Discovery

It's a voyage of discovery to visit the veg patch.   This morning I found a hitherto unnoticed, perfectly ripe butternut squash in amongst the leaves.   And a dark green, well-camouflaged Courge de Provence nearby too.   The courge is about 18 inches diameter so I don't know how I failed to notice it.

The leeks are doing well this year, I planted carrots alongside them to keep the bugs down.   This seems to have worked as there are hardly any bugs on the leeks this year.   Of course this is only anecdotal evidece so I should stop planting carrots alongside leeks until a carefully-controlled double-blind experiment proves that they are effective.

I have pulled out the tomato plants, but I left in the little French marigolds that are also said to help keep the bugs off.   After all, they look pretty and are doing no harm.   The green tomatoes will be sliced and fried.     And the last of the beans are waiting for the first air frosts before I harvest them.

Sweet corn wasn't very successful this year: I got two nice fresh ears off the 20-odd plants that grew, but those that I pulled later proved chewy.   Perhaps I have to pull them all off when they're still tender, and hope that they keep.   I will try to do better next year because I do like sweet corn.   The sunflowers grew well enough but don't seem to be good for anything.   Perhaps the birds will eat the seeds.

This metal grille in this picture was supposed to be a climbing frame for sweet potatoes, this year was the first time I tried them.   They got swamped by the squashes, so I'm not expecting much from them.   I found that they didn't seem to like being transplanted outside, perhaps it was still too cold when I did it, or perhaps I didn't let their roots grow long enough first.

In other news, green peppers, aubergines, beetroot and parsnips are doing well, as are carrots and scorzonera.