October is always a fun month for us. We are still harvesting crops, and we are now also planting new ones for next year. This month we’ve sown some peas and broad beans in pots, which we will move to their final positions at the allotment once we have harvested enough carrots to make space for them.
These pea and bean plants will then give us a bit of a head start for next spring. Although they won’t grow much in the short cold days of winter, when the conditions improve, they will already be established plants and should start to give us crops about a month earlier than they would if we had of sown them in the spring.
Speaking of sowing, for a few years we had a family tradition of sowing garlic at Halloween, and then harvesting it on Midsummer’s Eve. We’d always get the kids to help with both activities. Garlic is such a low maintenance crop that we could let the kids take complete control, and we’d still get a crop at the end. We used to grow the variety ‘Solent Wight’ and save our own bulbs for planting the next year. We were very happy with that variety, until last year’s harvest consisted of entirely of very small bulbs, and so we ate them all and didn’t plant any out. Ultimately we didn’t plant any garlic at all last year and the tradition ended.
But today (October 31st), I took a day’s holiday from work and collected my son from school. On our way home we stopped off at the allotment and planted out a row of garlic cloves. I didn’t purchase a special variety this year, and instead we planted out cloves from a shop bought bulb. Now the seed catalogues always say not to do this, as shop bought varieties will be suited to other climates, and may carry diseases etc. I always accepted this as true, but my dad always sows shop bought bulbs, and he’s never had any problems. And so this month we revived the family tradition of Halloween garlic.
One that remained undetected for a while – a courgette that grew to a marrow at the allotment.
We are still harvesting a few courgettes. With the cooler weather and shorter days, production has slowed at lot since the summer. We only have one courgette plant in the garden, and it’s not very productive now. But at the allotment we are still getting the odd courgette. In fact, about a week ago we were at the allotment and found the marrow in the above photo camouflaged amongst the leaves of a courgette plant. To have grown to that size we must have overlooked it for some time. It made an enjoyable dinner the next day.
An October curcubit harvest – courgettes that grew to marrows, a patty pan and a ball courgette.
In fact that day we also harvested all of the curcubits in the photo above. We’ve also got a pumpkin plant of the variety ‘Baby Bear’, which still has a small pumpkin ripening on it, and several winter squashes that are just hardening off. Our squash harvest isn’t quite as diverse or bountiful as last year’s, but we are very happy with what we’ve grown and we’re looking forward to enjoying our squashes over the winter.
A squash on a plant at the allotment.
I’ve been posting in recent months about one of the squash plants we’ve got growing in our garden, which has sprawled quite impressively. It’s grown out of the boundaries of our vegetable patch and into the adjacent hedgerow. I’ve only recently realised just how many squashes are growing on that plant: quite a few. They are all small and not ready for harvest yet, but we should get a decent return from that plant.
A sprawling squash plant at the end of our garden.
Beneath the leaves are quite a few small squashes.
Staying in the garden for the time being, not a great deal has changed since last month. We have a lot of barren space at the moment where our legumes were, and the same where our potatoes were. The oca are still looking good, as are the leeks and brassicas. The celeriacs are looking really good, and I’m pleased to say that the ones we are growing at the allotment have started to fill out now too.
Growing nicely: celeriac at our allotment.
We’re also harvesting radishes from the allotment. We tried a new variety named ‘Saxa’ this year. We quite like them and they matured very quickly. We’d definitely consider this variety again. We also have leeks that are ready to harvest (the ones that a neighbouring plot holder at the allotment gave us and we transplanted from her plot). The ones we grew from seed are looking good too.
A ‘Saxa’ radish growing at the allotment.
And of course October is apple season! We love apples and have many trees, more than we have space for, most are dwarf trees in pots. We’ve had a few apples from our potted trees, but the bulk of our harvest has come from the established trees in the garden. We’ve not got a single quince on our quince tree this year, which is quite disappointing. But our dwarf medlar tree is laden with fruits, so that’s something to look forward to.
An apple tree in our garden.
Well that’s about it for this month’s growing report. We’re quite pleased with what we’ve achieved this month. Next month will prove to be a bit more challenging as the clocks going back this last weekend now means that it is dark by the time I get home from work and keeping on top of the allotment will require some careful planning. Be sure to check back next month to see how we got on.