I managed to spend a couple of hours in the allotment earlier this week, which was enough time to tidy up both of the cleared sweet corn beds, harvest the next batches of pumpkins and squashes and strim the pathways (until the battery ran out).  We now have a healthy crop of squashes and pumpkins curing that will give us fresh veg for a few months to come.

Squashes curing

I also harvested the yellow courgette that we have been growing on so that we can collect some mature seed from it.  As the photo shows there is not much that is “ette” about it now.  It was great being down there, partly because of the air of satisfaction there is in both harvesting and tidying, but also because the weather was glorious – the shirt even came off for a while, a distinct rarity for a pasty Englishman.

A courge

Then today we both spent a large chunk of the day down at the allotment and got a lot of weeding and tidying done, as well as harvesting more squashes.

Back at home we reviewed the plans for next year and started to work through the seed catalogues.  The constant looking forward of gardening really does make it a positive and optimistic hobby.

Lynn perusing next year's options

Whilst checking the seed stocks we noticed that the onion sets had started to sweat a little, so they were planted in a bit of a panic.  We’ve started them in cells so that we can then plant out established plants in the allotment.