Pushing your luck or what vegetables will grow late in the year

Top tip: Don't always believe what the gardening books say - they are guidelines written to suit the whole of Britain and so don't allow for the fact that you may live in a warmer (or colder area) of Britain.

I planted mangetout back in July after the potatoes had been cleared as they had been such a success earlier in the year. While they have now succumbed to mildew they did grow big enough to start cropping and I got a good 200g off them which isn't bad when you consider how much they cost in shops - a bonus crop really rather than a real alternative to spring sowing.

I also popped in some more potato seedlings at around the same time as they were sprouting like made and £1 in the pound shop.  The main idea was to use them to clear a patch of land that was riddled with debris and if I managed to get a crop out of them all the better.  The other day I was earthing up the plants (drawing up the soil to protect the plants and create more space for the tubers to grow) with a rake (a Bernie tip) and spotted a decent sized potato so it seems to be working. I had read that some people put in a second lot of potatoes and are able to eat fresh new potatoes at Christmas. Fingers crossed.

Elsewhere on the plot, brussell sprout heads are starting to form and I have a few mini cauliflowers. I will let these develop a little before harvesting them but doubt they will ever attain the monster size of Mark the elder's (whose plot has been completely left to its own devices - tut tut).

This week I also planted gooseberry bushes and raspberries as I want to redress the balance between fruit and veg. I also suspect that fruit are easier to look after themselves.  I hope they don't grow too big as I seem to have at least 3 gooseberry bushes now.  Must go and measure the bushes on other plots!

When a greedy person has to give food away. The pain is made up for by roast garlic.

It's finally happened. I had to give produce away. With three freezers full and a running total of over 52kg of tomatoes and 21kg of runner beans we are feeling overwhelmed. It doesn't help that we have no kitchen. We don't even have no kitchen. We have no kitchen floor. We are surviving on food that can be steamed, slow-cooked or microwaved. If truth be told we haven't even done that - the local take-aways have done very well from us.  I must say that the novelty is starting to wear off.

So with the allotment bursting with food and nowhere to go, I took the plunge and offered runner beans to my allotment neighbour Bernie who said that he knew an Englishman who might want them (I gathered that as an Irishman he doesn't hold much truck with them). I also offered them to my friend Anna but despite having an unproductive north-facing garden they had managed to grow too many for the two of them.  I offered them to my city dwelling friends who take in an organic box but even they felt over-loaded with runner beans.  Hating to let the food go to waste I resorted to offering them to a great new cafe, The London Particular, that has opened in New Cross that serves local and organic food (and what can be more local and organic than beans from an allotment round the corner?). Thankfully they took them and I might even claim a free hot chocolate at some point!

I'm very excited as I have a new full time job. It will be a bit of a struggle to keep up the plot just on weekends but things are winding down now and the main things to do are to sow sweet peas, broad beans, move and turn the compost, relocate the giant shed (don't ask - it's all to do with planning permissions and being too greedy to sell it for a song), build raised beds and plant garlic.

I have at least done the last of these. I planted 12 cloves of elephant garlic and am hoping for a good crop in June/ July next year. As I paid £3.90 from a farm shop in Cornwall last week for a head of elephant garlic I am looking forward to being as rich as Midas. Or at least to cut it in half, wrap it in foil, roast it a low heat and scoop out the sweet flesh and spread it on a slice of good bread. Oh and use a good layer of unsalted butter. Total YUM.

Top tip: Don't be in hurry to clear everything away. 

I learnt this earlier on in the summer where the mangetout came back to life and it's true again this month.  

After the first broccoli (or more precisely, calabrese) harvest I made a cross cut in the stem and a few weeks after we got an extra harvest of shoots.

Meanwhile I am struggling to keep up with the runner bean glut - I have even taken to giving it away to our builders as without a kitchen I can't blanch them and the freezers are full.  A few pods (well quite a few actually) have got too big to be tasty and will have developed a tough inner skin. Rather than use them to eat when I already have so many tasty pods I have decided to let them dry on the plants and use them as seeds for next year.  Doing this will discourage the plants from flowering and creating new beans but I think I can probably cope. The books say that runner beans keep on cropping until the first frosts but I'm not sure I can cope with any more beans.  In Cornwall at the weekend I saw that someone made runner bean chutney - I suppose that's a possibility if I get desperate. And if I ever get my kitchen back again.

