Hello! The soggy weather has ended, leading into another hot spell. Today the heat index is pushing 100F. Muggy. (I do like that word . . it sounds exactly like the condition it describes.) I've planted broccoli and I hope the high heat tails off soon, broccoli likes cooler temperatures. We'll see. I have loads of tomato plants filled with large, ripening fruit. Can't wait, fresh home grown toms are brilliant. The pumpkin plants continue to grow like cousins of Little Shop of Horror's Audrey. Feed me!My last few butternut squashes are ripening nicely and the green beans and crookneck squash are slowly tailing off. The cucumbers, after a magnificent effort, are finishing too.
This is okay as I have Autumn crops in mind. Particularly carrots and beetroot, that won't mind the colder weather. I also intend to plant parsnips. Parsnips apparently actually improve after going through a few frosts and I love roast parsnip, delicious. I had trhought about potatoes, but nothing I am reading suggests they should be grown in Autumn, so I'm going to wait til February. I'm already thinking about next year, using the knowledge I've gained this year. What worked, what didn't work, what techniques were sound, how I can add more knowledge to my gardening know-how.
Not sure I will bother with corn next year. It takes space and I can, I think, make more use of that space. I'm going to enlarge the vegetable patch considerably next year and need to give more thought to what I want to grow and how much space to allocate to each thing. I'll also give thought to what complements other crops and crop rotation. One thing that will help a lot next year is that I will have lots of luvverly compost to use. Another bonus is I won't have to break my back digging out lawn - the extyension to the plot will be achieved by simply covering grass with tarpaulin for a few months, killing the grass/weeds which then rot into the soil, fertilising it. The rest of the plot I'll keep weed free during winter, less work that way come spring.
That's all for now, thanks for reading.
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