Autumn gardening

Well that's the end of the beans; the runners and french beans have been great and have lasted so long, but I think we have seen the last of them now, although I might be able to get one or two french beans for Sunday lunch at the weekend. The beetroot is now being used (as in previous post, however the borscht was a bit interesting), the tomatoes have all been harvested and the plants burned (in case of blight); the main crop spuds lifted (a little late, but we planted late) and again the green parts burned. We still have a lot of chillies indoors and herbs of course and the garlic has been planted and there are some spring green seedlings waiting to be planted out; but it is the end of the produce really.

As mentioned before we don't really know how long we will be here, but just in case we are still here next year we have started to prepare the bog plot (sorry veggie patch) for next year. We have actually designated plots for next year (last year they just evolved) and put old compost from grow bags (not in areas where we will plant tomatoes in case of blight) and some lovely stuff from the compost heap onto the next year plots and covered the whole plot with black plastic that we got free from a local farm; it is the stuff they use to cover the silage pits, so we are recycling plastic in a small way.

I am already browsing the seed catalogs and we have proper plans for what we will grow next year. This time of year is quite fun when thinking about veggies, on cold nights you can sit in front of the fire and dream of the lovely veg that you will eat next year and plan the planting. Definitely more french beans than we did this year and lots of shallots, brassicas, carrots (they were rubbish this year) and of course runner beans; sungold tomatoes (the best in the world) and lots more herbs, you can never have enough and no matter how many plants we have we always seem to run out of something.