Sunflowers on the plot

It was the middle of August when I picked my first bunch of sunflowers from the allotment, and that seems a while back now.  I picked them then as they'd been in flower for a while and it made sense to enjoy them at home. And one month on, I'm still picking bunches of sunflowers to have at home.

MY FIRST BUNCH OF SUNFLOWERS PICKED MID-AUGUST

It's been fascinating to watch them develop from the tiny seedlings I planted out back at the end of May.  Not all of them survived, a row was swamped out by the rhubarb leaves and more were subsequently eaten by the slugs and snails community. But plenty did survive, and there's still more to flower, which is a vast improvement on the one or two that flowered last year.

Admittedly I did sow more seeds than last year, so that goes some way to account for that. But even so I've had a high success rate. On the plot I have them at all stages of their lifecycle, and I think that's right too.

I'll leave the seedheads for as long as I can so the wildlife can also make the most of them. And while I've grown most of them alongside canes, near my runner beans they're not tied into the canes. I think next year I'll grow them separate to the beans, but keep the canes.

Sunflowers are, I think the kind of flowers with personality. Don't believe me? Well, just look these two are deep in conversation!

It's been interesting to see them unfurl - and there's still a few like this, so if the weather is kind i could be picking sunflowers for a while yet.

It's not surprising though that more of them are looking aged and red (in this hot weather I know how they feel), but unlike me they're still managing to look good.

Sunflowers will definitely be on my growing list for next year.  What are you definitely growing next year?

Ripe tomatoes and courgettes out of nowhere

On Saturday I popped over to our plot to pick a few tomatoes as our supplies were getting low, by which I mean we were down to one bowl. We hadn't managed to make it over there during the previous week, and in that week it'd changed a lot.

The tomatoes had gone bonkers. At first glance it looked as if there were more red ones than green ones, so I picked as many as I could fit in my bag. That turned out to be just over a kilo, we went back on Sunday to pick the rest, another half kilo. 

There's still more to come, which is great news as I had wondered how we'd get as I think we planted them a little too close together in another case of "more-plants-than-space", which happens a lot. 

I thought the tomatoes were crazy, and then I saw the squash bed - that's a grand name for where we're growing our courgettes and pumpkins - had also changed. The plants had filled out and there were plenty of yellow flowers from the veg and red nasturtiums enjoying the sunshine. And plenty of bees enjoying the flowers.  

Our butternut squash are getting there now and we've six or seven of them on a couple of plants. They're still a bit on the small side, but they look butternut squash shape and will be plenty for MOH and I, meal-sized in fact. 

I did have a bit of pumpkin-envy though as I spotted pumpkins the size of beach balls on the next plot - yes they are huge, and will easily need two people to lift them. 

PUMPKIN-ENVY

Spurred on by the success of others, I hunted through my pumpkins and found this:

MY MUNCHKIN

IT doesn't quite compete does it. I guess it was never going to as it's a Munchkin variety. Checking further I'd had more success with the courgette plants. Out of nowhere a baby marrow weighing half a kilo had appeared, so that and two round courgettes came home too.  

I'm hoping that the sweetcorn will soon be done too, the tassels are darkening but at the moment the corn is still a greedy-White, but some are just turning yellow. They've done well among the weeds, ahem.  

The tagetes seem to like the artichoke and are thriving. At home they've been pretty much eaten by the slugs and the snails, but not here. I've just spotted some seed heads in the photo below, so I'll be saving those so I can grow them again next year.  

We've also dug all the potatoes now too, as I'm coveting the space for my brassicas which really need to go out so they can establish themselves before any change of weather. Sunday we dug almost five kilos of two varieties. It's amazing how many of these Shetland Black potatoes we mistook for stones, and how quickly we adopted our behaviour to tap the stone-looking ones on the fork. If it clunked it was a stone, if not potato.  The purple Arran Victory was much easier to spot and in both cases it was easy to see how the soil had improved. 

I'd say we're not big potato eaters, but we've already plans to grow plenty more potatoes next year. Well that's assuming we up our digging game in a part of the plot which we've not used (or dug) yet. In the meantime our crop is double-bagged (paper and canvas) and stored somewhere cool and dark. 

What have you had success growing this year? 

Post Comment Love and a Summer Photo Collage 2-4 September 2016

Woah! How did September get here so fast?  I don't know either, but welcome back to Post Comment Love, we've got a photo challenge for you this week, but more on that in a bit.

I must admit though September is one of my favourite months, so I'm not too disappointed. It's when my garden - and now hopefully the allotment - becomes most productive, and that's always rewarding. There's always the rush too to get the tomatoes ripened before the weather turns, and I expect this year will be no different. Although over the years I've experimented with many ways of using green tomatoes so I can be *almost* disappointed when there's not a glut!

Photo credit: Unsplash

Reminder: Get in touch to feature on our #BloggerShowcase

Over the last few weeks Morgan and I have shared details of how you can get involved with our new #BloggerShowcase feature. Thanks to those of you who've been in touch already, we've got our first few scheduled, but it's not too late if you're interested in taking part.

Get in touch with Morgan and I and we'll explain more. Then once we've got your information we'll schedule your date. We'd love to hear from you!

Get involved: A Summer Photo Collage 

But in the meantime we want to celebrate summer by creating a photo collage with your help. We want you to share with us a single photo that sums up your summer. Then Morgan and I will feature the images you share with us in next week's post, and we'll include a link back to your blog.

So send us one photo that sums up your summer, add your name and your blog url and then pop back again next week to see the #PoCoLo Summer Photo Collage. We can't wait to see what you share - and yes it's harder than you think -  already I can't decide which photo I'll choose to sum up my summer! 

Make sure you get them to us by Wednesday evening to ensure we can include them.

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