Top tip: Only lift the tubers that you need. They keep better in the ground than out.
I decided that I would dig up one of the Jerusalem plants to see how they did as the books say that they are ready for harvest from now. The frost had killed off the top growth but they still seemed sturdy. Unfortunately the first one yielded nothing. I had much more luck with the next one as you can see.
I stopped there and roasted them in their skins with a little olive oil and sea salt. Delicious and healthy.
They are reknowned for unfortunate side effects so if anyone knows of a remedy that can counter this it will be very welcome!
The first frosts came on the 24th October and this is apparently the earliest frost to hit the area for the last 8-9 years.
Though the plants in the garden have survived because they are sheltered by fences and the house walls, the tender herbs on the allotment have not fared as well. The purple beans, nasturtiums, and pineapple sage have all been affected. In fact the nasturtiums have collapsed completely.
So off to the compost heap they go though some people think to treat them in the same way as green manures. That is to dig them in and return the goodness directly to the soil to break down over the winter. I sowed phaecelia into the fruit area - this has pretty frondy leaves and can flower though in a fit of tidiness I have also cleared this and put it onto a compost heap (one of many developing all over the plot).
Some green manures can return nitrogen into the soil such as clover and field beans as they work in the same way as all beans and have nodules on their roots that break down into nitrogen in the soil. Others are fast growing and provide efficient ground cover and suppress weeds over the winter.
I love raspberries - they seem pretty easy to look after and cost loads in the shops so seem to make sense to grow on the plot. Throughout the year I have been buying various plants throughout the year costing only a pound in poundland (unsurprisingly). This is all well and good but now I discover that there are summer and autumn fruiting varieties and they need to be treated differently. Unfortunately the packets that came with the plants doesn't say which they are are.
For the moment I have put up two layers of retaining wires (well, string actually) and tied them in. If they don't fruit until late summer and fruit on old wood then I guess they are summer raspberries though the description I have found (below) doesn't make it abundantly clear.
This is particularly important as they need to be pruned at different times.
1.Summer Bearing (floricane) Raspberries will provide 1 large harvest, usually in late summer or early autumn. Summer bearing raspberries bear fruit on 2 year old canes, the canes that sprouted last season. Summer bearing raspberries can be further categorized as early season, mid-season and late season. The harvest period lasts about 4 -5 weeks.
2.Everbearing (primocane) Raspberries aren’t really everbearing, but they do generally have 2 harvests per season; one in mid-late summer and one in the autumn. The autumn crop will probably be a bit lighter and is on 1 year old canes of the current season. Many autumn bearing raspberries bear so late in the autumn that they are not practical for gardeners in short season climates.
•Prune all canes that bore fruit last year; they won’t fruit again. These will have grayish, peeling bark.
•Remove any canes that have grown outside the 12 - 18 inch designated row footprint.
•Remove any spindly or short canes.
•Thin so that there is about 4-5 of the healthiest, tallest and fattest canes left per foot along the length of the row.
•Tie remaining canes to your fencing.
•To force your everbearing raspberries to produce only one crop in the autumn, prune back the entire raspberry bush in early spring. As the canes grow back in the summer, remove outside suckers and thin the canes to about 6 inches apart. Keep the sturdiest canes. This technique will give you a larger autumn harvest and is good if you also have summer bearing raspberry bushes and you want to stagger the harvests.
I have been an idiot. I have made an unkind and unfair comment about someone who has offered me nothing but guidance. The fact the comment was made with no malice and in frustration (and drunk) is no excuse.
I would like to apologise unreservedly to Bob and ask for his forgiveness.
I would also like to take this opportunity to apologise to anyone else on the plot who I might have offended by not asking their permission to write about them at any point in this plot. You have all showed me kindness, help and advice. Please be assured that I will take any reference to you (and any committee decisions) out of the blog.
The allotment has been a source of great joy and pride and has helped me through a very hard time when I was redundant and I hope to contribute to the life of the allotment not harm it in any way.
Once more, I am profoundly sorry.
