Anyone with an allotment?

Last good harvest of the year. Never lifted spuds or got squash this late. Three lettuce, some small beetroot, perennial kale/chomolia, green tomatoes and two 4kg+ squash. Potatoes struggled with ants, really not good to have around the tubers. Neighbours still have a ton of sweet peppers ripening too.

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Also stuck in two elephant garlic cloves from the bulb I grew last year and a row of broad beans. Put about 35 onion sets in a fresh no-dig bed put straight into compost/cardboard on couch grass, so we’ll see how that does. Interestingly I found a few of the very disappointingly small onions I missed when I lifted them this summer had sprouted again. Only there was 3-4 shoots coming out of most of them. After peeling the main bulbs back I managed to separate the mini bulbs with some roots attached to most of them and planted out another 15 plants or so. Be interested to see what happens to them.

Next door’s peppers, happily ripening at the end of October.

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My.neighbour let me pick his quince, time for quince jelly.

Really need to fine some time to go hard on my overgrown plot, but always something more pressing.

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Nice! Got a mate who well into his quinces, any idea what the squash is?

Make some quince cheese, so good

May be known as Membrillo in your part of the world, skinny.

Anyone used https://www.bridgendgardencentre.co.uk/ before? Their seed potatoes are miles cheaper then anywhere else. Just ordered 2kg Ratte, 2kg Sarpo Mira and 1kg Blue Danube. They seem to have good reviews.

Does anyone have feel strongly that I shouldn't direct plant broad beans at this time of year? I've been a little too busy to keep up with the allotment recently and wondering whether it'd get more developed plants by direct planting now or sowing into deeper pots and planting out in a few weeks. London based.

If you don't have too many slugs I'd sow direct - less work. If you're worried about slugs then may be best to sow in pots first.

I plant one variety, (Aqua Dulce iirc) direct in autumn to get an earlier spring crop. Looks like I've lost some to rodents this year which is a first but will use that raised bed for peas instead in the spring. My other bed has sprouted much quicker than usual due to the ongoing mild conditions.

Thanks both! I'll try with the direct planting and cross my fingers for the slugs

Membrillo con sal! Dulce de membrillo! - muchos celos 🥲

Sí però aquí és codonyat ;)

Where you from? Love quince jelly with some good cheese and bread.

I was born in Chile, living in the UK for almost 20 years now.

Ah yes quite the change!

Finally found time to get the tomato mess off the floor.
Before and after.

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Feel like this is a good place to ask. What variety of rhubarb should I plant?

The kind you get free from a friend or neighbour

Which ever you get, remember it’ll take a few seasons to get a hold. I read you shouldn’t harvest at all in the first year to give it maximum strength to get established.
CSB> There was a covenant that every plot on our allotment had to come with a crown of rhubarb, most are still here 100+ years on. I just discovered ours today buried in the 5ft undergrowth in the back corner.

Also found six very girthy thornless blackberry plants with canes the size of my wrist, I pruned off all the previous seasons growth and will knock up post and wire trellis to train them. Result.

Rad looking polytunnel, that.

Built by the former offender. I'd guess it's very old.

We started putting paper mulch down today—a few onions beginning to pop up amid the weeds. Before & after (not necessarily in that order):

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Cheers for the tips. There used to be some at the bottom of kg garden, but sadly it got covered up and is now gone.

Great effort. I'm getting triggered looking at that pile of stones though. My potato patch started as pure war rubble.