www.tanstaafl.co.uk

Just had a conversation with my wife about salads for the winter and she mentioned a couple of things I’d not considered nor even been aware of this year.

Apparently the only vegetables she has bought since we started harvesting from the veggie plot are broccoli (once), bell peppers (a few times), butternut squashes (fairly regularly as they’re a favourite in our “vegetarian day” meals) and cucumbers (a few times). But this isn’t just positive from a “food quality” or financial point of view. She also pointed out that not having to buy many vegetables has contributed significantly to our attempt this year to substantially reduce our use of single-use plastics. I’d not really thought about that at all and it does give me encouragement to find ways to grow more food over a longer period.

I would have liked to have some salad crops growing in the polytunnel through the late autumn and into winter, but I decided I would remove some of the soil (which is actually looking very tired) from the beds in the polytunnel this winter and add a lot more compost in its place so I didn’t bother thinking about it too much. However, there’s one bed that is empty at the moment and I could perhaps use that for some lettuces whilst I sort out the other beds and then do that one later once the plants have been eaten (or killed, if the frost gets to them). It’s a bit late to be sowing the lettuces now — ideally they should probably have been done a month back, but I think we still have some seed left and it doesn’t really keep that well if I recall correctly, so I might as well sow it and see what happens.

The irony is of course that the polytunnel itself is a huge piece of single-use plastic, but our last cover did at least last about ten years (and ended up not even being single-use, as I chopped it up to fill the window openings of the barn conversion to keep the wind and rain out once I’d replaced it on the polytunnel).

[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.

I’ve taken another basket full of chiles off the plants, leaving just the ones that aren’t ripe.

They’re all on strings in the airing cupboard now, drying.

[23rd September]

Boy, is it cold out there today! I’m sure 12.5C doesn’t usually feel that cold, but it certainly wasn’t shorts and t-shirt weather outside.

I just nipped out to check on the seedlings (all doing well and the mustards are starting to come up already) and to water the compost I have spread for the new beds. It was so dry, I think thanks to the limited residual moisture when it was delivered and the fact that it was still active at the time, and because it has been under tarps since. The first time I watered it the water was just running off the top. A few days in it is starting to absorb the moisture nicely. Just as well as I’d like to be able to plant out most of my onion seedlings this weekend if the weather allows, and I’ve today received notification that my garlic order has shipped, two weeks later than planned, so that will need to go out soon as well.

[20th September]

Today has been a harvesting day.

This morning I tried to push my thumbnail into the skin of one of the butternut squashes that was in the polytunnel and it wasn’t having any of it, so I decided it was time to collect them all and remove the beast that has taken over in there this year. I collected twenty squashes in the end, though a few are a little on the small size. They’re now hardening off in the window opposite my office door. There are still more to come from the outdoor plot, but I’m going to give those another week or two to extract as much from the autumn sunlight as possible.

This afternoon I have harvested about half the red chiles (at least a couple of hundred, I reckon), leaving the green ones on the plants (unless they fell off) to see if they’ll ripen a little further. My wife is now putting them on strings and they’ll go in the airing cupboard to dry.