Down on the Allotment

 

 Well the second pollinated female pumpkin also failed.  It is late in the season but in the last week I have any number of females now waiting pollination.  This first photo is a male, but impressive what an iPhone camera can do nowadays.

So this morning this is just a selection of females on the plant.  Temperatures over the past week have been tropical here in Hampshire so I wonder if the heat has helped.   I will pollinate all these and wait to see which ones are successful. Letting them grow a bit before choosing which one to keep and which ones to cut.  I want the plant to put all its energy into one pumpkin.  Well, what’s the point of getting some specific giant seeds if you don’t at least give it a good go. 
Loads of watering, and loads of feeding. Also dilute Epsom salts to provide magnesium. . Watch this space.

 All was going well until last week when my pumpkin started to shrink. It didn’t look viable and had started to abort.  Good job that I had also pollinated a second ‘just in case’ pumpkin.  So I cut this one off.

So here is the new one.  Hand pollinated with a male flower and doing well.   Now for some sunshine.

 

 I found a walnut tree last weekend. These green walnuts are just about right for pickling.  Green walnuts should still be soft inside with no shell formed yet. You can test this by poking it with a needle and making sure there is no shell.

The process of pickling walnuts is fairly long.  Make sure you wear gloves! Walnuts will stain your hands and clothing with a strong black dye!  Wash and trim the walnuts then soak them in brine for a week.

At first they will be a nice green colour but....
After a few days in the brine you can see the black dye starting to become apparent.  Walnut juice was used in days gone by as an ink from which many illuminated manuscripts were drawn.   More updates later.

Then later that afternoon after pollination the flower naturally closed and started to die back.
So about a week later the little pumpkin went from pea sized, to marble, then a conker… and today it is a tennis ball!  Appropriate for Wimbledon week. 

 

 After several weeks of unseasonal cold weather my giant pumpkin is gradually coming to life.  I’ve added a foliar feed of some diluted Epsom salts to add magnesium as the leaves were yellowing a bit. Looks good now. I even have a little female flower! 

Fingers crossed. 

A few years ago I had some success growing a giant pumpkin which I entered in the RHS London show.  Won a prize!  Anyway I decided to give it a go again.  The lovely Kevin Fortey from Giant Veg was kind enough to send me some proper seeds.
Just two days after sowing in a heated propagator it germinated.
The next day out in the greenhouse it looked like this
and in only a few days the giant genetics were staggering.
After just one week it had grown this much and had been re potted.  Stand by for updates! It's going to be BIG.
 

 Still here! Everything is growing so fast these past few weeks. Long hot days have seen a lot of activity inside and outside the greenhouse.

I found a Polish variety of tomato , these are known as 'Raspberry Tomatoes' they all have a lovely pink colour and an amazing taste with just the right amount of sweetness, acid and flavour.
First time I've grown Cornichon cucumbers for pickling. Make gherkins with 3% brine solution, fresh dill, slices of horseradish, garlic clove and pickling spice.  I also add some raspberry leaves into the brine as it adds tannin to the mix which keeps them crispy.
Another adventure - this will eventually be an Armenian Yard Long cucumber - hopefully.  At the moment it's a Hampshire inch long...
And I am really drowning in cucumbers in the greenhouse.  These lovely Delistar cucumbers are cropping like crazy.  Only 3 plants in a growbag and I have 4 or 5 every day! 

 I'm still here! Not sure if this blogger platform is still here or not, but here goes.   I decided to dig one of my 'Tahiti' purple sweet potatoes this week.  This first one was in a growbag container and did get a bit dry at times.  Ideally I'd like to leave sweet potatoes in the ground as long as possible because it is at this time of year they put on growth and swell the tubers.

I am told that the leaves of this sweet potato are edible too - I didn't really feel like trying them but my chickens appreciated them.

Strange curly, fattened roots compacted together in a mass.   An OK harvest, not really spectacular, but it does give me more hope that the plants I have in the open ground will be a bit better when I dig them up in a few weeks.   I also have some regular Beauregard sweet potatoes in the ground as well.  I'll update more when I dig those up.   

Hope there is someone out there reading this.  xx

 Hooray!  Matron is still here!  I thought blogger had threatened to delete all posts on this platform, I thought I was going to loose everything but it looks as if I'm still here!  

So let me share this success with you.  6 of these beautiful Rochester peaches set fruit.  A couple were pecked and went rotten, but I did manage 3 beautiful ripe peaches.  They were hidden from birds by the leaf cover and managed to survive.  Really wonderful taste and texture.  Only a 3 year old tree so anything is a bonus.

Next post will show you how I have fan trained the tree.

It's good to be back!  Matron xxx