On the other hand it can be good to clear things away. A recent preference for fast food has slowed our salad consumption. Unfortunately this means a) that we have put on weight and I feel toxic and b) the lettuce plants have bolted. An attempt to braised them from a recipe in Nigella's 'Forever Summer' wasn't quite what I expected and they are still sitting on the plot, gradually reaching for the skies. I will clear them away when I'm not spending all my time harvesting beans and tomatoes (52 kilos so far!) though I suppose they provide a good diversion for the slugs which are sneaking around the plot eating beans and tomatoes (fill your boots guys!).  My other attempts at organic slug control was too gruesome to keep up. They recommend snipping them in half with scissors but when I tried it the poor thing oozed in a totally gross way that stopped me from ever doing it again.

Clearing away the dead wood and new beginnings

Top tips: Keep an area overgrown (a perfect excuse to be a bit messy), collect up your kitchen waste and avoid chemical sprays if you can (do you really want to be eating that?)

With Prince Charles hosting his eco-friendly garden parties, we are all being encouraged to live greener lives. As part of that gardening has a huge part to play. Not only do we reduce food miles by literally having your plot stock your larder (or 3 freezers as is our case - does anyone actually have larders any more?), but also by growing heritage plants and encouraging wildlife into our gardens we reduce the use of chemicals and keep a diversity of plants.  The subject is so huge it can be a bit overwhelming but there are lots of little things we can all do to help. On the most basic level, grow your own salad - it reduces the need for the huge polytunnels and you don't have to pay over the odds for a plumped up pillow of a bag with a few sad, soggy leaves in.

It is official and experts have confirmed what we in the UK knew all along, August has just experienced the coldest August in 23 years with a total absence of 'hot days' (where the temperature rises above 27 degrees). Rainfall was almost one and a half times the average amount for August.  No wonder that my thoughts to clearing away the tired and collapsing plants on the plot.  To that end I have been researching compost (oh the glamour!).  To compost is the ultimate in green and also in tune with greed. Refuse to relinquish your kitchen scraps and turn it into something useful that will feed your plants later on. Perfect.

When we first got the allotment I knew we needed a double compost bin - one for collecting and one for rotting down.  I have had mixed successes at home with composting. I tried the tardis bins the council subsidies (and am due a delivery of another one, now free, which I ordered before the government cuts touch that) but found it slow to rot down and access was hard. I have a wormery but I killed the worms (indoors they tried to escape and the cat started playing with them while outdoors they caught a chill in the winter). I also had a couple of Bokashi bins which have been successful in breaking down the start of the kitchen waste and produce a liquid that, when diluted, becomes a good fertiliser. The only problem is that, despite many hints no one has bought me any replacement Bokashi granules which contain the organisms that break down the food and reduce the smells. I finally went for a rotating composter that works when it is spun round and you introduce air into the mix thus avoiding the tiring, smelly and boring job of turning your pile.  This all works very well unless you are lazy like me and forget to traipse down the garden path to spin it occasionally.

At the allotment though home made rules. In the same way that you don't turn up with new wellies, to buy in a shiny new composter would be frowned upon. Which is a shame as these easy build ones from Crocus (nursery supplier to many Chelsea gardens) look great.  I experimented in dumpster diving (well actually it was just dumped on the street) by rescuing some parts of an old bed and designing a double bins. Ably assisted by the elusive sous-gardener, Tom, we built a suitably home made structure which I have been filling ever since.  Now that both bays are almost full (and covered (mainly) by plastic to keep the heat in), it is time to see the results of my labours. 

Creating compost is supposed to be easy as long as you get the recipe right.  According to the BBC Gardeners World website, it will take about 6 months to create perfect compost if you turn it regularly. I am slightly concerned about this last part as I haven't turned it at all (has the rotating composter not taught me anything?).  Avoid putting animal products on the compost as it will attract nasty beasts - wildlife is all well and good but I draw the line at rats. 

