Picking and pickling

Well the morning began wet as usual so I had almost given up any thought of going out to the plot but just before mid day the sky lightened, and surprise surprise the sun came out!
I only had just over an hour before picking the girls up from school so I set to picking everything that was ready to go.I pulled all of the beetroot, not much as a lot did not germinate and we had already picked some.
I cooked them in the oven in tinfoil for about two hours in a medium oven.The good thing about this method is ,if some of them bleed the juice can be added back into the pickling liquid.
I ended up with 5 jars of pickled beetroot. Most of them were Chioggia and turned out paler than the others.One jar of baby beets whole and the rest are sliced.
The Globe artichokes have stunning flowers on the thistle like heads.
The complete harvest, a bag of runner beans, 10lbs of them to be exact!Tomorrows chore will be slicing, blanching and freezing these.A bag of British Queens, I had a few for dinner and they are delicious.A lot of white turnips which are still producing from the one sowing.They seem to be the only self regulating vegetable.We have been pulling them as they got to golf ball size or a little bigger and the remaining ones then fill out to take up the space.There are still quite a few left to grow.The beetroot and of course 3 more courgettes! I thought there would have been more or there would be marrows but the weather seems to have kept them in check and they are coming to the end of their life cycle by now too.Brussels Sprouts which I did not intend to pull but the end ones were beginning to open and there was a lot of slug damage to the lower ones so I pulled off any that were big enough at the lower ends of the plants and pulled any lower leaves to stop the slugs from bungee jumping up them.
Aoife's pumpkin continues to be the biggest by a long shot.All the others are tiny tennis ball size.A rough finger measurement puts it about 14 ins in diameter.
I dug some of the British Queens, these had the haulms cut down due to blight but so far the tubers are OK.There are a lot of small ones which are not growing to any size.
The ones for bringing home, not great in size ,small but perfectly formed!
The leeks are forging ahead, I took this pic before I earthed them up
The bean supports are starting to list to one side,the weight of the beans and the strong winds are taking their toll, hopefully it will last until the plants have stopped producing.
This is the green manure Phacalia ( I'm not sure if that is the correct spelling)!The flowers are a beautiful blueish purple colour, the pic does not do them justice.These will be cut down in a couple of weeks and we will dig the plants back into the ground for the winter.
The ground is very wet and heavy and unsuitable for digging, the weeds have been growing unchecked and even the paths need some serious weeding.