Gardening Blog
Allotment Diary
September 16, 2008: giant harvest
Terry Walton visits the National Giant Vegetable Show, where the winning pumpkin is the weight of five men
Autumn, the season of 'mists and mellow fruitfulness'. These are the words of a famous poet and are not mine, but they are very apt for this time of year. The mornings are definitely a lot chillier and there is that tingle of coolness on your skin when you step into the garden in the early morning. There to greet you is a haze of low mist hugging the hillsides but it is quickly chased away by the sun lying low in the morning sky.
The fruitfulness is all around you. The crops are ripening before your very eyes and are taking in the sunlight to dry and capture the flavour, ready for the long winter storage.
The onions are gathered and join the garlic and shallots in the greenhouse to complete their drying process. The shallots will soon be preserved in vinegar and spices to provide the winter ploughman’s lunch with that sharp, crunchy flavour.
The onions and garlic will be strung up for their endeavours and will remain hanging in a cool, dry place to be nipped off the bunch when needed to add flavour to those winter dishes.
Out on the plot the marrows, squashes and pumpkins are sun bathing to ripen their skins before joining their fellow vegetables in the cool, dry, frost-free shed.
Yes, harvest time is with us and these stored treasures will provide some of our daily needs during those long, dark, barren months that lay ahead. What a great provider Mother Nature is!
The landscape of the plot is radically changing as those runner beans and sweet pea barriers are taken down exposing those wide open spaces. The allotment looks very large again.
The ground is being prepared for its winter slumber but not all the joys of planting have receded. It is time to plant those winter onions. Prepare an area of well-drained, fertile soil and pop these hardy little souls into the ground. They will provide tasty onions next June just as your winter store of onions runs out.
The last couple of weeks I have been visiting the autumn shows. This is where gardeners of all abilities demonstrate their growing prowess.
I visited our local district show and the standard and range of produce on the show bench was of a very high standard. It is amazing the results that dedicated gardeners can achieve despite the difficulties of a poor summer.
In the same venue but in a different hall was the National Vegetable show. This was a real eye opener to us mere mortals and was a chance for the real showman to show off their expertise. On show were parsnips several feet long and pure white. Six potatoes on a plate of equal size and with skin so smooth it would grace a super model. The onions on show would feed a family of four all winter and had those perfectly tanned skins. Every vegetable imaginable was grown to perfection.
One thing was clear, these showmen had several tricks up their sleeves and none of these specimens had grown in the open air but had led a cosseted life in a polytunnel.
Then it was on to the National Giant Vegetable Show where the longest, heaviest and most grotesque specimens could be found. The star of the show was 377 Kilogram pumpkin which took centre stage - 829 lbs of pumpkin, or put another way 60 stones or the equivalent of five average men. What a monster!
So you see gardening means many different things to all people. To me it is to take home and eat a plate of tasty, healthy vegetables.
To the showman it is the red card that brings the reward for all their efforts. The gardener who grows the heaviest beast imaginable gets the reward of perhaps one day breaking a world record.
So never mind which type you are, we all get the same pleasure from working with nature and tend to our charges whether they be big, perfect or just plain delicious.
More from Terry Walton
More on growing your own
- When to start growing vegetables
- How to start a vegetable garden
- No garden? How to grow vegetables in a window box
- How to grow blackcurrants
- Plots of gold: retirement homes with allotments
- How to help your grandchildren create their own vegetable patch
- Eat green: ethical eating
- Month-by-month guide to what's in season
- Swap tips at Saga Zone's gardening forum
My Life On A Hillside Allotment
Terry Walton is a regular contributor to The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 and has written a book called, My Life on a Hillside Allotment, published by Bantam Press. The book is available from Amazon
