August 2024

It certainly felt like August and it seemed autumn had come early during the second half of the month, the coldest August day since I started keeping records in 2021. During the cold days even the day time temperature wasn’t much higher than 16 or 17. A lot of rain and damp. which meant we harvested some things quite late. An example of this were the potatoes, not dug up until mid month when I should had done it weeks before.

Lowest 11.7c, highest 28c, average 19.2c

We did have some summer days however, and these allowed us to bring in the onions, the beans, beetroot. A first for us was the sweetcorn, something I never thought we would harvest and a plant we will be growing a lot more of next year. We started picking tomatoes and cucumbers.

Beetroot has not done well this year, a lot did not germinate and the rest got dug up by squirrels in the garden. Onions on the other hand had done very well with minimal allium leaf minor. I thought we had not escaped even though I had covered them with insect netting but actually I think the ones that failed were the over wintered onions. Maybe we won’t do that again, our winters have been cold and wet the last couple of years whereas for ages before they had been quite mild and so over wintering worked better. We also had onions in the garden grown from seed which turned out pretty well, smaller but still very much onion shape and hard to believe they started off as tiny little black seeds months and months ago. I had planted a lot less this year due to disappointment last year but I should had grown the normal amount.

Another good crop of the year has been carrots which have done really well in the garden and we continued, slowed down a bit, to pull up. Potatoes were mixed, I didn’t plant many and I’m not sure why not, we planted them at the end of the plot that never does well with potatoes, and I spaced them out way too much, I also left them in the ground for too long. A harvest that will last us a while, but not the normal massive harvest that fills sacks and keeps us going well into the winter.

Beans of all sorts loved the rain and after our freezer became full of beans they started to become a bit of a pain. By the time we had given beans to all our friends, we really didn’t know what to do with so many. We eat a lot of course, but it was a battle to keep up, and it continued into the next month. Courgettes and cucumbers did the same, but we were able to keep up with them and eat them as they arrived. Cucumbers have never been as good as the early years where we would have 40+, but no-one can eat 40 cucumbers in a month, so we have found a good balance.

Sweetcorn, the wonder plant that grow taller and taller turning the garden into a jungle. What a great plant and how good has it been deciding we would have sweetcorn with our tea, being able to pick from the garden and cook them straight away.

	2024 B/F £138.80
			IN	OUT
	beetroot – 476g		£2.00
	onions – 6.406kg		£7.05
	carrot – 712g		£0.53
	potato – 12.469kg		£13.09
	french beans – 1.439kg		£9.71
	runner beans – 1.439		£11.31
	courgette – 2.054kg		£6.16
	corn on the cob – 4		£2.80
	ridge cucumber – 5		£1.65
	tomato – 770g		£3.08
	apple – 390g		£0.86
	WEEK TOTAL		£58.24
	RUNNING 2024 TOTAL		£197.04