Harvest festival

My dad used to refer to ladies' corsets as harvest festivals.  "All is safely gathered in".   It's not yet really festival time, but I know, more or less, what to expect from the veg patch for the rest of the year.

The butternut squashes are ripening nicely, there will be quite a few of them, certainly enough to last the Winter.   We prefer getting a large number of smaller ones rather than the inverse, since smaller ones will do for two people, and there's no need to store any left-over bits.

The cardboard around the gooseberry bushes looks ugly, but it's keeping the annual weeds down very well.   I'll have to see how it does in Spring, but I plan to cover it with fresh compost with added fertiliser to improve the appearance and yield.

Not many beans are left on the plants now, just a few pods to claim when I dismantle the frame.   I'm happy with the harvest, there's enough for a good few cassoulets and I have beans for planting next year too.   The onions drying out are Walla Walla, a very sweet variety.   I understand that it's not worth growing main crop onions because they are plentiful and cheap in the season, so I grow this variety, and red ones.

Next year I plan to try out the "three sisters" crop combination: sweet corn, squash and climbing beans, all in the same area.  They are supposed to grow well together.  We shall see.