Summer Survivors





It has been an unusual summer here, not particularly hot and quite wet and humid. Many of my vegetables succumbed to powdery mildew quite early in the summer. In an effort to have a source of zucchini's well into the autumn I planted a few late Zucchinis. they quickly succumbed to the mildew and bore no fruit at all. However, my trusty Trombocino vine is still going strong. No mildew, lots of strong vigorous growth and providing half a dozen nice sized Tromocinos every week. The one vine has sent out random runners so I find the fruit in the oddest places. The fruits are a bit troubled by ladybugs but otherwise fine and still very good to eat. A true survivor. I will save some seeds from this vine, it certainly outdid the black beauties and rond de nice.


Another pleasant vegetable surprise has been the blue lake climbing beans. I planted a lot but only two came up and they seemed to take forever to get any beans so initially I was very disappointed. However long after the other beans have given up these two huge vines are still producing beans. to tell the truth I had stopped looking for new beans and was just letting the old ones dry on the vine when I noticed quite a few fresh young beans. Enough for a vegetable with our dinner last night.
I picked quite a lot of the pumpkins yesterday as the mess in the area where they were growing was really annoying me. The pumpkin vines have run rampant but because it has been such a good season so has the Kikuyu, so there is pumpkin vine intertwined with Kikuyu and all above knee height. I picked a lot and cut any vines back to the best looking unripe pumpkin. I could barely push the wheelbarrow. I have a lot of pumpkins to be doing something with.
also a lot of quinces. Sadly not mine that did not do very well at all. At the Car boot sale on Saturday A stallholder sold me this big bucket full for ten dollars. Lots of quince jelly to be made. In the meantime they are just inside the back door and smell delicious.

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