Indian Summer

The weather has been fantastic here all day today. And what have we been up to? Just the day for picking potatoes for our enjoyment and I've got an aching back to prove it.

We grew a type called 'Desiree' this year. Normally it's a battle to keep potato blight at bay which can create havoc and destroy a whole crop in a matter of days. Because of the dry, cloudy summer, thankfully it didn't happen this year. We did cut the top foliage off as a precaution two or three weeks ago. What happens is that the foliage yellows. Brown speckles appear on the leaves. They then go slushy and the potatoes rot in the ground. So hopefully we have enough spuds now to keep us going (and a few to give away as well), until the new potatoes come again the end of next May.

We planted a row of swedes next to the hedge. I tried something new this year by starting them off in plugs last April -

As in this sort of thing - (although the veggies in this picture are actually carrots (Ronda), same idea. Good really. What you do is sow the seed in the individual cells, tweak out any extra seedlings and then when you've got a good root ball, plant them out in prepared ground - no thinning - easy to weed.

Lifted the onions at the same time. They look a bit small but I didn't plant them until May which is a bit late as they should have been in the ground in March, but the local garden centre had the sets on offer for 10p per net just to shift them, so not a bad return for my money. (Too cheap to leave there). I shall probably use the smaller ones for pickling.

And if this wasn't enough, I've been up the apple tree, picking apples. This variety is called 'James Grieve', They are not much of a keeper, but just right to eat now, if you can beat the wasps.

I hate that horrible musty taste you sometimes get on supermarket bought apples. Nothing like that on these. A bit marked and odd shapes they may be, but to me this is how food should really taste. What do you think?