Kitchen Garden Forum

Had most of the day in the garden, cut the grass, ate a sweetcorn cob for lunch then cut next years pea sticks out of the wild hedge, warm and patchy cloud with not too much wind today for me.

There is quite a nip in the air, beginning to think our Indian Summer of the past few years may not show this year. The gulf stream has been misbehaving!

I see we have a cold snap with winter temperatures forecast, better think about moving some stuff inside.

Really should get up the plot today to see what damage yesterdays high wind has done.
Runners & Climbing French are almost certain to have been blown over.

Yep, 4 x 8ft double rows of runner beans blown down.
1 x double row Climbing French beans wont remain standing much longer if strong wind returns
10 bean French bean wigwam blown over.

2 x 16ft rows Sarpo Mira, blight resistant, potato showing signs of blight and need digging out as soon as possible

Oh dear Pa, that,s a shame. We're others on the plot similarly affected? I suppose the only redeeming thing is that we're coming to the end of the bean cropping season now so at least you haven,t lost the entire season's crop although there are no prizes for guessing where you'll have to be spending more time over the next few days doing a clear up job. Annoying when these things are forced into you before you're ready though.

I've spent the morning cleaning.bits of ivy of some fencing fence and brushing it down with a stiff brush prior to getting ready to give it a coat of preservative. I was horrified at the number of moss and algae spores which came flying off it. Could have done with a face mask!

Some of the sweet corn has been flattened ,a chair was blown across the decking at home I had to go out in the middle of the storm and move it life is hard at times
We have been very lucky we missed a lot of the gale but did get the torrential rain , the main road into town is under a foot of water I had the front Windows open to give the dog a bit of air as he is in the back of the car ,I put the two inside wheels on the kerb ( no houses or people near bye) and went through slowly meanwhile a knobhead coming the other way very fast sent a bow wave over my car and through my open window soaking myself to say the air was blue is an understatement

The winds weren't too bad here, we've just lost two large sunflowers which had already finished flowering and a few of the Jerusalem artichokes broke clean off above their supports. But it certainly feels other autumnal with leaves becoming colourful. We can see a mixed wood across the valley which looks absolutely beautiful at sunset at this time of the year with all the leaves turning into different colours.

Much better day today, some lovely sunshine. Walked round Ingleton Waterfalls with some relations over from California. They were impressed, almost 4½" of rain so far this month must have helped. I was impressed my knackered knee managed all the steps.

Decided to bite the bullet and start demolishing my climbing bean poles today now the plants have pretty much stopped producing, until rain stopped play. It's fiddly job with stems so tightly twisted round the poles. To be honest, much as I like them, I've eaten so many beans recently that I'll be glad of a break until we start to tackle the frozen bean mountain. Courgettes and outdoor cucumbers still valiantly producing though although suspect today's rain and dropped temperature may bring these to a halt. At least that will give me an opportunity to clear a little more ground ahead of winter.

I,ve also taken a number of geranium cuttings to try and over-winter. All mine died last of mould last year in my mini greenhouse through lack of ventilation, partly I suspect because I over-estimated how much watering they needed.

Primrose, A tip.

Wearing a pair of cotton gloves dismantle your bean cane frame so that you are back to single canes with the bean still wrapped around them.

Take them near to your compost heap if you have one

Hold the cane in one hand at the thickest end.

With your other hand, starting at the thick end of cane, slide your hand up the cane towards thinnest end sliding the bean up the cane as you go, aiming the thin end at the compost heap.
The bean should then go straight onto the compost heap and the cane can be stored

Even though you have gloves on you will need to be careful of splinters and joint protrusions on the canes.

Mrs S informs me she has seen predictions of frost in our area on Sunday night

Thanks Pa. I'll try this although i suspect it only works 100% when the little oerishers have kept to their own canes and not decided to go wandering onto adjacent territory. One generally finds that once they start winding they stay on course but it when they reach the top of the poles they go AWOL !

Frost already? Better dig out my woolly bed socks ! That will finish off the cucumbers !

True but still easier than unwinding them, unless you have very few that is.

If interwoven just attack the next cane, they do come off.

Whilst on top of Broad Cairn in the Cairngorms earlier today we had some sleet in amongst the horizontal rain.

A view from the loch looking up towards the peak

On the way up the deer stalkers path