The croft is not looking it’s best at the moment. There’s quite a lot of mud and the rain has halted mowing and strimming so the grass has got pretty long. The weather forecast seems to be toying with us, it keeps predicting sunshine in a weeks time, then the prediction slowly changes to the usual wet and windy. I really hope that very wet Summers aren’t what climate change has in store for Skye.
I’ve had a good look at all the Autumn veg. The leeks are still on the small side, but do look very nice. The cabbages and sprouts have been slowed down by the cool weather. The pointy cabbages are nearly ready though – we ate a couple and the insides are slug free! The swedes are enormous, cold and wet seem to be their ideal conditions. I’m also growing something called kalettes, it’s a cross between sprouts and kale. The plants are very attractive and it looks like they’re about to start producing the little sprout/kale rosettes.
I’ve sown and planted various salad leaves in the greenhouse. The rocket appeared at the speed of a rocket and so far hasn’t been scoffed by any slimy creatures. I’ve several trays of salad leaves waiting for gaps in the greenhouse. Anything planted now will grow slowly all Winter, ready for picking in the Spring. I think I’ll just fill up the Polycrub and greenhouse with over Wintering plants and figure out how to fit in Summer crops next year.
I spent a day tomato pruning. The tomato plants are laden with green tomatoes and it helps them to ripen if all the side shoots and old leaves are removed. Even on a cool day the Polycrub reaches 25 celsius. Some sun does help with the ripening though.
We did a taste test of some of the maincrop potatoes. I thought they all tasted good, Alouette was probably the tastiest, but the spuds are on the small side. Caledonian Rose seems to have a very good yield, big potatoes but quite a lot of slug damage. Rooster has grown very well and is the most versatile but probably the least tasty – it’s often the way with the more commercial varieties. I’ve also got a variety called Cara which I had read was pretty tasteless. I think it’s very nice, it’s grown well, cooks a bit like a Maris Piper and has that earthy home grown potato flavour that supermarket tatties are lacking. So far I think I wouldn’t grow Alouette again, it didn’t cope well with the clay soil and constant rain but the others are all worth doing. We’ve still got Picasso and Setanta to try. Our most frequent veg growing topic is how to improve our potato growing, really the answer is move to a drier location on a steep slope which drains well!
This week’s Croft Shares will have:
Small – French beans, tomatoes, courgettes, purple sprouting broccoli and kale.
Medium – French beans, tomatoes, courgettes, broccoli, potatoes, sugar snaps/mange tout and purple kale.
Large – French beans, tomatoes, courgettes, broccoli, potatoes, sugar snaps/mange tout, kale, salad leaves or chard, onions and parsley.