Harvest and very late sowing

Today  I was offered help with harvesting from my wife and the grand children. This meant that I could think of making progress with sowing. It is a bit late to be sowing crops but with luck I might get a late harvest if the weather cooperates. With thunderstorms forecast my seeds should be well watered at least at the start.

I sowed a last row of early peas as they mature quicker than main-crops. I also sowed a row of early carrots (Early Nantes) for the same reason. Alongside them I sowed a row of swedes which I wish I had sown last month and my first row this year of turnips. It's a bit late for turnips but I would like to have some so it is worth a try.

Meanwhile the family picked a huge collection of huge bags of crops. My runner and French beans have finally started producing in bulk, and there were 4 cauliflowers to cut. I also cut a very large red cabbage together with a medium sized green cabbage for them to take. They also got a small crop of the earliest autumn raspberries.

When the children got bored we sent them to the brambles alongside the entry track to collect blackberries but they returned rather quickly with very few. I thought it was because they were put off by the spines but it transpired that someone had been there already and we only doubled their collection on the way out because we could reach higher.

After they had departed I eased the spring planted onion sets loose to help them ripen and dug up the beetroot alongside them. Some of them were very small and could have been left but some were huge and probably will only be good for juicing.

Finally I covered the newly sown peas with a net tunnel after a dose of slug bait and a sprinkling of paraffin to keep the mice off, before scattering a few handfuls of chicken manure along the peas I sowed last month.

I scooped up a number of piles of weeds onto the compost heap before going home for a very late lunch.