Late Summer Bit and Bobs.

[Primrose]

Weve had such a long warm summer, and now ai dian Summer I. This part of the world that ai think it,s going to come as rather a shock when the weather inevitably turns to the. Or al autumn chill and the. Ightime temleratures really start dropping I packed away the patio table today on the grounds that if it's no longer available the sunshine might linger longer to frustrate me.
In any case, a good opportunity to get a few more autumn gardening jobs done whilst still enjoying the sun on my back.

But am I going to wash all my pots and pack them away clean for the winter? Think I'll pass on that one !

[Monika]

I cleared and cleaned the greenhouse yesterday: the remaining greenish tomatoes are in the house for ripening, the peppers are halved and frozen, but their places are now taken by the fuchsia pots from outside and about dozen pots with spring bulbs. All the flaps and door are still open and more flowers and also potted herbs will come into the greenhouse when it gets colder. Must be getting towards autumn ......

[Westi]

Lovely on lottie today & I am feeling rather chuffed. After at least 3yrs of moaning Mr Westi has put a new gate on Lottie 2! No more going all the way down the back of Lottie 1 & then back up Lottie 2 to mulch, water or put on compost. Harvested the last of the Russets as it was a bit breezy & the wasps were not about, dug out the last of the spuds & very pleased with the Picasso which were huge & mainly blemish free & one plant had 15 big spuds. And took my first proper bunches of grapes (not supermarket size but a proper bunch)! The black ones are mostly ready & sweet but there were a couple of white bunches on the sunny side of the vine that were ready as well.

I have plum overload so hopefully the wasps when they return & find no apples will move to them & not my wonderful grapes!

[Stephen]

3 years, pretty good.
It took me a full two years to sort out the shed floor (there's a post about it somewhere) and I WANTED to do that!

[Primrose]

Inspected my grapes today. Think they will soon be ready for picking. They would probably get a little more sunshine if I stripped more of the leaves off bu I,ve spotted a blackbird eyeing them up and don,t want to do anything which will encourage him to bring all his mates along.

Westi, are you going to make wine with your grapes? If not, how are you going to store them all?
Our winemaking day's are over so storing them is going to be my problem unless I turn them into grape juice. They will be too many to eat.

The interesting thing is that last autumn I hacked the vine right back and half dug it out of the ground with the intention of getting rid of it so this spring there was very little wood left on it. When I saw it actually sprouting again this spring I could barely believe it had survived my efforts so decided to give it a reprieve and now there are lots of grapes on it ! I think I'll let it stay.

[PLUMPUDDING]

I've found two tubs of grape juice in the freezer and it's very nice. I've not checked my grapes for a week, so hope they're still ok. They needed to ripen up a bit more when I tasted them. I might make wine from them this year as we've drunk all the 2015 batch.

I've two gallons of red currant and white currant wine to bottle at the moment.

We had a bottle of 2011 redcurrant wine with dinner and it was rather potent. I only had two glasses and couldn't walk straight when I went to put the hens to bed!

I'm glad you've given your grape vine a reprieve Primrose, they are amazingly resilient aren't they.

[Colin2016]

Hi Monika when you freeze your peppers do you blanch them first and when you use them after freezing are the crunchy.

[Pa Snip]

This picture is of a plot we used to work some 25+ years ago. It looked then as it looks now, hard, stoney ground. So much so we gave it up after a year.
Now it has another problem, although very obvious when by that plot it is one not easy to see in picture. It is infact a mass of bees, thousands and thousands all flying a couple of inches off the ground.
Miner Bees

The current plot holder is avoiding the plot as she has allergic reaction if stung. One plot holder told her Miner Bees do not sting, not the case I don't think. They are a very placid bee but I think they will sting if aggravated thinking their eggs are under attack.

Not sure how she is going to solve this one, believe me there are thousands.

DSC_4881-edit.jpg (46.7 KiB) Viewed 3126 times

[PLUMPUDDING]

The bees like dry sandy/stony soil. If they put a nice thick layer of manure on it the bees wouldn't find the texture so attractive. Shame to make them homeless though.

[Pa Snip]

Interesting, thanks Plum.
I agree it would be a shame. but even I found it disconcerting standing next to that plot.

[Primrose]

That photo makes it look like trying to grow vegetables in the desert! I think I would have given it a miss too. Obviously the bees have decided there is safety in ni beta. Presumably though any flowers nearby are very well pollinated ,

[Primrose]

Embarrassingly the size and weight of fruit my remaining unpicked Ferlidne tomato plants has suddenly bexome so great that they've pulled some of the stakes over.. they,ve grown at least a foot taller than usual this summer outdoors and the fruit trusses have been incredibly large. Never known a summer like it. Even my neighbour who is never averse to receiving free tomatoes is beginning to wonder what on earth she can do with them.

The only thing I havent tried doing with them yet is making tomato juice similar to the commercial V8 product. Anybody tried it and have a good recipe ?

[Monika]

Primrose, when we have had a tomato glut in the past, I have frozen them whole and then used these 'bullets' in soups and stews over winter.

[Westi]

Hi Primrose!

My grapes are eaters not for wine. My plan was to share a few bunches, but they are small bunches & loads of people would not be as impressed as me. I thought the wasps would find them but seem happy enough with the cider & plum jam mush on offer. My friend has found Spanish recipe for grape & apple chutney, sound intriguing enough for me to try it. But it is interesting not knowing enough about grapes to find that some bunches are ready & sweet while some will stay on the vine a bit longer so not a glut as such.

The tomatoes however, especially the self sown cherries are coming & coming. They have a lot of seeds so been roasting them with onion, garlic, herbs & a stock cube crumbled over then zapping them; (sorry using the hand blender) & sitting them in a sieve over a bowl overnight & freezing what was left then adding water later when using them in soup, but the concentrate is great in stews & pasta dishes. The smaller amounts don't take up so much space, but I have now have to consider space for the pumpkin!

I know I moaned & moaned about the hot summer & watering but I am definitely going to have a pumpkin glut, fortunately they store well, but will have to be creative with the big boys as not so cool keepers once cut & you have to do something not to waste this precious crop. Another Mr Westi task - 3 yrs for a gate, how many for a waterproof garage with an electric supply??

[Primrose]

My grapes are Riesling. I,ve sampled a grape from several different bunches and have been surprised at the different levels of sweetness, probably because the grapes at the front of a bunch with more exposure to the sun are sweeter, and the bunches hidden byy leaves have had less sun exposure too. So I,m leaving everything for another few days/week before I contemplate picking then

There are too many to eat. Mr Primrose isn,t enthusiastic about them so I think turning to juice will,probably be how they end up. They made reasompnanle wine in bygone days but we,ve given all our equipment away so that no longer an option.