Adventures in a Poly Tunnel - November 2017

Late again, time flies but this time of year is worse than ever and I've been decorating as well just to make myself really busy.
Things still look very green in the tunnel and there are things to eat as well. Maintenance has slowed down considerably. Watering is down to about once a week unless we have a particularly sunny spell. I'm more prone to over watering so I am trying to be more careful. 

 You can see how green it still is down the rhs. Tagetes, rocket, kale, Mignonette and Romanesco and Chrysanths in the corner. No photo here but you can see them in my IAVOM posts.

I dug out my compost heap but I wanted to save some of the compost so here it is. I wasn't ready for spreading it in some areas, I need to week and tidy first but now I have a small supply here. I know it won't go far.

These are Romanesco Cauliflowers. They look fantastic and we have had one small flower which I forgot to photograph but it did taste good and I hope to get some more. I've probably planted them to close together and I should  thin them out. 

 Central bed. The tomatoes came out this month. I collected any left to ripen indoors and ate some today. After as slow start they have been a huge success and No Blight right up to the end! So I was happy to spread out the soil from the pots on this bed. Seedlings will be going in here:

Spinach and beetroot:

I don't think they will produce any beetroot but we do eat the leaves in salad. 

I still have lettuce to cut but he chillis and peppers have suffered from the frost. 

 Finally an unexpected success story and a lesson to be learned. 
I've never managed to grow a decent carrot. I sowed some seeds in a very large pot this summer and most of them failed to germinate. However a few did and I gave them the odd watering. While tidying up one day I decided to pull them up and there were six respectable carrots. I was amazed. Shown here with an egg I had to hand, to give an idea of scale. Amazing!

They were, as you see, purple skinned but orange inside and tasted very carrotty. 

The lesson learnt is that thinning is very important. There were only 6 growing in a 50-60cm pot. Maybe not a good use of space if you grew all your carrots that way. 

Harvesting inside and out:

Kale

6 Carrots

The last couple of courgettes in early Nov. 

Leeks

Beetroot

The end of the tomatoes

Lettuce

Spinach

Herbs

Chillis

Peppers