Apparently it's all about getting the balance of carbon and nitrogen right. Most piles have too much nitrogen, especially if the main source is from grass cuttings and kitchen waste - the result is an evil-smelling sludge. Equally, an excess of carbon will significantly slow down the composting process.  Nitrogen typically comes from lush green material and carbon from woody stems. For every barrow load of cut grass, you should mix in the same volume of straw, sawdust or cardboard. Ensure any woody material is broken into small pieces or shredded.

Maybe I'll delay turning the pile until another day when sous-gardener Tom is around to help.

Keep going - or else stop when it gets too tough...

I have an admission to make. I can't grow radishes. Yes, the seeds that are supposedly so easy to grow they are given to impatient children to grow and I can't grow them. Well, that's not strictly true. The first two times I tried nothing happened other than a couple of woody narrow stems.

Sometimes though it is worth persisting. I've got the hang of it now. I have no idea why better but I have planted in looser ground and that seems to work. As a result for my persistence I was rewarded with bumper crop of over 700g. Unfortunately I now have no idea how to use them all up. So far all I have done is to grate and freeze them.

Other problem plants I have had have been: carrots, peppers and aubergines.

I fail to see the benefit of growing carrots. They are slow to germinate, cost a pittance to buy in shops and when home grown, are a nightmare to prepare.

Equally I won't bother with peppers or aubergines in the future. They take up precious propagating space in the spring and, without a greenhouse, they are slow growing and unproductive. I don't even have a hint of an aubergine and my peppers are green and unprolific at best. They might be better in a greenhouse however as I am about to devote precious space to an overgrown shed (a result of a planning permission cock up). The only ones that might see a decent crop that isn't green and bitter are the long thin ones given to me by a neighbour.  They have three more weeks to turn red otherwise it's curtains for them.

Disguising swiss chard

Top tip: Small leaves of Swiss chard are more tender and subtler in flavour. Keep picking the leaves to avoid bolting.

The mix of sunshine and (copious amounts of) rain has been perfect chard weather and it has been growing fast. In fact I harvested over a kilo the other day and some of the remaining plants are bolting (putting out flowers and trying to set seed).

It's pretty popular stuff with gourmets and not often found in shops however the taste can be 'earthy' and isn't always popular with people. Tom, my husband, objects to it neat (even with chili, garlic and/ or bacon) so I have to disguise it - ideally with some pasta and cheese. This recipe is easy to do and tasty.

2 tubs of quark (or Philadelphia if you can't get quark, though quark is lower in fat)
Some grated chunks of left over cheese
A few cloves of garlic chopped
1 onion, chopped
Swiss chard, a good handful
A simple tomato sauce
8 lasagne sheets

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Blend the quark, garlic, cheese and onion. Blanch the chard for 3 minutes or so, drain and squeeze out the excess water. blend in with the quark mixture. Boil the lasagne sheets. Separate and roll (they can be a bit sticky so I often boil a few more sheets to allow for ripping accidents). Put a couple of spoonfuls of the mixture into a lasagne sheet and roll up. Place in an oven proof dish, cover with tomato sauce (in this instance it was home grown) and more cheese. Cook till bubbling and brown.

Plump pumpkins and swelling squashes

Giant but a long way off ripe

Top tip: Apparently mildew isn't a problem for winter squash - leave leaves (even if infected) on until they brown in October and dry the fruit for a couple of days to make sure they keep over the weekend. Next year prepare a bed with lots of nutrient rich  and water retaining material (try shed loads of household waste (no meat)) for the plants to discover while growing.

Medium

Thanks to a fellow allotment novice I have finally found a tasty way to use our Patty Pan summer squash.  Boil them with the skin on then sprinkle with a little cinnamon and spread with butter. a great side dish - tastes buttery even without the butter. A grating of cheese wouldn't go amiss either.

Marrows, courgettes, squash and pumpkin are all related and it has been a cracking summer for me for them all. I discovered a great traditional 'Halloween' pumpkin ripening under the brassicas and there is a tiny butternut squash developing. I hear that you should stop a plant after it has set fruit twice so it doesn't divert energies into fruiting more over making the existing fruit a viable size. But I am very greedy and live in hope they are wrong and I can get even more put of the plant.

Mini mini mini! Tasty.....