Monday 7 September 2015

Harvest Monday - 7th September 2015

My main harvests this week have been Runner Beans and Tomatoes, with a few of the purple Kew Blue climbing French Beans:


The batch of Runner Beans pictured here weighed 650g. I'm not sure what the overall tally of beans is, because I don't always remember to record the weight of what I pick, but my feeling is that this year has been "pretty good" for beans.


At present I'm picking a batch of Runner Beans about twice a week. This is Saturday's batch. It weighed 564g.


I also picked what is probably the last little batch of Blueberries for this year.


Earlier this year I re-potted my Blueberry plants and pruned them very hard, so this year they have not produced many berries, but next year they should be good.

Here are two Blueberry plants on 9th January, just after re-potting:


And here are the same plants on 4th September:


Some of the new branches are about six feet long, so I think I am going to prune them back a bit to keep them reasonably compact. This is not something I really want to do, because Blueberries fruit on new wood, but if I don't prune them they will be very difficult to net next Summer. A compromise is called for!

My "Autumn Bliss" Raspberries are not very blissful this year. Something ate most of their growing-tips in early Summer, which set them back a lot. However they have re-grown and are just beginning to deliver a small quantity of fruit. I know from experience that they will probably be able to keep going for another couple of months.


The yield however is currently pathetically small:


Yesterday I dug up the first lot of "Pink Fir Apple" potatoes (after these I have 3 more pots of them).


I got 730 grams from the one pot (one seed tuber), which is quite good. I find that PFA never produces a huge crop. However there were lots of little tiny tubers, and I'm sure that if I had waited another three or four weeks I would have had a much heavier yield. For me though the pleasure of getting some young tasty tubers when I want them is infinitely more important than waiting a bit longer just in order to get a greater "score". These are definitely gourmet spuds.


Also on Sunday I pulled up the last of my Beetroot and some more Carrots.


The Beetroot had been in the ground a long time and were in danger of going woody. I didn't think there were many left, but I actually found 11. Most of them were the "Boltardy" type, which has done well again. This is a really reliable variety. The others were "Baby Beet Action" and they have done nowhere near so well.


I have been very pleased with the Carrots, especially that new trial variety "Kelly", which has produced some excellent roots - big, regular-shaped and tasty. And the best thing is that I have loads more to come!


I decided to pick some of the big Beefsteak-style tomatoes, and bring them indoors to ripen in the warmth of the house. Of course after a lengthy spell of gloomy cold weather, the day after I picked those tomatoes we got a beautiful classic September day - bright and sunny. So out into the garden again went my tomatoes, this time in a basket which I moved around several times during the course of the day to ensure it was in full sun for as long as possible:


Well that's my harvests for the week (I'll not mention the Lettuces...). Why not head over to Daphne's Dandelions now to see what everyone else is offering for Harvest Monday?

15 comments:

  1. Lovely harvests. I'm getting just small bits of raspberries too. The spider mites really did them in this summer. Usually I don't have as much trouble from them.

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  2. Nice summertime harvest. I'm impressed you grow blueberries in pots. Around here they are a weed that grows everywhere. That is a beautiful basket of tomatoes. The contrast of green and red is very attractive. Hope they ripen well for you.

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  3. We are full of beans to. Our late. blueberry is still producing fruits but the first one to fruit has already got its red autumn leaves

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  4. Perhaps it would be possible to protect each blueberry plant with a cane tee-pee draped in netting, so valuable fruiting wood can be left in place.

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  5. What a wonderful variety you had this week - those potatoes look scrumptious! I'm holding off on my harvest, not so much for yield but for storage. We only eat potatoes perhaps once a week or so and it seems we eat even less in the summer, for some reason. It would be lovely to have homegrown potatoes that stored well into the depths of winter, which is when we would make very good use of them.

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  6. I though your blueberries were plums for a moment. Always a lovely set of harvest photos.

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  7. Are those runner beans intended to eat fresh or dried? I am growing them for the first time this year and not quite sure when to harvest them (my plan is to use them dried only).

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    1. We like Runner beans best fresh, but I do freeze some when we have a lot. I've just been experimenting with drying some, but the jury's out on whether they are worth doing. What's your opinion of dried Runners?

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    2. I haven't tried them yet but I'll let you know when I do!

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  8. Your Pink Fir Apples don't look very pink. I tried them last year and they were much pinker but I have to admit that I still prefer Anyas to them. They seem to perform in a similar way, smallish yields of smallish spuds but they've done really very well this year. I did exactly the same with my three blueberry plants this year, one of them sulked and hasn't given me a single berry, one performed ok and one has done fantastic and I'm still harvesting from it. Your carrots look fantastic, I think they do like to grow in raised beds where you can control what they're growing in and keep it relatively stone free. Your runners always look very nice. All my beans have been late this year, I sowed them later than usual, but we're managing to harvest plenty now.

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    1. Yes, I agree on the PFA - not pink enough, nor knobbly enough! TBH they look more like Anya to me (a smoother type, a cross between Charlotte and PFA). I think the soil / compost has a big effect on colour too.

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  9. Hi Mark, looking at all the produce you grow in pots can you tell me your watering routine? Do blueberries need a lot of watering?

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    1. In Summertime I normally water my pots every day - in the evening. Blueberries certainly appreciate moist conditions. Use containers as big as you can afford!

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  10. Your runner beans always look so perfect, just beautiful. I had a nice patch of Autumn Bliss raspberries going and then a gopher went through it and ate most of the plants. It's such a good tasting raspberry. I'm mourning what's left of my plants which haven't produced a single berry this year. I really like your method of growing potatoes, a single tuber per pot, each pot harvested as needed. I may try a few pots next year.

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