It was a late summer this year, and despite the addition of a few very hot days, its has been consistently below average temperatures. This time last year we were picking pounds of ripe tomatoes every few days and had zucchini overload by August. This year its late September and we have just done our first big pick of toms – after weeks of looking in the veg patch and getting stupidly excited at the first hint of red! Now I am growing food I am definitely more aware of the climate. There are also a lot of damaged/split/munched tomatoes because they have been on the vine so long, so its time for pasta sauces, salsa and ketchup.
We did manage to grow a good crop of peppers (under cover) and have the usual stack of potatoes, but I would say that everything is about a month behind last year. A tough year for seed savers as we need a lot of the seeds to dry on the plant to get the best seed viability – now its getting wetter and colder and that means the seeds may not make it. Some plants we can pull up,seeds and all, and hang them somewhere to dry. Apparently its going to be a cold winter as well so we will have to wait and see what happens with the winter veg….