18th September

The purple sprouting broccoli, did come on quicker than I thought last week, and we managed to harvest eight crates every day.

It has come on much quicker than expected, I was looking at it being ready for harvesting from November onwards.

We did sow four different varieties; these are supposed to be ready for harvesting from November to March.

But now we might be looking at in being harvested from now through until December possibly January.

The cauliflower that we have planted is looking like it should be ready at the correct time.

Again, we have sown four different varieties.

These are supposed to be due for harvesting around December to March.

Like the broccoli we have sown and planted twenty thousand plants, so that is four varieties of five thousand, which was planned to be one variety per month being harvested.

Another crop that has shot on this year, is the leek crop, they are huge and the over winter variety which we will not start to harvest until next year, are looking like prize-winning giant veg, along with the onions they haven’t stopped growing.

In the tunnel we are just about finishing of harvesting the dwarf French beans.

This variety of French bean was a trial this year.

I was hoping for a lazy crop of French bean, one that required no posts and wire to let them climb up, or having to help them get started.

The dwarf French bean fitted the bill.

And they have produced a huge volume of beans, with each bush we have harvested three times.

They are a bush variety only growing to just over two foot, with zero maintenance.

But the only down side is that harvesting is backbreaking, all being at just over ground high, and there are thousands of them, but being very small it takes forever to harvest a full crate.

This week the small compact Siroma tractor decided, it did not like its second gear getting used, so let out a crunching noise when it was put in second, then it went in the huff obviously wanting a holiday, and decided it would get stuck in first gear.

So, I have stripped of the seat, mudguards and floor, next job is to unbolt the gearbox cover and get a look at what has gone wrong.

We have had a few issues with this wee tractor, the PTO drive had given up through the summer, this drives the rotovator, that we use to get tunnels ready for planting in.

Luckily, we have the Fergie to do that job so we have not been stuck.

But it was a job I was going to get to over the winter.

Looks like I will be getting to that job a bit quicker now.