Raspberries and Radishes

Even though Autumn has arrived the allotment is still thriving and the harvests are still coming in thick and fast including one of my favourite crops, raspberries! My original 5 Autumn Bliss raspberry canes are three years old and have bulked up since the previous year. They are an Autumn growing variety and need cutting back every year, the fruits will form on this years growth whereas Summer varieties fruit on last years growth. The good thing about this variety is that when the allotment is starting to slow down you have the extra special treat of picking raspberries (and scoffing them on the spot!)

Just because Autumn is here doesn’t mean it’s the end of the growing year, I’ve been sowing radishes throughout the Summer to supply me with a nice steady crop and I just so happened to sow my last row of the year this weekend. I’ve been growing them in the radish tank for the first time and they’ve done brilliantly, it fits three rows of radish in nicely so I’ve been sowing three different varieties, ‘Scarlet Globe’, ‘French Breakfast’ and ‘Sparkler’. Along the way I have learnt to sow the seeds every 2 weeks whereas before I was sowing all three rows at the same time and was overrun with radishes! If the weather stays warm for a while I might risk another sowing and use one of our cloche hoops to cover the tank, we’ll see though… you never know what the UK weather is going to do!