Tag Archives: Pumpkins

November 2016 Growing Update

Windfall quinces - thank you Storm Angus!

The end of October was a pleasantly autumnal affair, with some nice autumn sun and cool, but not cold, temperatures. That was true right up until the evening of the final day of the month. Then as of the morning of the 1st of November it became bitterly cold and we were hit with several days of morning frosts! This caught us unprepared, and so we were in a panic to harvest the last of our more temperature sensitive crops. The main crops that we were desperate to harvest before the frosts caused severe damage, were the last of our…

An early autumn treat - the biggest pumpkin we have ever grown.

September is already coming to an end. It’s been a great month for us in the garden and at the allotment. We’ve had some exciting harvests and we’ve been enjoying the changing of the seasons. The month started with weather cloudier than we had experienced in August. It was still warm, but there wasn’t as much sun, and the days were getting noticeably shorter. We had a fair bit of rain in the first week or so, which prompted another surge in courgette production. But it did give us cause for concern regarding our drying Martock field beans and Boddington’s…

It's that time of year again! That summer staple - the runner bean.

We’ve had quite a successful, if a little hectic, month. August carried on where July left off and it has been hot and sunny most days. This has been great for our squashes and courgettes, which have come on leaps and bounds. It has meant we’ve spent a lot of time watering, and so our basic evening routine is either Liz or I water the allotment, and the other waters the garden. These tasks take some time, so what with weeding and cultivating the last of the space at the allotment, it’s been a busy month just keeping things ticking…

Just some of what we grew and produced this year. Top left - bottom right: winter squashes, parsnip, kohlrabi, a batch of jam, mushrooms, spiralised courgette ('courgetti'), plums, tomatoes and courgettes, squashes in our pumpkin patch.

This year was our first in our current home with our rather large garden. We moved into this house in May, and although we were late out with many of our crops, we’ve had a very successful growing season. In this post we’ll look back over the year and share where we feel we were successful, and where we were not. Soft Fruits By far our largest and most used soft fruit crop was our plums. We can’t really take much credit for this crop, as all of the trees were already here when we moved in, and we have…

The 2015 winter squash harvest - more variety than you'd find in your local supermarket!

With the squash growing season now well and truly over here in the East of England, we are delighted to be able to able to share some photos of our very successful 2015 squash harvest. As long time readers will know, we only moved into our house and had use of its garden from May this year. We got off to a bit of a slow start due to other demands such as unpacking, work and raising children. But once we got the time we really went for it in the garden. One of our biggest projects was removing the…

A 'Turk's Turban' Squash Growing in the Pumpkin Patch. There are a couple of smaller ones too.

Here at Slightly Self-Sufficient HQ we’ve been very excited about growing our own winter squashes. We’ve never had enough space to grow them before. We did try a dwarf ‘Butternut’ squash variety last year in a large pot, but it didn’t produce any fruit. So upon seeing the garden in our new house for the first time, Liz and I exclaimed in unison that we could finally grow squashes! Why have we been so excited to grow winter squashes? First and foremost, they make for excellent eating. They are a very versatile ingredient. They make fantastic soups and, unlike their…

The pumpkin patch is coming on leaps on bounds.

Just a quick update from the garden. It’s amazing how much it’s come on in the two months since we really set to work. Particularly the crops that we didn’t plant until we moved in, for example everything in the pumpkin patch (every single plant in the image above), the runner beans, potatoes, beetroot and parsnips, to name but a few. Much to the kids’ excitement we’ve recently started harvesting our blueberries (potted plants we brought with us). Our potatoes have started dying back too, so the kids can get their hands dirty harvesting them soon (probably their favourite garden…

The area now prepared with a grand total of 7 squash, 5 courgette, 1 pumpkin and 1 patty pan plants all in position.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the garden. Aside from the mammouth tasks of weeding, watering and generally tending to our plants that are already in their final positions, we’ve also planted a lot more out. Our most noteworthy achievement in the last fortnight is probably that we cleared the remainder of the pumpkin patch. We have now, for that whole square area that was lawn, removed all of the turf, turned the soil, forked in manure, made ridges for the plants, and planted out something into all but two of the positions. These final positions will be…

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Tasting The Good Life

Tag Archives: Pumpkins

November 2016 Growing Update

September 2016 Growing Update

August 2016 Growing Update

2015 – The Year In Review

The 2015 Squash Harvest

Pumpkin Patch Update

Early August Garden Update

The Garden – A Quick Update