Preparations

Today I prepared a bed for next season's squashes. I broke up the one year old haybale within a cage. Mixed in were some of the old squash plants, some used compost from pots and some grass clippings. A layer of composted horse manure went over this. Finally a thick layer of "rough" garden compost. The whole was covered with black plastic sheets to keep the worst of the winter weather off. In the spring I will top it off with some good medium (Maybe leaf mould and sieved garden compost?) The squashes must not go out so early next year. Perhaps a couple of bean plants can join them?

Beans and peas

I sowed 3 rows of 7 broad beans today in the large bed, between the leeks and garlic. I've got about 7 beans left to sow in "holes" in the spring. I watered them in with peppermint flavoured water to deter mouse predation.  Then I sowed some sweet peas in loo rolls set in pots, 1 in roll, 1 in pot for most of the ten pots. Some of the seed were this year's saved seeds, some were last year's from Higgledy. These have all gone into the cold frame.

Note: 2nd November. The first broad beans are showing. Some of the sweet peas have been up for a few days now.

The new gardening year begins

Today I took down the bean sticks, tilled the area, added growmore and some spare seed compost. I then planted my elephant garlic cloves, 1 round and 1 shallot!
Around these I planted out some salad greens which have been growing well in the conservatory. It will be interesting to see how they do. On 11 October I added some pak choy to this bed which has also been raised in the conservatory.

Bulbils

The two elephant garlic bulbs I harvested in July had 24 little bulbils attached around their bases. On Thursday I sowed these bulbils into small pots. I didn't know whether to remove their hard outer coatings or not so I removed half of them and left the other half complete with coats. I will be able to tell from the results I get which technique works best.

Two of my leeks had bolted to flower a couple of weeks ago so I harvested them, using the scapes and the leek bodies in a ratatouille. But these had two small bulbils too. I planted them into small pots and sunk them in the ground to see if they came to anything. Reports later!

Over the next few months I planted many offsets from the bases of leeks as I pulled them for use. If these grow my leeks look like a perpetual crop!

Peas?

Today I sowed some peas. I've been reading that early peas, sown now, may give crops in October. So I'll give it a go in the ground recently cleared of broad beans. My variety is Piccolo Provenzale from Franchi Seeds of Italy. Reports of success or failure to follow!

Report 9 October. Just a few pods to harvest today, used as mangetouts in a ratatouille. Not a real crop.

Bean harvesting

On Wednesday I cleared the broad bean patch, collecting the main crop of beans. I was very pleased and consider that this was a good harvest! I did a rough clean-up, lightly raked an area and sowed a drill of salad greens. I'm not sure if there's anything I can use the rest of this plot for at the moment. I could have had some squashes, courgettes or cucumbers to go in.

Elephant garlic harvested

It looked ready so up it came. I'm pleased with the results. Two cloves planted last autumn and two good bulbs harvested. I'll probably save more than two cloves from these or I may just be patient and bring on the bulbils. I've got two round bulbs from last years bulbils - one about an inch in diameter, the other about half that. I wonder what they will produce next year?