Well, the weather looks as though it’s getting a bit random for the next week, so as it was dry and I had some time today I went out and picked the beans, ending up with two trays full.
They’re fairly dry, especially the borlotti beans. I’ve shelled one tray’s worth already. I was looking at the runner beans whilst I was picking and doubts are starting to creep in. As is obvious from the photo below the plants are still very green, but I don’t want to leave the pods on the plants too long and risk them rotting rather than drying. I’ve started wondering if it might be sensible to pick the pods and lay them out somewhere dry rather than leaving them until the weather gets cold and damp.
There were enough raspberries that had ripened to be worth another pick over the canes, but I think that’s the end of them for this year. There aren’t that many underripe ones left and I can’t really see them improving much over the next couple of weeks given the forecast.
I also went through the polytunnel and picked all the remaining ripe large tomatoes (and a few that weren’t so large), leaving just the cherry tomatoes for salads. There’s perhaps still a chance that more might ripen over the next few weeks, but if not we’ll be making something with green tomatoes 🙂
They’ve now been roasted with some garlic and basil and will be made into pizza sauce tomorrow.
Whilst picking the tomatoes it occurred to me that perhaps I should have made the supporting strings longer. That way when the plants reach the supporting wires at the top of the string I could untie the string, lower the plant down a bit and re-tie it to give more space at the top. At the moment I can’t see an obvious reason why that wouldn’t work and it would make picking easier. Something to try for next year perhaps.
And finally I made a start on clearing the melon and basil plants from the greenhouse. Once they’re out of the way I shall have a little bit of a tidy up and then plant up some lettuces for the winter.
It feels as though autumn has arrived with some vengeance over the last few days and suddenly there are lots of jobs to do, harvesting and tidying up the plot ready for spreading more compost on the beds.