The tomatoes are nearly all gone, the squash are ripening on the windowsill, and the carrots have all been munched.  There's not much left to do or say about the Dig In veg - a good time to bring the blog to an end.

That makes this my last proper Dig In blog - though I'll post if there's any big news, of course.  But I'll still check the blog regularly and reply to any comments. I like reading them, and I've really enjoyed the challenge of answering your home-growing questions -  I've learnt a huge amount doing it!  So, do keep those comments coming.

Over the winter, I'll be working with the rest of the team to make Dig In bigger and better in 2010.  We'd love to know your opinions on how we could improve it - send a comment to tell us what you liked about the site or campaign, what didn't work, anything you'd like to see next year, and what seeds you think we should give away next Spring.

Hope you've enjoyed following Sara, Chris and me in our veg-growing exploits, and have had fun growing your own Dig In veg.  Goodbye, and thanks to everyone who read and commented on the blog.

Ann

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Right, so you've grown the veg, you've harvested it, but now how are you going to store it?  If you've a wee little plot like Chris's balcony, the answer is probably "in your stomach", but some of you, I'm sure, are wondering what to do with your mounds of tomatoes, squashes and beetroot.

I love storing veg.  Seeing it all mounting up gives me a feeling of warm well-being - probably because the caveman bit of my brain thinks "Ug!  Will survive hard winter with big pile food!"  Whatever the reason, I find it really enjoyable and will happily potter around boiling, plaiting and preserving things for hours.

So, what can you do with the Dig In veg?  With lettuce - nothing.  But there's a good few recipes, techniques and tricks you can use for the others.

Squash:

Squash will keep easily until midwinter, and maybe beyond, stored in a cool place so that air circulates all round them.  Try hanging them up in nets - torn fishnets tights will do nicely - or laying them on a bed of those polystyrene packing squiggles. You can freeze them, but it's generally believed cooking them by roasting or boiling first is a good idea. Try making a big batch of  Butternut Squash soup and freezing the leftovers.  If there are any.

Carrots:

You can actually leave carrots in the ground all winter, digging them up as needed.  The only problem is that they can be a bit hard to dig up if it's very frosty, so if you have got a carrot crop Bugs Bunny would be proud of, you could try a traditional storage method.  Pull up your carrots in late October, give them a brushing off (don't get them wet) and snip off the tops about 1 cm from the root, then pack in a box filled with slightly damp sand. As long as they don't touch each other, you can put several layers in the box.  (There's a good picture at  Simon's Allotment blog).  Put the box in a cool dry place - it needs to be somewhere that the temperature is steady or they'll start resprouting - and they should last three months or so.  I was looking forward to doing this, but I'm afraid my carrots would only fill a matchbox.

Beetroot:

Beetroot can stand through the winter - I've harvested it in April while working on an organic farm, but the usual advice is to get your beets up by October to stop 'em going woody.  Once they're up, pickling is the traditional way of keeping them.  If, like me, you can't stand it, all pink and flabby and vinegary like that, you can store fresh ones in boxes just the same as carrots.  Make sure you twist rather than cut off leaves otherwise they'll leak pink juice.

Tomatoes:

You can just about get away with freezing tomatoes uncooked, if you just plunge them in boiling water for a second or so to loosen the skins beforehand, peeling, then packing into bags or boxes.  But once you've done that you can only use them to cook with, so I don't see why you wouldn't go the whole way and just make sauces to freeze or even bottle (confusingly, that's what it's called when you preserve something in a jar).  Passata  is a particularly good choice for this - it'll look great in jars and speed up your spag bol-making no end.   Or, how about this recipe for Tomato and Chilli Jam?  My allotment neighbour has been raving about it, so I gave it a go. Verdict: highly recommended!

Anyone got any other storage tips or recipes? Put them in a comment!

Next week will be my last Dig In blog - so if there's any subject anyone would like me to post about, let me know in a comment and I'll do my best!

 

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Well, autumn is definitely in the air, so it seems time for a roundup of how my veg has done.  And I'd love to hear from anyone else about theirs.  Honestly - it's one of my favourite subjects.  I spend hours discussing it with fellow allotment holders.

My butternut squash are still producing, but a couple of the plants are looking rather weak and ill, with yellowing and greyish patches on their leaves.  My guess is that they've got a touch of powdery mildew in the dry weather - I've definitely got it on my courgettes.

Any fungicide containing myclobutanil should get rid of it (most garden supplies places should have this), but I'm going to try an organic remedy, spraying them with a 1/10 solution of milk.  Scientific studies have found that milk used like this can be nearly as effective as chemical fungicides!  I'll also give them a good feeding, as they'll be more susceptible to disease if conditions aren't to their liking, and get rid of the badly affected leaves.

The lettuce is now firmly out of the picture.  The gothic spire-like remains of a few bolted specimens are still poking up from the salad bed, but not even slugs are interested in eating them now.  Without wanting to be disloyal to the Dig In veg, I found Lollo Rosso a bit bolt-prone, and have tended to fall back on my lovely Cos lettuce, Lobjoits Green.

My beetroot are another matter. They've done magnificently, with almost no effort from me.  Look how big one's got!  I shall be roasting this on Saturday. This is a crop I was only trying for the the first time because of Dig In, because I thought I didn't like the taste, but I'll definitely be growing it next year. 

The carrots have been OK, but not quite as good as last year - a bit short, perhaps from lack of water.  This year they went in the ground, but last season I grew them in great big tubs, with really soft, fine soil.  They loved it and it stopped the carrot fly too, so I think it's back to that technique for 2010.

Finally, the poor, blighted tomatoes.  Actually, they've perked up a bit, and I've had bags of fruit from them - literally, there's three bags sitting in the fridge. So yay to Gardener's Delight. But with blight being so common on my allotment, I'm going to play it safe and grow one of the three supposedly "blight-resistant" varieties next year - Ferline, Fantasio and Legend.  I've read good things about Ferline on gardening forums like Grow Your Own and gardenbanter.  Time to get those seed catalogues out I think...

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