Late Summer Bit and Bobs.

[Westi]

After a couple of days off sorting the home garden & reviewing the forthcoming weather I thought I'd best go down to the plot & check on things today, especially as gusty storms also in the mix with the thunder & lightening. Temp appears to be holding for another week or two in the high teens, so not full autumn yet.

The little spring green's seedlings have enjoyed the neglect so popped them in their bed with the one broccoli seedling that survived; (& fingers crossed a direct sow). Chinese veg has gone mad which surprises me as they are not too keen on heat & our weather currently is mild mornings & hot afternoons. Pak Choi has flowered but not surprised as transplanted twice which is a no/no but I dropped a whole packet of seeds so a lot to plant on. Rust has invaded the runners & broad beans (hints & tips welcome to prevent next year), but blight hasn't breeched the tunnel yet so still tomatoes coming!

[Primrose]

Not sure one can do much about. rust Westi. I grow hollyhocks and after they suddenly all developed it one year they now always seem to show signs of it. Even new plants from seeds given to me of different colours have it too. Perhaps, unlike blight spores it,s a disease whixh remains in the soil?

Had one of my favourite breakfasts this morning which I can only indulge in briefly during the summer - a plate of sun ripened home grown fried tomatoes. The flavour is so different from the awful winter artificially ripened supermarket ones.

I wonder if sometimes a sense of self satisfaction leads to self delusion on this issue but I swear one can really "taste the difference". Do others believe their home grown produce tastes better?. We grow organically so I wonder whether the ingredients of artificial fertilisers or pesticides can change or influence the flavour of vegs?

I gave some of our French beans to a friend recently who,s quite fussy about her food. She said they tasted so different from beans she ever bought in a supermarket and were delicious. . I don't know if she was just being polite or whether they did taste better. We haven't eaten a commercially produced French or Runner bean for over the 40+ years I,ve been home growing them so perhaps my judgement is too one sided?

[Geoff]

My theory for tomato flavour, apart from variety that is a big part of it, is that soil grown ones are superior to gro-bags or other composts and way superior to commercial hydroponic rubbish. We give quite a lot of tomatoes away and people tell us they taste way better than supermarket but also better than other surpluses they are given.

[Primrose]

I suspect you,re right Geoff about soil grown versus grow
bags. One never knows what these contain.
It would be interesting if somebody were to do a taste test on the same tomato variety between one grown in the soil and one grown in a growbag and see whether they could detect any taste difference.

[Cider Boys]

Very heavy rain here in Somerset; quickly nipped out to harvest some courgettes and noticed my squashes were still producing fruit. I still have several rows of potatoes to lift so I wish it would dry up soon.

Barney

[tigerburnie]

I suspect you,re right Geoff about soil grown versus grow
bags. One never knows what these contain.
It would be interesting if somebody were to do a taste test on the same tomato variety between one grown in the soil and one grown in a growbag and see whether they could detect any taste difference.

I've done that and I couldn't taste any difference, I don't use grow bags now, but they did produce nice crops.

[Westi]

Blimey it rained today, complete with the thunder. Overflowed the guttering as so heavy & lasted several hours & little rivers running down the road. Strangely the 2 semi's only have one down pipe smack bang in the centre of the 2 houses at the back for some reason, on each corner at the front.

The geese have just flown over back from their day at Pennington Marshes to Stanpit Marsh for the night. It's definitely Autumn!

[Primrose]

Thankfully our gutters had their annual clearout a month ago or they would surely have flooded & overflowed after last nights heavy downpour. The plastic fittings are 45 years old and undoubtedly now quite fragile to bear thot wright of water gushing down.on them

Amazing that despite the storm and the thunder our regular local vixen was still in our driveway at one point letting off her ear piercing wails,

At least we won't have to water the remaining beans & tomatoes today but the sun is currently shining so I suppose late blight is still a possibility on the agenda here. We've been lucky to escape it so far.

[oldherbaceous]

Just went to dig a bucketful of potatoes, and as soon as I had put the fork in the ground, the heavens opened.

Some big lightening about in the night…watched it for about an hour…spectacular!

[snooky]

Good news today.C.T.scan showed "no measurable disease"so it seems that my cancer has been nuked!Have to have confirmation with a cystoscopy.

[Primrose]

Splendid news Snooky. Always an anxious time waiting for these results. Raise a glass of something nice to celebrate. There,s so much miserable news around these days, it's uplifting when somebody has something good to celebrate.

[oldherbaceous]

Fabulous news, Snooky….it doesn’t get a lot better than that.

[Stravaig]

Great news, snooky. Thanks for sharing. Very best wishes fo the future!

[Primrose]

I found another use for my Kitchen Garden magazine envelope which arrived today - (other than shredding up for the compost heap! ,)

I needed some small paper packets for storing some cosmos flower seeds I'm drying & trying to save for next year.

I found that by carefully cutting, up, folding and sellotaping wide strips cut from such A4 size envelopes I can make small free seed storage packets. By folding & sellotaping the paper with any printing on the inside, there,s plenty of room for writing the seed name on the outside of the pack.

My grandparents with Scottish ancestry would be proud to see that at least one economic gene lives on in a subsequent generation !!

I wonder what other "economical" habits we possess amongst our members?

[Cider Boys]

Managed to lift some more potatoes to-day, lucky I'm on a very sandy loam so soil was not too wet. Noticed plenty of slug damage though, I should have lifted them earlier. They are Arran Pilot which I'm quite pleased with and have not grown for over fifty years. I still have to lift my Maris Bard and Duke of York. I won't be growing so many potatoes next year, it is just too hard work lifting them by hand. I've got all my onions drying in the glass house and am still picking plenty of tomatoes.

Barney