Went down the allotment last Saturday and brought back 6 large pumpkins,

some runners, carrots and lettuce.  Not much to do down the allotment until the frost comes.  The runner beans are still flowering so I will leave them for the moment.  The peas have grown and they are about 3ft high now with lots of flowers.  I doubt that they will form pods but you never know.  Rocket is not growing as fast as it was in the summer so I could not take any home.  Rocket has a beautiful taste. 

Well I will have a big pumpkin for the children to make into a horrible face.   There are several big ones but we are eating them fairly quickly.  Stews and vegetable curries are the favourite way of eating them at the moment but I am threatening to make some pumpkin soup.  I didn’t bother taking one today because we still have a large one at home. 

More large carrots are coming.  They are the largest carrots I have had in several years.  Bit of damage on them but that easily gets cut out.  There are some quite small ones next to the rubarb chard that I will use when these big ones have finished.  I think that they will last into November but I doubt if I will get to Christmas with them. 

Beans are still flowering and I took off about 5 lbs of beans today.  We are eating them with the stew and vegetable curries. 

The beetroot are very small this year.  Earlier in the year they were being eaten by something and this seems to have put them back a lot. The other beetroot also seem to be very small this year.  They taste fine though and we are using them as another vegetable in the stews and curries. 

Took four fairly good lettuce, some rocket and some spinach for salad.  A few radish are coming but these are from the seed I droped and they are not very good.  A bit moth eaten because the slugs are treating them as a delicacy.   I am still getting quite a few tomatoes off the greenhouse tomato plants.  The patio tomatoes have finally got blight and they are going brown.  I might take off all the green tomatoes and put them in a paper bag.  They do ripen in a warm dark cupboard.�

Is there a limit on the number of photographs that I can have?  I cannot knock off any of the ones that I have uploaded and not used so I will not be able to have any more.  I need to see photographs.  Otherwise this is just too boring.Â

This is only the second time that I have planted overwintering onions.   The summer ones are always very small,  have cracked bulbs and the leaves are crinkled.  These are classic signs of eelworm. 

I wanted to plant them where I dug in the mustard last week. 

I used a garden line to guide where I put the sets.  Before planting I hoed along the lines then used the hand cultivator and the rake to smooth out the soil and give it a good tilth.

I just bought these sets from the local garden shop so I don’t know what they will be like.  Planted about 6 lines about 12 inches apart and 6 inches between sets.   

I made sure that the bulbs were the right way up and then just pushed them into the soil.  I watered them in with comfrey liquid.  There was evidence that the badger was looking for worms on this part of the allotment so I decided to net this area as well as the leeks..  I think that it gets the message when I put netting over things.

I still cannot find my onion hoe so if you have got it can you leave it on my allotment please. :-))