A week later and sieved soil and manure is starting to fill the new carrot beds.

However crops still require covering. Enviromesh was discovered to have come adrift on one side of a no-dig bed, resulting in chopped off stems. I guess rabbits enjoyed the parcel and other plants. Whether they will regrow?

Last week two cabbage plants remained in one bed, uncovered; not a good experiment. This week, one remained, the other merely a half stalk… Probably the deer had an enjoyable meal.

It may be December but there’s a lot to do, eg sieving and combining old manure with soil from a now empty bed, for addition to new carrot and parsnip beds.

Other veg growing and being harvested include red cabbage and romanesco cauliflower.

We were greeted at the farm by this view – and it was cold. However the earth was still capable of being dug.

All the tomato plants have been removed from the polys and distributed to ripen at home or used for chutney, etc, and there are still plenty of goodies in the take home boxes.

On removing the mypex sheet on one bed, rat runs were discovered, so the soil had to be redug.

The brussels sprouts are plumping out ahead of time, as the stems are not usually ready until sharing at Christmas. Unfortunately the leaves are being attacked by mealy cabbage aphids. Possibly a massive garlic spray next week may help but …

We harvested a few sizeable leeks but we’ll need to wait for the rest to mature.

Tomatoes continue to ripen on the vines, while others have been hung in one of the polys, in order to remove the plants and clear the ground.

As October draws to a close, the leeks are progressing well, garlic has been sown and enviromesh added, to prevent birds uncovering them.

Harvesting continues to take up much time but the results are worth it; fresh beetroot (the last of the crop), swede (also the last of this year’s crop), cabbage, parsnips (the first to be harvested this year), carrots, cavalo nero, parsley, chard, spinach, tomatoes, chillies and lettuce.

A rainy morning didn’t stop seven of us from turning up at the farm, which meant that among other jobs, the sweet dumpling squash were harvested, the first year we’ve grown them and a success.

Homemade, well, allotment made compost helps with our endeavours and our take home box continues to look colourful 🙂

Harvested – super sized potatoes and again, multiple veg in the take home boxes, including celeriac (although some had been eaten, despite the protective nets).

Another bumper harvest but I’m resisting adding more photos of “take home harvest boxes”. Well maybe just one; more aubergines.

As we had an empty, prepared no-dig bed, we sowed dwarf french beans very late, at the end of July. They’ve grown so well, we had our first picking today.

As it’s autumn, we added to our harvested veg, Crown Prince squash and cauliflower.

The season of multiple harvesting; ripe squash, ready and still to ripen peppers, some veg of sizeable proportions and much take home produce.