Plotting and Planning My Garden in September: Tomatoes, Squash and Beans

I miss blogging about my garden. Not lists of what to do or how to do things, but just sharing updates on what’s done well, what hasn’t and what I’m planning for the months to come.

This picture from today of my little trug is pretty representative of what’s happening in the vegetable garden at the moment. The pattypan have come along brilliantly, despite me having to resow them extremely late at the end of July, as my first plants were ravaged by slugs and poor weather. I took a gamble on a late surge of summer and it has paid off. So too have my winter squash but they are still growing and maturing so I’ll share some more about them in a couple of weeks.

Squash

The pattypans have been a revelation. Firmer and nuttier than courgettes, even when allowed to grow some what bigger they don’t seem to go watery. This variety is Bennington Green Tint, from Real Seeds. I will definitely be growing it again next year. My winter squash, also resown at the end of July because I just couldn’t face not giving it another go, the promise of squash stored down in the cellar for the winter months was too enticing, have performed better than I could have ever expected. It is the smaller squash, climbing up the trellises that have done well. The plants in the ground, bigger varieties like Queensland Blue or North Georgia Candy Roaster haven’t really taken off, but Thelma Sanders and Burgess Buttercup have romped away and from four plants I am expecting to harvest at least 8 squash by mid to late October when the weather really starts to cool off. This year has certainly shown me that if you can spare the seed, it’s certainly worth trying things outside of the optimum growing conditions as you might just get a very welcome surprise.

Tomatoes

The tomatoes outside are starting to ripen but the risk of blight looms ever closer as the weather turns cooler and damper. Nevertheless, many are mature so should ripen well inside, and I enjoy making green tomato chutney and green tomato pickles so any that don’t ripen up won’t go to waste! I’ll share my recipes for those over the coming weeks. Interestingly this year, the outdoor tomatoes have fared far better than the greenhouse ones, producing much higher yields. Could just be the varieties, but given we haven’t had a favourable year for tomatoes weather-wise it has certainly encouraged me to continue with outdoor growing.

Beans

The beans, both climbing and dwarf, were ever so slow to get going this year – just like everything else! The runner bean Greek Gigantes has produced well despite this and I’ve harvested a mix of young pods for fresh eating, while leaving plenty on to swell and dry for use in soups and stews (as well as the famous Greek dish of giant beans in tomato sauce). My normal runner beans, which I was relying on to thrive in the cooler, damper summer we had have been a real disappointment. The variety is ‘Celebration’, picked because of the gorgeous salmon pink flowers (I saw them growing in the kitchen garden at Snowshill Manor). I will certainly try them again next year as I suspect it was conditions rather than the beans themselves that were the cause of failure. The early sowings of dwarf beans were ravaged by slugs, despite me sowing in modules and potting out when they had reached a reasonable size, but a late sowing in July has provided several pickings, and used up the remains of an older packet so I can start fresh next year.

Plotting and Planning

This time of year – though there is still plenty to do and making the most of the increasingly short days is a must – leads naturally to planning for the months to come and for next year’s growing season. I love the ritual of sorting through seed packets, working out where things will go, how much of each thing to try and make space for and reading and re-reading my favourite books on fruit and vegetable growing.

Somewhat theoretically I am also plotting and planning for my allotment. I have been on the waiting list since last summer, however one of the sites I am down for is very large and when renewals come up seems to have around 1:2 ration of plots to people, so I would hope that by this time next year I will have been offered a plot.

Although we have a vegetable patch and lots of fruit in the garden, I would really like to aim for near self-sufficiency in vegetables and sufficiency from June to October for fruit (plus frozen and preserved fruit to eat throughout the rest of the year). As such I really don’t want anything smaller than a half plot. With an almost four-year-old, a new baby due in the next few weeks and a large garden my husband affectionately said ‘your mad’ when I told him I was on the waiting list, but my plan is to grow large quantities of space-hungry vegetables that stay in the ground for much of the main growing season and can then be stored, such as potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, parsnips, winter squash, beans for drying and brassicas. With netting and a weekly or fortnightly visit for weeding and watering, that should be manageable (and my daughter loves digging and wants her own allotment, so that’s a win-win!)

More labour intensive veg, or that which needs picking regularly, can be grown at home in the three vegetable beds and the greenhouse. Optimistic perhaps, but I think optimism is one of the veg grower’s most needed tools – what else would keep us going year after year when our best laid plans get eaten by something other than ourselves??

That’s it from me for now, but more from the garden very soon.