[26th September]
I’ve actually spent most of the day outdoors which was pleasant, if a little chilly thanks to the northerly wind. I sowed my leaf radish seeds and checked over all the other seedlings, discovering another snail (I have no idea where they’re coming from) and heaving it out. They’re looking pretty good, I reckon.
The spring onions:
and normal brown and red onions:
Red chard, spinach and coriander:
Lettuces and land cress:
And corn salad and chervil:
These are the mustards that I planted last weekend, already leaning towards the Sun to get as much light as possible despite being in a greenhouse:
In the veg plot itself I harvested the remaining butternut squashes. They weren’t going to get any more ripe as the leaves were clearly turning yellow. Removing the squash plants gave me room to spread compost over half of two more beds for next year, and I shovelled a load of wood chip between them to make a path.
Most of the weeds on the left are annuals that were growing under the squash leaves and will be smothered once I lay the path on that side, but I need to wait until we’ve finished the last of the lettuces that are to their left before I can do any more there. I can probably do another half of a bed once the courgettes are over as well, but we’re leaving the last few to get large and use for chutney. That’s possibly the limit on what I can do in terms of making the new beds this side of winter. Finally I gave the compost a good watering to discourage wildlife from digging it up. The other day I went out and found that a large bird (pheasant, perhaps) had dug itself quite a sizeable dust bath in one of the beds.