Wow! It's October. What happened to September?

Nothing really. Most of my crops were ready at the end of August. All I had to do in September was dig up the potatoes, sow a few turnips and clear out the tomato and pepper remains from the greenhouse. This month I sowed more lettuce and carrots in the greenhouse and potted up some leaf beet for the winter. On the allotment I have leeks and cabbage ready to pick.

Cleaning Up

Well it's cold, wet and windy. What a change from the last few months, the greenhouse without heat is struggling to get to 70F. It looks as though I may have to get the vitopod out of the shed soon.

I have picked the last of my sweet peppers and Cayenne pepper this week and cleared out the last of the tomatoes from the greenhouse, only the Demon Red (picture below) remain, still to ripen. I'm looking forward to drying them as they have a lot of heat to add to dishes.

Demon Red Chilli

The Vitopod (they must owe me royalties) ensured that my crops peaked early, it's unusual to have your greenhouse cleared by mid-August.

I'm still eating my new potatoes and toying with the idea of planting a few of them in a planter in the greenhouse for a Christmas crop.

Now that the greenhouse is more or less cleared I shall be washing it down this week with a mild disinfectant and taking the opportunity to rearrange my automatic watering system. It wasn't that effective this year, the tomatoes regularly flooded so I need to put more control valves in.

I have purchased some new greenhouse staging and a new heater, as my old one packed up, the staging arrived today but I'm still waiting for the heater. My intention is to use the heater to keep the greenhouse frost free or keep it at 45F, haven't decided yet. The vitopod will be kept at 60F to keep my geraniums and fuschias happy.

I have also bought some spring bulbs to plant up in bowls and pots on the new staging which I hope to get done next week.

I also made a couple of scoops from used milk containers just to pass the time.

Scoop

Scented Geraniums

Harvesting Time

On Saturday we harvested our Hercules onions on the allotment. These are much bigger and rounder than the Sturon we planted last year and we have decided to plant Hercules again next year.

The plums are ready to pick. Although the leaves on the tree don't look much healthier it's given me a reasonable crop for its first year.

My greenhouse tomatoes have almost reached the end of their life having climbed to the apex of the greenhouse and are now looking decidedly worse for wear. The last batch I picked were used to make several jars of Chilli sauce, with the Cayenne peppers which are also almost finished. The remainder of the peppers I shall dry and flake. The sweet peppers have now turned red and I shall be picking those over the next week.

I am still continuing to crop lettuce and spring onions and this week sowed some Leaf Beet to overwinter in the greenhouse.

Early Potatoes

This year I decided to change from Rocket which I have grown for the past two years and try Pentland Javelin and I have just cleared the last of the five potato planters I have kept on the patio since I brought them out of the greenhouse in May.

I am pleased with the results which are probably more due to the weather than anything I have done, although I did feed them with potato fertiliser which I have never done before. The potatoes are bigger and taste delicious boiled in fresh mint and drenched in butter.

Update : In the last potato planter there was 3.25lb of potatoes from 4 Pentland Javelin tubers.

Gardeners Delight - The Tomato

This year I am growing 3 varieties of tomatoes, Gardeners Delight (cherry), Roma (plum) and Tomatillo (miniature), that's apart from a few unknown varieties growing around my compost bin. I decided to try growing in Grow Pots this year to avoid the perennial problem of blossom end rot, which is difficult to avoid when growing directly in grow bags.

I have been harvesting them for a couple of weeks now and made some tomato sauce for the freezer. As I harvest the plum tomatoes I put them straight into the freezer until I have a large enough batch to cook down into sauce, plum tomatoes are better for cooking as they have less water in them. The cherries and tomatillos go straight onto my plate (if they get as far as the kitchen).

Peppers

This is the current state of play with my peppers which I sowed under heat in February along with my tomatoes. I have already harvested a crop of Cayenne peppers and have them drying on top of the boiler. When completely dry they will go into my blender to be flaked, a useful addition to my curries (I like them hot).

I also have a few pots of Demon Red which are smaller than Cayenne and much hotter but I had a succession of poor germination with these and this consequently proved quite expensive. As Demon Reds are F1 you get a packet of 6 seeds for £5. It took 3 packets before any germinated ! I think they were just duff seeds (B&Q), so by the time they got going we were well into March/April. They are flowering now so I should get a good crop and I can prolong the growing season by a few more weeks by popping them into the Vitopod when it gets chilly (pun).

The sweet peppers are just beginning to redden so I look forward to harvesting those soon.

Scented Geraniums

I took delivery of 12 scented Geranium cuttings yesterday and potted them up in the greenhouse. Most had rooted but one in particular (front right) looked a bit dodgy rootwise but I'm hoping for the best. Among the various scents are rose, lemon, cinnamon, lime and orange. I shall mist them daily until the roots have established and hopefully they will provide some nice aromas in the greenhouse throughout the winter.