THE ABUNDANT SUMMER HARVEST

  THE ABUNDANT SUMMER HARVEST

The summer harvest is well under way. Salads, lettuce, radish, spring onion and rocket have been plentiful since early spring and now numerous fruits are all ripening up. There is raspberries,

strawberries and saskatoons to add to the breakfast cereals and the first cherry tomatoes to add to salads at lunchtime.

Erica and Mum Patricia picking broad beans

Cherry Cherokee is giving a great crop for afternoon snacks and Anna found a great recipe for gooseberry fool as the first Invicta gooseberries ripened up. We will be bursting with great health all summer living off the land with an abundance of fresh produce. The weather has encouraged massive growth on all crops mostly to their benefit, though the lush growth on my autumn strawberry rows inhibited ripening as the sun could not get through to them. The early and maincrop strawberries are all picked, but the autumn Flamenco variety continues to bear fruit.

Strawberry Flamenco

Raspberry Glen Dee is giving large fruit, but my Glen Fyne is being attacked by phytophthora root rot and will have to be dug out once the fruit has been picked. Fortunately I have a couple of rows of autumn fruiting rasps, Autumn Bliss and Polka which do not seem to be affected by the root rot. Gooseberries are again weighed down with huge berries which gives Anna plenty for the kitchen and freezer and I will get my ten pounds for wine brewing. The sawfly maggot gave us a miss this year, although a few appeared but were quickly spotted and dealt with. Cherry Cherokee is giving great crops, and although not netted for the marauding blackbird a few new cats in the area appear to have frightened him off. This year the cherries are huge so may be too big for the blackbird to swallow, though I am told some crows have been swooping down to sample a few.

Bramble Helen usually crops from August onwards but this year the first fruits were ready in mid July, and should continue to bear fruit for a few more weeks.

Summer fruits

Blackcurrant Big Ben was picked in early July then Ben Connan a week later. Berries this year are quite big and the Big Ben is remarkably sweet as my wee helper, Luke from Glasgow found out. The happy smile on his face told the whole story, so crop weight this year may not be as much as we anticipated, but kids will return from their holiday very healthy, being full of vitamin C.

Redcurrants are poor this year, but I put this down to my pruning being not quite by the book. The bushes have been very vigorous with masses of foliage, but then they got attacked by leaf blister aphid. Might not get my three demijohns of my favourite wine this year.

Steve chops up broad bean stems

The vegetables have also seen massive growth this year on all crops. Potato foliage is massive and invaded my rose beds growing adjacent. Pumpkins are even worse. They have put on shoots well over ten feet long invading my chrysanthemum bed, two rows of gladioli and at present are climbing the lilac tree on my neighbours plot. However potatoes are very heavy yielding so far and blight yet to appear. Broad bean harvesting was assisted this year by friends visiting from Glasgow. So while Patricia picked the pods, I pulled out the spent plants and wee five year old Erica carried them up to the compost heap where her dad chopped them up for composting. Later on in the afternoon we all sat on the patio and shelled the beans before they were added to boiling water then cleaned and once they had cooled down the skins were removed from each seed, then bagged for freezing. Courgettes have been competing with the pumpkins for strong growth. One plant gave me eight large courgettes by mid July. Good job we have a produce sharing system for surplus crops on our allotment site and in times of plenty we box surplus up outside our gates for passers by to help themselves.

Wee jobs to do this week

Pumpkins running riot

Pumpkins have set off to explore the allotment. They are in a serious growth stage so secateurs were needed to prune back any sideshoot without a flower and a few huge leaves smothering my flower beds. Long growths needed cutting back so long as I get enough flowers to set and produce a few pumpkins. They have just loved the long sunny spell, then a few thunderstorms and all the while getting regular feeding from me. Weeds never had a chance.

END