can be really healthy, if you don't believe me have a look here for all the proper scientfic info. Well, mini lecture over and on to how we got on with our potato growing this year.

Last year we grew potatoes in the main veg bed and despite a bumper crop we were mightily disappointed that we lost about 50% to slug damage and strangely, wasp damage. This year we had another plan and, as with the onions, we decided to trial a few different planting schemes.

February


We bought 3 varieties of seed potato: Casablanca (1st Early), Charlotte (2nd Early) and Cara (Maincrop) which arrived in early February.


The seed potatoes were placed in trays for a few weeks in a cool, light room in the house to chit.


In the meantime both veg beds were covered with black plastic. (Note: this is pre-polytunnel days) This was our plan to warm the soil and prevent it from getting too waterlogged over the winter and early spring.

March


In an attempt at crop rotation we planned to plant the potatoes in the newer veg bed, trying some in the bed itself, some in tubs and some in wooden boxes which M built. They were later to become know as the coffins, you'll see why soon.

A cheap offer came through the post with a few (5) Charlotte seed potatoes and 5 small plastic bags and although dubious as to their potential we thought we'd give them a go too.


Three seed potatoes were planted in each 'coffin' with one 'coffin' for each variety. We could only find 5 tubs to use so there were 2 for the 1st Early - Casablanca, one for the 2nd Early - Charlotte and the last 2 for the Maincrop - Cara. The coffins and tubs were filled with compost while the remaining seed potatoes were planted directly into the veg bed.

April


As last year we covered the ground and containers when first planted as there was still a risk of frost and it was also to keep the soil warmer.

By mid April we had started to see little potato shoots poking through the soil in both the coffins and tubs.

Just a few little green shoots.

Unfortunately we probably left the black plastic on a little too long and were slightly dismayed at the pale shoots trying desperately to find some light in the veg bed.

     

Under the white plastic the coffin and container plants were thriving, this was them looking good on the 23rd of April.

May


Thankfully the veg bed potatoes recovered really quickly and by the 18th of May we had something resembling proper potato plants, all ready for earthing up.


The second tier of the coffins were put on and using some of our own compost the plants were earthed up. We also use our own compost in the containers and just pulled up earth around the plants in the veg bed.


The potatoes were obviously loving their home as they didn't even look like they had been earthed up after only about 10 days.


In an attempt to save on compost I did a bit of research on line and through a facebook group found this excellent article by Alys Fowler on using grass cuttings. I had imagined that it would become slimy and create a wonderful home for slugs and snails but we decided to give it a go.


We were amazed that the little plastic bags seemed to be producing lovely green healthy plants. The only issue was that at first we sometimes forgot about them but their watering routine did improve once the plants were visible.

June


I have always felt that wonderful sense of achievement when plants are growing well. Whether it's from a small seed I planted or a seed potato or a bought plant, yes there can also be the frustration when things don't go quite to plan but then that is how we learn to do things better next time. (Finn does love to be in a photo!) 

One important lesson we learned from last year was the need to be meticulous in removing even the tiniest baby potato when harvesting or you'll end up with unwanted plants in the wrong place. This was our June haul from some rogue potato plants which emerged in between the onions. Still, it was a nice early harvest of spuds which didn't go to waste.


By the end of June we had flowers appearing on the plants and were looking forward to lifting the extra earlies.

July


About halfway through July we cut back the green growth of the extra early Casablancas in preparation for harvesting. The recommendation is that the tops are cut about 2 weeks before lifting to enable to potato skins to toughen up and increase the storage. We managed to wait about 10 days before beginning the harvest.


The extra earlies were looking good and we got some reasonably sized potatoes from the containers.

The coffins were the easiest to harvest. The tiers just lifted off we sifted through the compost with our hands to remove the spuds.

As expected we didn't get a great deal of potatoes from the extra earlies, this trug load from 3 plants. However, they were in great condition and showed no sign of damage from slugs, worms or wasps.

The harvest from all the First Early plants was pretty good, you can see the difference between the lovely clean potatoes from the coffin and the muddy ones from the veg bed. Apart from the cosmetic contrast there was no significant variation in size of condition between the 3 different planting situations.


Despite containing 2nd Earlies (Charlotte), the plants in the plastic bags started to deteriorate and so we harvested them at the same time as the 1st Earlies.

These harvests were the individual results of the plastic bag experiment with one seed potato in each of bag.

It was not a massive success as this was the total from 5 plants. If you have a small family and have room for these little plastic bags then it may be worth it. However, we didn't feel that there was sufficient room for the plant to grow and the roots to develop and felt, all in all, it was a waste of time and compost.


Despite the poor showing from the plastic bags we had a pretty good harvest from the 1st earlies and the few 2nd earlies we had harvested.

August


During August the potato bed was beginning to look a bit sparse as the plants began to get past their best and so it was time to harvest the 2nd earlies. Ignoring our previous advice we didn't cut back the shoots and instead went straight in for the spuds.


Again we had a pretty decent haul with the only difference being the cleaner potatoes from the coffin. The spuds were of a good size and showed no signs of infestation - result!

September


You may well ask why I have included this photo of our very sorry looking potato bed. Mmm, is it to show you how poorly the main crop plants were looking, or how my regime of hoeing and weeding failed due to harvesting and storing other veg. Either way this is how the potato bed was fairing at the start of September. Due to poor weather and a significant amount of rain we abandoned the plan to cut the tops again and went straight for the harvest. 

The potatoes were excellent with only a few binned due to rot or having been munched by beasties. Yet again it was possible to see the difference between those grown in lovely compost and those directly sown.


The Cara potatoes were wonderful, these were destined for chips, with skins on and cooked using an Actifry they are at least slightly healthier than the old fashioned deep fried chips.


Usually we would chuck any tiny potatoes but I managed to convince M to keep these little ones and we had then boiled (with skins on). They quickly became one of my favourites, so tasty and melt in the mouth and of course it helps that we also had less waste.

Now the potatoes are all washed and stored in the dark of the barn and will hopefully see us through the winter.

Lessons learned:
1. We don't need quite so many potato plants for a family of 2.
2. It would be better for us to have 1st earlies and maincrop and do without the 2nd earlies.
3. We would love to try some different varieties and especially some old heritage ones.
4. The coffins were the best way to successfully grow our spuds. They keep the beasties out, we can balance out the cost of compost by using our own homemade compost and they were by far the easiest ones to harvest.
5. Grass cuttings are brilliant for earthing up and thankfully we tend to have a lot of them.
6. Cutting the tops does work but it wasn't a disaster when we didn't manage it.
7. We still love love love potatoes we have grown.

Here's hoping your harvests have been bountiful and you have much to enjoy as the evenings draw in. Now we are clearing up, tidying things away and starting the planning process again as we look forward to next year.