Friday October 4^th

Bit of an ordering day. Ordered 12 canes of Joan J raspberries since Chris's were so delicious. Got some acorn squashes (Western Sunrise), which I think are a bit more of the sweet type than the custard marrows. Also ordered some Marshall's Long Keeper Improved garlic (for spring), some heat-treated onion sets (New Fen Globe) and Shallots Topper (hopefully bigger than flipping pikant!).

Sunday October 6th

Very nice day, quite pleasant temperatures. Planted the new garlic cloves in a 24-module tray, adding a couple of this year's garlic to fill it up. Then filled up the holes in the onion modules in a similar fashion, so will have quite a mix of garlic this year (especially as I've ordered more from Marshalls!) The nice thing is a lot of the onions are growing away very well now. Two were rotting, three have rooted but not yet sprouted and the rest are growing away nicely. And they are bigger than those Keith planted straight in at the allotment. On the recommendation of AG magazine, went to the DT Brown website and discovered they have a lot of seeds that are the same as Sutton's but a fraction of the price, so ordered quite a few. I think I accidentally ordered some stuff that I've already asked Marshall's for: oops if so. Worst case is I end up with both acorn squash and sunburst custard marrows. Also ordered cabbage minicole F1 (again) since they were so good, cabbage ormskirk 1 late (savoy), carrot flyaway F1, carrot Amsterdam Forcing F1, sweetcorn minipop (now I know what to do with it!) and Courgette Eight ball F1, a very dark green pool-ball sized one. Well at least after this year I know marrows grow very well!

Tuesday October 8^th

Quick dash up to allotment to check stuff. No more French beans now, I think, and the marrows have just about had it. Will clear up their areas at weekend if it's fine. Beetroot are also dying back, so need to pull and store. Packed the watering can full of apples for work!

So, for this week and weekend: pull beetroot and French Beans and radishes. Manure the whole area (this time use a spade!) Clear marrow patch (but not courgettes) and plant up the onions where the marrows were (as manured for marrows). (Manure for leeks where the cabbages are at some point.) Put tender stuff in frame and conservatory for winter.

Wednesday October 9^th

The postie brought me more freebie cabbages from Marshall's and the Owl's Acre sweet peas, which I will attempt to plant in the next few days in the frame. Since the weather was really nice, I went up to the allot with the backsaver spade and attacked the marrow plot. It was a bit of a shock discovering how heavy five or six marrow vines can get: admittedly I could have waited until they collapsed in November but this way I got to dig the plot today so I can put the onions in soon. Also noted how the trailing marrows put down auxiliary roots from the leaf junctions, which was a surprise. Dug a bit of the earth path out too, which was incredibly solid. I hope we get rain soon. Pulled three more leeks and left at 6.50 as it was too dark to do anything else.