Today, I dropped Lynn off at work and headed straight down to the allotment to get the Rudolphs harvested. Mid-way through, I realised that there was a great photo opportunity to capture the feeling of “treasure” that root crops give, so nipped home for a camera and also picked up other tools and a some drinks to allow a longer session.
While there is something magical about the first signs of sprouting, the first bud, flower or setting fruit, I don’t think that there is much in the gardening world to beat the excitement of a successful harvest of roots, carrots and parsnips are great, but you know that it is one root per plant, but with potatoes it really is searching for buried treasure.
Inevitably I managed to spear a few of the spuds and after cleaning them all up for storage there were still a few pounds worth that will require fairly swift usage. This evening’s portion was turned into a large potato rosti to accompany pork steaks and ratatouille (yes a few more courgettes used up).
After the harvest I got cracking on a major weeding session and cleared about half the plot and plan to get the rest finished on Thursday. Whilst there I also took some photos to allow comparisons with earlier snaps to show how growth has developed. This is particularly noticeable in the cucurbit bed and with the sweet corns. The large sweet corn (while on much smaller plants than the mini ones) appear to be getting very close to ripe and I think that it will be worth harvesting a couple later this week.