Harvesting the last summer crops.

Yesterday we harvested all the frost sensitive crops

french beans
climbing beans
courgettes
tomatoes

The temperature is going down to 2/3C the next couple of nights so it seemed like a wise precaution. It means we will be making Green Tomato Chutney from Nigel Slaters recipe with the couple of kilos of unripe tomatoes that were left on the vine.

Always remembering that according to Nigel

  “Green tomato chutney swings both ways …”

Even better the drop in temperature means we have been able to light the wood fired  Rayburn , so the house is warm and cosy and the chutney can be made on the hotplate.

Its strange the timing of this as its exactly a year ago that we had the Rayburn installed.

Summers end

Its been a while since I’ve managed to do a proper post. What can I say? Life or the garden got in the way.

So its been a busy few weeks, but the results are now showing as we are harvesting tomatoes, french beans, courgettes in abundance. The sweet peas have also been fantastic and have been flowering for weeks.

One of the jobs that has taken a lot of time has been splitting and stacking the wood. We had left them as logs to season for a year and now need another year to dry out completely before they will be dry enough for our Rayburn.

One of the surprises of this first summer here has been the emergence of a large patch of wild oregano, which has been a firm favourite with the bees and butterflies as soon as it flowered.

We have lifted most of the potatoes and its been an good harvest with little slug damage, hopefully due to my using nematodes.  

We have now also cleared the garlic and shallot beds and lots of winter cabbage and kale has taken their place, as we look towards winter. 

So a lot achieved in a short space of time, which is very gratifying.