Autumn begins, cabbages, beans, lettuces

Sunday was the autumn equinox, the beginning of true astronomical autumn. Not the digital newfangled meteorological autumn that starts on the first of September. I prefer the old ways, far better to note sunrise positions on the summer and winter solstices and divide up the gaps to define the season.

Far too easy to go wrong with calendars. Give me a proper stone circle like Stonehenge. 5,000 years old and it still works!

Anyway, nature agrees with me. Naturally because I’m right. So on Monday the first leaves fell in a flurry from the big sycamore tree. Sad that another summer has ended but reassuring that the wheel of life keeps turning.

Wheeler’s Imperial Cabbages

Wheeler’s Imperial Cabbage Seedlings in Rootrainers

It was a pretty miserable day, grey and drizzle although we avoided the forecast heavy rain. Went into the potting shed. Even in there (it’s all glass to the western side) it was so dull I put the lights on. Transplanted cabbage Wheeler’s Imperial seedlings from a half seed tray into rootrainers.

Made up the compost by taking multi-purpose compost and adding lime and vermiculite with a small amount of perlite. The cabbages will appreciate the compost’s pH being increased as well as the vermiculite improving the water retention.

In a few weeks these will be planted out to over-winter and provide early spring greens as well as cabbages next year. OK, 32 plants is maybe overkill but excess can frozen or even be hung in the chicken run.

They’re a lovely old variety, as you might guess from the name – Wheeler’s Imperial. Extremely reliable, too. Once established, as long as the slugs don’t get them, you can’t fail.

Beans & Slugs

On Saturday I’d had a good picking of French beans. Most from the climbing beans but a good portion from the row of dwarf yellow beans, Beurre de Rocquencourt. We’d eaten the yellow and frozen the green beans.

So on Tuesday we had a conversation.

“Shall I get a portion of beans out of the freezer or do you think you can get enough fresh from the polytunnel?” Val asked me.

I answered, “I’m not sure, I was pretty thorough harvesting the last lot but I’ll see. I might just, with luck and a following wind, find a few beans. Don’t hold your breath!”

So I trundled up to the polytunnel, colander in hand, to hunt the increasingly rare French beans. Surprisingly despite being very thorough last time, as I thought, it took just half an hour to fill the colander just with green beans. I took those down to the house and returned with another colander which I half filled with yellow beans from the dwarf plants.

I might just, with luck and a following wind, find a few beans!

There was another surprise, however. And not a nice one this time. Right at the top of the beans, just under the roof of the polytunnel there’s a big, fat, brown slug munching away on the leaves. How on earth do they manage to get up there?

The crack Alpine division of the slug army near the roof of the polytunnel.

Lettuce

Lettuce in Bustaseed Trays overdue for planting out

I’d sown some lettuce into Bustaseed modules. One of the things I love with the Bustaseed system is how I can sow one or two rows of a variety and then a couple of rows of another.

The lettuces are intended for planting out in the centre bed of the polytunnel which had the sweetcorn earlier this year. I’ve cleared out the sweetcorn stalks to the compost bin along with quite a few weeds that had popped up between them.

Because sweetcorn is a pretty hungry crop the soil nutrients are probably depleted so I applied chicken manure pellets as a base fertiliser. Worked these into the top of the soil with a 3 prong cultivator.

I’d intended to plant out these lettuces a couple of weeks ago but the mini heatwave made the polytunnel into a sauna. Lettuce don’t really like it too hot, so I delayed. We always think of lettuce as a summer salad crop but they’re pretty tolerant of cold weather. Especially with some shelter like a cloche or better still in a greenhouse or polytunnel.

You can see in the photo just how well the young plants are doing in the modules despite being overdue for planting out. This rate of growth was one of the benefits noted in the trial undertaken by Queen’s University. See Bustaseed Seedling Tray Trial