October – Its time to get the digging done before the rains set in.

This is also the month when we give the plot a general tidy up. All the green material will go into the runner bean trench.

The trench is dug out 3’ wide and about 15” deep. I line the bottom with a thick layer of newspaper to aid water retention. My soil is a sandy loam and very free draining. Runner beans want a reservoir of moist soil beneath their roots to succeed.

As green waste becomes available I top up the trench with layers of it, sandwiched with top soil. Anything compostable can go in.

Christine on plot 40b is taking down her beans. The variety she grew was White Emergo a white flowered variety and she was very pleased with them. I looked after the watering on Christine’s plot whilst she was away on holiday and I can vouch for the flavour of her beans. It’s a shame she made just the one sowing.

This year I made a total of four runner bean sowings. This is the last of them, now in full flower. The variety is

Benchmaster. My normal choice is the variety Stenner. I was given a packet of Benchmaster so I thought I would give them a go. You never know, I might even have beans for the late fruit and vegetable show at RHS Wisley in November. ‘But that would be a tall order’.

Really the only way to succeed with late runner beans is to grow a white or bi coloured variety under cover. Those kinds have the ability to self pollinate.

An easier option for a late crop is to grow French beans. This is the variety Prince. I give each one a cane. Like runner beans they will climb up ‘given the opportunity’ and it keeps the beans off the soil.

The tomato house has now been cleared. The glass is given a good clean with detergent. Now its ready for all those overwintering young plants.

At this time of year seed saving occupies some of my time. This is an overgrown courgette of the Black Forest variety.

I was told by the Forte brothers, ‘they are well know for their giant vegetables’, that the end of the marrow or courgette farthest from the stalk is where you will get the best seed.

So that was the seed I saved. After drying the seed was put into a manila envelope and stored in the bottom of the fridge.

On the Allotment

I often regard October as the start of the allotment year. That’s because it’s the time when the rent on the plots is due. Of course every year several plots become available. Very often those plots have been neglected and are now full of seeding weeds. Some of us set to with

bonfires on the vacant plots to try and contain the weeds and stop them creating a problem the following year.

It’s also the time when greenhouses move plots.

Here I am helping Jeff to set in some old railway sleepers as a base for his recently acquired greenhouse. You can buy new lightweight imitation sleepers ‘as sold in garden centres’. The advantage of the genuine article is that they may be heavy but they will last a life time.

It’s important to get everything level and square.

Now all that’s left to do is to drill a few holes to attach the framework to the sleepers. Jeff is going to glaze his house with polycarbonate sheets. Personally I would have gone for toughened safety glass.

Winter Brassicas

I was going to plant out my winter cauliflowers and calabrese on the allotment. Instead I have decided to use the central deep bed in my polytunnel.

Before planting out I treated the ground with Perlka 20 grams per square meter. That is used as a club root preventative measure. It also supplies a nitrogen boost to the plants.

I also hoed in a handful of 6X per square

meter to the soil.

The plants were set out 18” apart. Before planting I shuffled over the bed to firm the soil. Now all that’s needed is a good watering.

The polytunnel is the ideal place to bring on the winter greens and salad crops. These are the baby spinach plants I sowed just a week ago. The varieties are Bordeaux and Amazon.

One more sowing job for this week will be getting the spring cabbage under way. My favourite variety is Greensleeves.

Garlic planting.

And of course October is also the time for starting off the garlic. 2018 was a bumper year for me. Every garlic I planted out made a decent size and there was not a single round amongst them. ‘A round is a garlic bulb that has not divided into cloves’. The garlic will be left outside to develop a good set of roots before planting out.

Pendle Improved Blanch Leeks

A few weeks ago the seed heads were trimmed of all their seed stalks. The seed has now been replaced by a head of grass. Care must be taken that the head is cut before the stalk rots through. If you don’t catch them at the right time the head will wilt and you could lose the lot. I have now cut several heads with as long a stalk as possible. Those are now in milk bottles full of water. The water is changed every three days and the stalks examined for mushy bottoms. If that’s the case I trim a little off the stalk . I shall try to keep them growing on the stalks until November. Though that is not always possible. This year I know I will need to pot up some of the grass by mid October. They will be set away into trays of deep plugs using a good seed compost.

A head of grass in good condition.

For 2019 I shall grow my exhibition leeks in raised beds on the allotment. This year they roasted in the heat of the polytunnel. I also noticed that I had some roots showing pink rot. I don’t know if that was due to the prevailing weather conditions or down to 30 odd years growing in the same raised bed. ‘Time for a change’ I think!

When my wife Sally and I are out on our New Forest walks we always keep an eye out for a bit of foraging. It could be edible fungi or walnuts but on this occasion we came across these quince. There was a sign by a box of them which said help yourself. They even left a long pole with a metal basket on the end for picking more fruit. As the best fruit was still on the tree those were the ones we went for.

Sally will turn them into quince jelly and Dulce de Membrillo. Delicious with Manchego Cheese. Its very popular in Spain but rarely seen in a restaurant over here.

Saving potatoes for seed

Recently Michelle on the NVS website forum asked the best way to keep potatoes for seed. What I do is to keep a few tubers from my exhibition varieties that did not

make the size for the show bench. I hang them up in net bags in my garage which is cool and well ventilated. In January they will be set out in seed trays. Choose a place that has good light and is frost free.

In the next article we shall have a look at the young leeks. By then the first head of grass should be ready for potting up.

Back in a week or so.

John Trim