• directly into the vegetable garden: swiss chard, perpetual spinach & mixed winter salad leaves
• under cloches: lamb’s lettuce, salad onions, mustard & cress for winter salads

Plant out (later in the month) seedlings:

Perpetual spinach, radicchio, spring cabbages, & chicory.

Harvest:

onions-neck-over 

Broad, French & runner beans, peas, cabbages, onions, carrots, lettuce, courgettes, tomatoes, marrows and sweetcorn.

branch-runner-beans 

Other jobs:

• pull soil up to celariac and leeks
• cut off canes, of blackberry & raspberry that fruited this year, at ground level AND tie in new canes

rasp-belt 

• order new canes for winter planting

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yellow-gage

Gages are a type of plum but are smaller, rounder and sweeter than dessert plums.  Gages are very, very juicy.

greengage-with-stalk

Gages are more tender than most plums and prefer to be grown against a south wall.

Greengages make excellent jam.

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• Twist the plum gently off the stem. The plum is ripe when it comes off easily.  Plums usually leave their stalk on the tree.

victoria-plums

• The colour of the plum changes when they are ripe.  The skin becomes reddy-pink on one side &  yellowy on the other.

ripe&unripe-plum

The plum on the left of the picture is not quite ripe.  It is greener than the plum on the left which has turned more yellowy as it has ripened.

• Cutting a plum open will reveal the stone & show if it is loose inside the plum.  This a a photo of the yellowy plum above after it was cut open.  The stone was quite loose and fell out

ripe plum with loose stone

If the stone is still firmly attached to the flesh and difficult to separate, the plum is not ripe.  The photo below is of the green plum in the picture above.  The stone would not come away from the flesh.

unripe plum cut

• Gently squeezing the plum will tell if they are still hard.  If they are softening a bit, then they are ripe.

Victoria plums do not all ripen at once, so they are not all ready to pick at the same time & the tree is usually picked several times.

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Chard – Sow in August & harvest throughout winter as required, picking only a few leaves per plant

Carrot Adelaide – smooth skinned, cylindrical carrots suitable for autumn planting & ready in very early spring

Lettuce – Arctic King or AllYear Round Butterhead are suitable for autumn sowings

Onion White Lisbon Winter Hardy is a spring onion which will be ready in May if sown in August

SpringOnionBunch

Chinese Radish - China Rose will be ready for winter salads
Salad Leaves

Spring Cabbage- Pyramid F1 hybrid can be sown all the year round & may be used as greens or hearted greens.

Winter Salad Leaves are useful to provide green leaves throughout the winter.

Mustard---Mizuna

These seeds will provide plenty of variety in the vegetable garden over the winter

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cabbage-split

The cabbage have been ready for several weeks, with hard, compact, round shiny heads.

Mature-Cabbage-Elisa

Most F1s, including Elisa cabbage, have good standing – which means they stay in this firm state for many weeks. Even though Elisa is not generally prone to splitting, the long period of dry weather experienced when the heads were mature, followed by a heavy downpour, has caused the cabbage to crack and split wide open.

The main causes of cabbages splitting are:

• the pressure of excessive water when the heads are mature
• sudden heavy rain
• a growth spurt caused by water after a long dry period

Ways to avoid cabbages splitting

• choose a variety which does not normally split
• keep cabbages well & evenly watered
• mulch the cabbage so that they do not dry out & rain is slowly released to the soil
• after rain: either

cut the roots, by pushing a spade down either side of the cabbage, so that it cannot take up too much water

or, lift the head & twist to one side so that the roots break – but the cabbage will have to be harvested quite soon after this

split-cabbage

Harvest split cabbage heads as soon as possible because the open surface will allow disease to enter & the head will deteriorate.

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rhubarb-flower

rhubarb-seed-head

rhubarb-seed

 The usual way to get a new rhubarb plant is to replant a piece cut off the crown (or root).  It will take a long time to establish a useful rhubarb plant from a seed.

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samphire

The simplest (& best!) way to use samphire is to treat it like asparagus.  After washing it well, simmer in boiling water, then drain & cover with melted butter.  Hold the end of the stem in your fingers and  draw the shoots through the teeth, peeling the succulent part from the thin central core.

SamphireCore-Remains

The kind neighbour who shared her foraging with us suggested making samphire rissoles, with a mixture of cooked potatoes, onion & samphire moulded into a cake and fried.

SamphireRissole

It is fun collecting the Samphire at low tide & even more fun eating it!

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When is the right time to pick pears?   Pears will ripen according to variety, weather and location.

Pears are ready to pick when they are: 

• firm – but the flesh is very slightly springy.
• just turning yellowish green. If too green they will never get their best flavor.
• just turning the seeds brown.
• ready to come away from the tree with a slight twist & lift. If the fruit does not come off easily, the pears are not ready to pick.  

   

  pick-pear

Pears should never be allowed to ripen on the tree because: 

• they become gritty.
• the area around the core turns brown, soft and mushy.

Pears ripen best off the tree.

Jargonelle is an early variety of pear which is ready in early August, Beth is usually picked in late August. 

Gorham & Merton Pride   ripen in early September.  Beurre Hardy & Onward ripen mid-September.  Beurre Superfin, Conference, Durondeau, Fertility Improved,  Seckle, Thompsons & Louise Bonne de Jersey ripen at the end of September.

Williams‘ Bon Chretien are usually picked in September.

Doyenne du Comice, Packham’s Triumph & Josephine de Malines are ripe in mid-October.  The time to pick Concorde & Winter Nelis,  late pears, is the end of October.

T

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“I have two standard bay trees in pots and have kept them like this for three years. Recently, I have noticed a black substance on the leaves which washes off with just plain water but keeps coming back! Do you have any idea what this is? Or what I can do to prevent this reoccuring? Mia”

Malcolm Allison, our plant consultant, has answered:

“This would be a result of aphid infestation ~ the aphids secrete honeydew which provides a substrate & nutrition for the black mould.  I’d recommend spraying the aphids with soapy water (or water with a bit of washing up liquid in it), hopefully this should deal with the problem.”

This has been a bad year for aphids – they like it hot and dry.  So it is not surprising to find some bay leaves with black mould.

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poor-cauliflower

The cauliflower is past its best, but one always hopes they will get a bit bigger!  The curd is a poor colour and the insects have had their fair share.  Perhaps the cauliflower season has not been too bad for them!

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