Allotment update

I've been trying to find the time to harvest some of the abundant vegetable growth on the allotment. The potatoes have done exceptionally well this year. On planting, I filled their trenches with leaf mould and added a few handsful of organic fertiliser - they clearly liked that! The plants grew huge, and now, on digging up the roots, an equally huge crop is the result.... The crop in the barrow are a seldom seen variety - Red Duke of York - they have beetroot colour skins, but beneath the skin, they are pure white. Each of the larger ones provides enough potato for two portions. The crop in the box are the waxy-textured lovely-flavoured Charlotte.

Potatoes - about one third of this year's total crop...!

That's just one bed harvested - the smaller one... The Maris Peer, Maris Piper and King Edwards are still to be dug up... I'll do my best to store them over winter, but even after giving away a few bags to our neighbours, I think we will struggle to use all these!

Here is the jumble of dying growth in the larger bed. On the right are the carrots, which have also done really well. At the back are the beans.

The larger potato bed (and carrots), still to be harvested.

The broad beans have only produced an average crop, and the runner beans have finally grown big enough to flower, but they are about six weeks too late! I doubt they will have any worthwhile pods on them before we get an autumn frost which will finish them off. I'll start the runners in pots indoors next year, and hope to get them going in the ground a good bit earlier. But so much depends on temperatures and sunshine - one year's weather is never the same as the next.