First day of autumn and the first morning of a dark cloudy cold rainy day as if it was the middle of winter.   It didn’t get any better throughout the morning so I decided I would have to just get wet.   I wanted to see if there was any damage from a week of very strong winds and so wasn’t planning to spend too long in the cold wet mud.  Windy it had been, I had to clear the track of fallen branches before I could reach the plot.

The temporary gate (temporary in that it has been like it for nearly a year…) had fallen over and the netting over the sprouts had misshaped quite a bit.  It looked like this was part to do with the wind and part to do with the sprouts trying to escape.  I pushed it all back up a bit more upright.   Everything else was fine, just wet and cold.

A small bit of hoeing, although not a lot was possible due everything being muddy and wet.   Some bind weed pulled out, and spotted a number of new potato plants from this year’s earlys which I obviously had not managed to find all that were in the ground.   There is nothing else needing the ground so I decided to leave them.      The courgettes looked like they had been killed off mostly by the colder weather, I picked a small baby courgette with the thinking it would rot away if I left it.

Radish under fleece all looking ok, I banked them up slightly.   Turnip and swede all doubled in size since last week.   I noticed the leeks were all suffering a bit from rust, maybe they are all planted a bit too near each other and not enough air flow in between.  I’m crossing my fingers it won’t get worse.   Christmas potatoes looking very impressive at the moment, I am hoping it will last.

I wasn’t going to pick much but the calabrese had small bits of broccoli heads, probably the third time they have grown back, including one very big head.  A lot had gone to seed too, so I picked that off and put in the compost.

It was pretty wet and miserable when I started, but when I was starting to finish up the sky was starting to clear and the sun was shining through to turn it into a warm afternoon.  I can imagine now everything will be steaming in the heat.

Items bought home:

• carrots (forked ones this time, I thought I’d been lucky having straight ones last week)
• french beans (will these plants ever stop producing?)
• runner beans (a good number, not bad for plants that have been on the ground for most of the time)
• salad leaves and rocket (pulled up some that had gone to seed, loads left)
• courgette (a small baby one)
• broccoli (unexpected but lots of small heads)
• kale
• beet leaf