Colourful

Happy morning sent on the allotment.The previous evening it had felt very autumnal up there - the hens bedtime is now around 8.30 and there is a nip in the air. Also mould beginning to appear on the raspberries and squash leaves. Today it felt like summer again! I walked round inspecting my crops. The Red Kuri has so many pumpkins growing! I was also pleased to see my Butternut squash has finally come into production too. I had to google them the other day as I had a butternut shaped squash appearing amongst the Red Kuri. As it was green I was unsure what it was - but they do start off green! I decided to pick this particularly large specimen and leave it to cure in the sunshine for the day! 
The next job was weeding my Kohl Rabi and fennel bed - both of which I am pleased to say are looking hopeful! I'd covered round the fennel with wool pads and where there was a slight gap the weeds had grown - shame I had not enough to put round the Kohl Rabi as they were as big as them! I had just started weeding the crop free end of the bed ready for planting when Colourful Mai appeared. We had a good chat and I gave her a crystal lemon cucumber. For a while now something odd has happened to my raspberries - some are delicious but others have a disgusting taste which means I have to spit them out - it's almost metallic. I wasn't sure off this was my tastebuds or the raspberries so got her to eat some - the first few were delicious then she too was spitting ones out! There is no point harvesting them as there is no way to tell which is good and which bad! At some point I will have to pick and throw the whole lot and hope the next batch are not the same. I'm not sure even the hens would like them! On doing another google search I discovered this could be caused by rain washing minerals from the soil so the citric acid that makes them sweet is not present - add potash and magnesium it says! It may also be the shield insects aka stink bugs! Funnily enough there seems less of them this year so I'm thinking it's the torrential rain we had a while back! 
I went back to my weeding and then planted 3 rows of beetroot - red, crimson and golden! Then Brummie Girl arrived and I was able to give her the big floppy hat I'd bought her from the  Port Eliot festival! We caught up on each others news - her partner has sold his house in Birmingham and once the paperwork is done will be joining her. I told her about my puppy and she is up for some walks! They have thought of getting a dog, but both have elderly parents in ill health so need the freedom to be with them at any given point. 
By this point my stomach was doing flip flops and I needed to eat - as I left there were 3 women and 1 man on the allotments - in total there are more women with plots than men which I rather like! 
Come the evening I was able to sow some spinach and lambs lettuce as I waited for the hens to retire. This helped me to ignore my stomach which was feeling tight and bloated - been a while since it's been like that I'm pleased to say! I collected my green butternut squash and picked some flowers as the light faded and headed home in the dark with these and 5 eggs from the hens! A good day!