300

Yesterday's post marked three hundred entries! I've written less often this year, probably because of diversions from the garden and house, and a poor growing year. Nonetheless, it's a milestone for me.

In other, more interesting news, we've had a really good day in the garden. We started by going out picking blackberries, and came home with a couple of punnets. They've not really hit the peak of ripening, so we'll probably go out again no sooner than next weekend. This first harvest is ten days later than last year, out of interest: that's in line with my guess that most things are a week or two late this year.

Liz has, over the last week, lifted all the maincrop potatoes (Bounty and Cara), which have been really disappointing. I haven't weighed them yet, but there's nothing like the number we got last year. Because the conditions have been abnormally awful, we can't know if it's to do with the change of variety (it was Druid last year). However, I think we'll go back to Druid, which performed really well (and was only marginally more expensive).

With the space this has freed up, we've now planted our over-winter alliums: a hundred Summer Gold onions; three heads' worth of Germidour garlic, and fifteen Elephant Garlics (from our own stock). The remaining space won't have crops on until spring, so I then sowed this with green manure (the same mix as before: two clovers, Italian rye-grass, and mustard). So long as it's reasonable for the next couple of weeks, this should get a good start to see the soil through the autumn and winter.

We also thinned the turnips, scarlet kale and sprouts, which were all sown or planted too thickly. The uprooted kale and sprouts will serve as greens, so there's no waste there, but the turnips have no such reprieve. I don't like thinning, but it's entirely necessary, of course.

We had two dozen penstemons by mail order, and these have now been potted up. They were 'Electric Blue', 'Snowbells', 'Tubular Bells Rose', and 'Carillo Purple'. We also potted on some other small plants, mostly echinacea, geums, and lavenders.

Last thing was to come inside and pickle a kilo of onions. Same as the last batch; hot pickled, which we prefer. After topping-and-tailing, you run boiling water over the onions (makes them easier to peel, and causes less tears), peel them, and add them to boiling spiced vinegar (750ml spirit vinegar, 1–2 tsp of each of mustard seeds, coriander, allspice, and cinnamon; and 15–20 peppercorns). After boiling for 6 minutes, they can be bottled.