Cauliflowers, Beans, Quadgrow Disaster

Harvested a further heavy crop of cauliflowers from the brassica cages and even a few grown in the open. The open planted were spare seedlings which just planted in a vacant bit between some sweetcorn and the big brassica tunnel.

Being spares, I wasn’t really bothered if I lost them but they actually did very well. It’s been an unusually cool and wet year which has had an odd benefit. We’ve had very few cabbage whites and so not lost any to ravaging caterpillars.

Wasps are in short supply too and I for one am not missing them. I know some people are worried about this but I’m not. Just as some years we are plagued with masses of wasps or butterflies, this year we’ve a shortage. I bet next year they’ll have replenished their numbers and be filling their ecological niche.

That’s the good news on the pest front. The bad news is the slugs. It’s just incredible how many there are this year. Anyway, a baker’s dozen of cauliflowers took a while to lift and trim off the outer leaves.

Freezing and Storing the Cauliflowers

Six were lovely with tight curds but the rest could have done with being harvested earlier. They were more open and this seems to attract and allow access to the slugs. You may wonder how supermarket cauliflowers are so bug and slug free. I don’t know but I do know my cauliflowers have not been sprayed with insecticides for a start. Probably I should have put down more slug pellets than I did.

A soak in salt water followed by scrubbing them clean where needed provided another baker’s dozen good portions for the freezer. The prepping, blanching and clearing up took most of an afternoon but well worth it.

The remain ‘first class’ heads were also soaked in salt water to drive out any creepy crawlies and slugs before being drained, wrapped in clingfilm and popped into the fridge.

Wrapped tightly in cling film to exclude any air and kept in the fridge’s salad box they certainly keep near perfectly for a month to six weeks, often longer.

Broad Beans

Harvested about a quarter of the broad beans, a 5 gallon bucket full of pods. They’re a red variety called Karmazyn They freeze well and are, for my money, the best flavoured broad bean. The main bed is being treated as suggested by John Hampshire back in 1942 in his book, The War-Time Week-End Gardener.

“When you have cleared the plants of their beans instead of pulling up the roots, cut off the stem about 4 inches from the ground. If there are more than three shoots left on the stump which remains, pinch them off, leaving only three to each stump.

Mulch in between the rows, or soak the ground between with liquid manure, and if the season is a mild one your abbreviated plants will be supplying you with broad beans before – and into – November!”

French Beans

The French beans in the polytunnel have finally started producing and I got my first picking of Blue Lake. Very nice they were, too.

Another flush of strawberries

Some of the strawberry hanging baskets in the polytunnel had ripe fruit ready to pick. Another nice colander full were duly collected. That’s after what got eaten by the picker! We freeze some of each picking to make jam with later in the year. We freeze them individually on trays with silicon paper on. The silicon paper stops them sticking to the tray. Once they’ve frozen we transfer to bags to keep until we’re ready.

Quadgrow Disaster

I’m kicking myself today. Over the weekend I fed and watered in the greenhouses as normal. When I came to Quadgrows in the Vitavia greenhouse I went off to get the Protom which I don’t keep in the greenhouse because it can get too hot. And then I got sidetracked, so the Quadgrows didn’t get watered.

Went into the greenhouse yesterday evening and noticed the tomatoes in the Quadgrows were looking very sorry for themselves. At first I thought some disease had struck but on checking more closely, they were bone dry.

It’s a waiting game now. Best case, weakened plants and some fruits affected by blossom end rot. Worst case, they’re done for. As of this morning, some 12 hours after they finally got watered, they’re not looking much improved.