Terry Walton welcomes the start of autumn harvests
Even the last salad harvests are being frozen to use in hearty dishes
What a great place to be out on the allotment in this pleasant autumn weather! The sun still holds a little of its warmth to enjoy and the gentle exercise and fresh air are a relief from the gloomy news that fills the media.
The woe can be banished with the hoe, and a bit of gentle digging can release happy feelings and take us away from the day to day troubles of the real world.
Allotmenteers are naturally thrifty and never spend unwisely. We recycle objects that appear useless to other people and will beg or borrow to get by. We use all manner of materials that occur naturally and for free to improve the fertility of the soil. No massive supermarket bills for the well organised allotment holder!
We’re nearly ready to say goodbye to September and I’m surrounded by the look of autumn. The empty, dug spaces of a week or two ago are showing a hint of green as the rye grass and vetches send up their delicate shoots, stopping nature from sending an air of dormancy throughout the plot. Elsewhere, around me the sights of summer are almost all gone and the winter vegetables of leek, swede, parsnip and sprouts have taken centre stage and are now the kings of the plot. All I need is a frost and these winter warmers will be ready for the kitchen, all the sweeter for chilling.
With September swiftly passing, although the plot is starting to look barren, life in the protected greenhouse remains largely unchanged. The tomatoes seem to be cropping forever and even this late in the season I’m picking some almost daily. This many tomatoes can’t be consumed at once so the surplus are frozen. They’re put whole into freezer bags and stocked away for winter
dishes. When these are removed from the freezer they can only be used for soups or pasta sauces, but it makes good use of the crop – they’re not just the basis of a good salad!
Every year I say I’m not going to waste my energy growing a melon and every year I end up growing one that has been given to me! I find room to squeeze it in and it trails unabated over the small amount of staging I leave in the greenhouse for the summer. This year, despite all my efforts, I’ve only one melon of any note to savour, despite hand-pollinating and feeding twice a week with seaweed feed. I hope the flavour of this lone specimen will be worth all that effort!
My one strawberry bed I’m keeping for next year has made plenty of new foliage, despite being cut back hard after cropping. There are even a few flowers present but I doubt they’ll yield fruit! However, this bed needs to be weeded and the compacted soil between the plants needs to be broken up so the bed can rest and recover throughout the winter to provide next year’s bumper harvest.