Six on Saturday – October 6th

The weather doesn’t seem to know if it should be late summer or early autumn – one minute it’s warm and sunny, the next it’s chilly & wet. But at least the wet means the allotment will benefit – I hope! Welcome to my Six on Saturday!


1. The newest raised bed might not have enough soil in it (the level is a good 2 or 3 inches down from the top), but the strawberry plants are thriving! I’ve got loads (and I mean loads) of runners from these too, so I’ll have to take some pots down to the allotment to get them rooted. They can then overwinter in the garden so I have some spares just in case of bad weather.

2.  I’m not convinced the celery will come to much this year – it’s still really short, and the leaves are starting to look yellow…. but considering this is a self-blanching variety, the stems are still too green to be ready to pick yet.

3. In contrast, the cucamelon plants in the garden and this one on the allotment have been a real success…. until the strong winds meant the allotment one blew over – the soil isn’t as deep as you might think, so the bamboo canes clearly weren’t in deep enough to hold it all upright! But I think that’s a plant to grow next year, for certain.

4. Onto Raspberry Jungle next, and that’s been a bit hit and miss this year. A lot of the leaves have darkened and browned, but I’ve cut back some of the most discoloured foliage and there’s quite a bit of new green growth showing through, so it’ll be interesting to see if that leads to more raspberries before the frosts.

5. Another one I’m not convinced will be fantastic, is the Florence Fennel…. which is ironic considering how the herb fennel seeds itself quite happily all across the site. We planted 10 seeds, and these are the only two plants which grew. 

Earth up (mound soil) round the bulbs as they start to swell, from mid-summer until mid autumn, until the bulb is mature and about 7-10cm (3-4in across) to blanch the bulbs and to exclude autumn frosts.

RHS website

If the bulbs are meant to swell from mid-summer, I think ours are a good few weeks (or months!) behind, so I really don’t think we’ll get anything from these.

6. Proof that my compost bins don’t get hot enough to kill off any weeds – this tomato plant wasn’t meant to be on the allotment (it self seeded in the compost), but we decided to leave it to see if the tomatoes ripen.

And a little bonus picture just to add some brightness to a grey wet day, we had enough Nasturtium flowers to pick a little posy to go with the mint we were bringing home… plus some lavender just for fun.

Don’t forget to check out the Propagator’s Six on Saturday  and read through the comments section for more blogs to check out!

8 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – October 6th”

  1. I received two seed orders yesterday and you’ve just reminded me I had meant to get celery, adding to the Habanero chillies someone else’s post reminded me about. I have to say I don’t really get raised beds, unless you’re on waterlogged ground maybe.

    1. The first year I had the allotment, we ‘rescued’ 10 strawberry plants from a relative’s garden. I hadn’t realised the allotment would get quite so wet & boggy where I planted them, so the raised bed ended up being essential to not only help with the drainage, but also to prevent us from walking over it and making it worse! Also, in theory it stops the deer from trampling over it all quite so easily (although in reality they have still sat in the raised bed, pushing the bamboo canes & netting over while they were at it).

      I’ve never tried growing celery from seed (yet) – is it really as challenging as it says in the gardening books I’ve read?

  2. Plenty to harvest there still. Love that volunteer compost tomato. I have a few monsters reaching up from the greenhouse gravel that may bear fruit through November!

    1. There’s also three more tomato plants where we planted a second row of florence fennel! Ironically the tomatoes were stronger than the fennel, seeing as in that row, none of the fennel germinated.
      That’s impressive to have tomatoes fruiting through November!

    1. I think it’s definitely been a Goldilocks year for veg! We kept up with the watering much better than I’d expected, but partly that was because there was a bit more time seeing as the grass pathways didn’t need quite so much cutting this year.

  3. Glad to see your strawberries finally decided to behave themselves. They look wonderful. Were you part of the cucumelon discussion about them forming a tuber that you lift & replant next year? Fred said he missed out on that & mine are still going strong, so don’t know what’s underground w/them as yet. I take it that you eat more of the fennel that the seeds? Didn’t know that. Thought it was just the seeds that were used in cooking. Last photo was terrific.

    1. I was – although I still haven’t got as far as unearthing the cucamelon in the pot! I will try and dig up the one on the allotment, as that was quite shallow soil so in theory it should be easier to find the tuber.

      I’ve never grown florence fennel before (that’s the one you eat the ‘bulb’), but I’ve also never cooked with herb fennel (the seed one) before – I just grew it originally to make a nicer smell around the compost bin!

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