Anyone with an allotment?

my tomoato's have failed to go red ? what should i do ? pick and bring indoors ?

and also what could one plant at this time of the year to produce something useful harvestable through the winter and into next spring ? my veg patch always looks a bit bare through winter ? green manure is a possibility but i don't have issues with fertility of the soil here loads of horse manure and compost gets dug in every year
what can i plant in the next month or two ?

Pick tomatoes and leave them on sunny windowsills, they'll ripen fairly quickly.

it appears that what bit me is a Blandford fly, which is not really supposed to live in London, but apparently is spreading...

Bugger me. Mebbe we should start a Blandford Forum?

eh? I live near there,
if its any consolation, toms didnt do much good there either,...
Dicki, make green tomato chutney,
seems like the plants have given up pretty early this year, short season, cest la vie

it's got so cold this week, i don't blame them!

they should really be turning blue not red !

Put the green tomatoes in an open box with a banana, apparently that will make them ripen.

Just returned from mine with a squash/pumpkin thing the size of a beachball. Only things that have done really well this year aside from apples, of which I have a lot.

God know what to do with it. Take about 3 days to bake/roast. Prob get the rip saw out and make a LOT of risotto, unless anyone has any better ideas?

Soup!

Soup!

...go on....

Cubed pumpkin, onion and stock. Little bit of curry powder and garlic. Simmer the shit out of it then purée

RU carving it up with a chainsaw first?

Ha! Just to get the skin off.

Ha! Just to get the skin off.

Dokey - I'm going to make a new jump helmet out of that anyway....

Or a big fuck off jack o'lantern

Or a big fuck off jack o'lantern

Yeah, that's what the kids wanted to do with it. But I'm holding it as security on some impressive Father's Day bike bootie till they sign on the line via mum...

Any good tasting squash / pumpkin make an absolutley outstanding addition to a curry. Esepcially one containing some stewing beef or mutton.

The sweetness of the pumpkin/squash compliment hot spices and rich slow cooked meat exceptionally.

We made the mistake of planting a marrow-sort-of-thing (the carribean old-timers call it 'Quash') nearish to our tomatoes - just as the tomatoes started to ripen, this Cthulu-esque mass of thrashing tendrils erupted from the ground and strangled the toms on a matter of days. Timed perfectly to coincide with our holiday. We've now got no toms, but metre-long marrows the thickness of my thigh, piling up in the bath becasue we've nowhere else to put them.

Earlier in the year we had good potatoes, quite good runner beans, though they struggled at first, and broad beans went very well. we've also got some Waldmeister (woodruff, I think) so I can steep it in vodka and have dreams about being a werewolf again...

And Kohlrabi is amazing, and grows brilliantly just about anywhere.

It's time for the Jerusalem Artichoke harvest, fart fans.

Uggh, fartichokes, wast of time…

have you tried keeping them in oil as an antipasto like wot da eyetalians do?

Ah, no, these are Jerusalem, not Globe. They'll grow anywhere, they're hard to get rid of, but bees like the flowers and it means that with their methane power, you can delay putting the central heating on.

Weekend task is to make a wooden box for a compost heap, and plan what to grow next year. I've spent to much time in the Urban Orchard this year, so it'll be hay bales as planters next year. And pallets, I've developed a thing about pallets.

Are you sure you've given them enough time? Our tomatoes are still ripening, even on plants which seem to have died because their containers got flooded. Despite lack of sunlight and leaves they seem to just carry on ripening.

Our toms in pots which didn't get waterlogged are still looking really healthy and green and ripening too.

These are all on a roof terrace though.

If all else fails, save up some green ones and make fried green tomatoes. Yummy southern dish.

my tomoato's have failed to go red ? what should i do ? pick and bring indoors ?

And Kohlrabi is amazing, and grows brilliantly just about anywhere.

That it does, and tastes great sliced thin and fried in a little butter....

Soup!

simmer cubed squash in a little bit of stock with good amount of root ginger and some fresh chilli. then add coconut milk. blend.

lush.

i had a bit of root blight on my jerusalem artichokes last season
boring insects ( not boring yawn yawn, but boring i.e towards the centre of the earth )
this year i have many less and have planted them somewhere slightly different so hopefully some JA soup coming up

i'll leave the toms in the garden maybe pick one and put it indoors see which develops first