Sweetcorn Surprise

One of the best things about growing is that you never know it all. There's always a surprise and something knew to discover. Today's surprise was the sweetcorn. I thought I'd harvested all that was worth having and so intended just to clear the stalks today. However, I ended up with about 15 cobs.

Admittedly small cobs and some were only part fertilised, but they're a bonus crop and they say you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.  I do seem to have the knack with sweetcorn, even the bad years aren't too bad.

I got down to the site around 3 with plans, that's another rule of growing – plans never seem to work out quite as you hope. First of all I saw Larry, our site rep, and updated him on our prospective move. We hope to exchange contracts next week.

Well we got chatting, so that took a little longer than expected. His plot is looking really well for the time of year. Got to say it, some of the nicest Brussels sprouts I've seen. I reckon he's been hanging around with the NVS growers for too long. Not only growing well but he's diverting questions about how he did it and what variety. LOL

Finally headed down the path to the plot where Jim & Derek were so we whiled away another quarter of an hour putting the world to rights. You know, chatting on the plot has to be one of the highlights of allotmenting. Not just gardening advice but learned discussions on just how badly the government are running things and the relative efficiencies of local posties.

After clearing the sweetcorn, I harvested a few more squash and popped them onto the table to cure. With the move coming up, we really don't want to increase the amount of frozen food. Shifting frozen produce is a bit of a problem, so we've been trying to run the freezers down as much as possible. All we'll need to do with the squash and pumpkins is pop them in a sack and put them on the van.

Yet more courgettes. I think allotment sites across the country are full of people trying to give away courgettes now. Children crying as they look at their dish of courgettes for breakfast, the courgette sandwiches in the lunch box and a tea-time snack of, well you get the picture!

A nice handful of runner beans went into the bag next. I thought I'd cut back too far with the beans this year, just eight plants climbing teepees that blew over, but we've had more than enough to keep us going.

Back in the greenhouses, the cucumber was finished. We've done incredibly well from just one plant. I'd had half a dozen in the greenhouse until one night an army of snails attacked, leaving just one survivor. Still, she's performed magnificently.

The two sweet peppers in the border haven't done very well, just a few fruits, but I put that down to being shadowed by the cucumber foliage. That just leaves two chilli peppers in the small greenhouse.

The large greenhouse yielded another half dozen sweet peppers and nearly a full carrier bag of tomatoes. The majority will end up in the freezer (oops, yet more to move) but some will turn into tomato soup. I'll omit the celery, though. That's one vegetable I really hate. Val likes celery but I think it tastes poisonous.

The last surprise of the day was it started to rain. When I headed to the plot it was lovely and sunny. A warm autumn day. But the clouds gathered and it was spitting as I left. I really hoped we'd have an Indian summer this year but such is life. Maybe next year will be a blazer for us.