Are you growing your own fruit and vegetables? If you are, but you haven't much time to spare, the 80 Minute Allotment is your guide to making the most of your plot in limited time.
Whether you're growing in an allotment, containers on the patio or a small piece of your garden, check out what I've been doing with my 80 minutes a week.
Growing your own in under 2 hours a week:
September Allotment Jobs
The peak harvest time has passed. Some things did well, others didn't. September is a time for clearing away things that have finished, harvesting those that remain and starting off more crops to make the most of the rest of the year...
Pick courgettes/zucchini - if you have any!
I've been trying to look after my courgettes. They keep getting eaten. The slugs had a go, so I put some organic pellets down around the edge of the bed and some straw underneath the plants themselves.
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| My courgettes have been eaten before getting large enough to pick |
Straw seems to keep the slugs off strawberries fairly effectively but it doesn't seem to have worked for courgettes. Either that or there is something else eating them as well (I caught the slugs red handed - or should that be slime footed!)
I cut off any ruined courgettes and hoped new ones would appear. Two successive lots have now been munched so I am not optimistic of us being able to eat any this year sadly.
They have also been affected by some powdery mildew, a white dusty substance on the leaves. I removed the affected leaves and increased the watering (not a problem in the last few weeks when the weather has returned to normal for Wales).
If your zucchini/courgettes have survived then don't forget to pick them. The one below was on a neighbour's plot. They grow pretty quickly so before you know it you can end up with a marrow sized zucchini, and they tend not to be so tasty once they reach that size.
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| If you don't pick zucchini soon enough, they can get huge |
Tie in raspberries
At this time of year the stems of raspberry plants - known as canes - need to be tied in to the wires erected as a support.
Related: Grow Your Own Raspberries
If you're growing summer fruiting varieties it's the new shoots (that haven't produced fruit this year) that need to be tied in, as these will produce fruit next summer. The ones that fruited this year can be removed.
For autumn varieties, they should be flowering and fruiting soon. They are said not to need supporting, but they still seem to fall over, so I use a bit of twine to tie them in to the wires supports and keep them upright.
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| Tie in raspberry canes to keep them from falling over |
Pot up or plant out strawberry runners
It's really easy to multiply your strawberry plants once they start sending out runners - little plants at the end of long horizontal stems. Strawberry plants become less productive after 4 years or so, so it's worth taking out the oldest ones each year and replacing with fresh young plants.
Potting up or transplanting the runners means this doesn't cost anything!
Here's how to do it: How to grow new plants from runners - A Beginner's Guide
If they've already rooted themselves you can carefully dig them up and replant them in a new area of your plot, or a fresh container. I've potted up a few all over the plot and they're just sitting there until they take root, when I'll be able to replant them somewhere else.
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| Look carefully and you can see the runners in pots around my strawberry bed |
GREEN FINGERS TIP: I've also cleared up as much of the straw as possible from the strawberry bed. I will compost it, or use it as a mulch on other beds which are empty. It will help suppress weeds and will break down over winter and work into the soil, adding some goodness and structure for next years crops.Lift main crop potatoes
Once the foliage on potato plants starts to die back then it's time to harvest them. Main crop varieties should be ready about now. I'm growing mine in bags:
Related: Planting potatoes in a bag
If you plant a fresh bag load of early variety potatoes now they could be ready to eat at Christmas time.
I lifted the first of my three main crop potato plants this week. Delicious! It's always great to pull them up and then rummage around in the compost, gradually revealing your harvest. I had a decent bowl full of spuds from this one plant, and I can pull up the other two plants from the same bag over subsequent weeks.
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| Lifting potatoes |
Sow salad leaves
Having harvested things like beans, peas and onions, there is plenty of space now for new plantings of other things. Things like spinach, lettuce and land cress all usually do well if sown at this time of year when it is a bot cooler and damper than earlier in summer.
I've sown various varieties in various places, including in seed trays for planting out in a few weeks.
They will be ready to pick by the end of October with a bit of luck, although they might need some fleece over them if things get frosty before then.
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| Lettuce seedlings |
That's what's going on at the 80 Minute Allotment this month. Make sure you keep up to date by subscribing - I'll be back with another update soon.
Happy growing,
Paul
I noticed you are taking the straw out of your strawberry beds. I thought fall was the time to add straw to protect them from winter weather? I just plated my first ever strawberry plants a few weeks ago. I'm not sure that I'm doing everything right, although I feel like I've done a ton of research. Can you give me any advice on how to winterize my plants and when is the best time to do so? I'm in Zone 7b.
ReplyDeleteHi, thanks for visiting the Green Fingered Blog. Strawberries are hardy in the UK ( I am in a zone equivalent to 9a in the US), so they dont really need winter protection, they just go dormant and stop growing. Even in zone 7b i would think they are hardy (no guarantees!!), and even if not, straw would unlikely be enough to protect them. To protect them from really low temperatures would need a cover such as horticultural fleece or a polytunnel type arrangement. A simple framework with fleece or clear plastic over the top and held/tied down would work. I use things like recycled bedframes to support things! But you can also buy them in. The straw is used on strawberries in their fruiting period, to discourage slugs from eating the fruits, keep them off the soil so as to avoid them rotting, and to impart flavour - hence their name. Good luck, I hope you have a great crop next summer, let us know how it goes.
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