Allotment Diary–Thursday 25 August 2016

While Mum weeded, I made a start on the autumn planting, salad veg that we will be eating in October and November, so everything was planted either into cold frames or mini poly tunnels. 

First in was Pak Choi, a red leafed oriental cabbage, that looks great and is quite crispy in salads.

I also popped in a row is turnip, I’ve never had it before but it looks like a good salad crop and this month is the last opportunity to plant it, so I thought I would give it a try

I planted a single row of salad onion at the back of the cold frame, this should be ready in very early spring

I also planted a row of endive, another vegetable that’s new to me, but looks like it could be fun in winter salads

To add some variety I also popped in some giant mustard, lovely big red leaves

I’m also starting succession planting this spicy salad mix, this was the first crop of the year this spring and seems to do well in the cold weather.  If it does will it will be my go to crop for the autumn too, ready to eat in 30 days!

of course lots of radish, the long and ball varieties, I can’t get enough of radish and will be using the leaves when I start having smoothies again in winter

Finally some traditional salad lettuce, for the salad base

It’s always nice to see that a compost bin that I layered up only yesterday is already pumping out the heat

So today was all about salads, for cooked meals we still have plenty of runner and broad bean, mange tout, summer kale and carrots and we will soon start cropping the broccoli, sprouts, winter kale, autumn carrots and potatoes, so we won’t go hungry.