Veg plans for 2020

kylith

Pulled my white onions because I fancied I could hear the wireworm laughing at me. Every single one had at least one orange arse sticking out of it. Absolutely sickened..., they were bloody huge.

SouthWesterly

MacDanger wrote: »

How do I know when my carrots are ready? Just pull a couple and see? They were planted a bit late so is there any downside to leaving them longer?

No harm in leaving them. Just pick as you need to thin them out.
Watch out for carrot fly/slugs.


We lifted some of our main crop yesterday. Plants had died. Hit and miss depending on variety.
The 20kg bag of Maris pipers i got for a fiver did really well.
Golden wonders need more time.

Planting swede and turnip today

Harry Palmr

Stew tonight - home grown carrots, potatoes, onion, tomatoes (a gift from from a client who's are well ahead of mine) plus mushrooms - and beef, not mine!

The tumbling toms are about 3 days from ready - tried one today and a bit crunchy still. Ailsa Craigs not yet fruiting but not that far away I think, while a Moneymaker sits in a teepee and is completely reliant on a fine Autumn if it's going to yield a crop!

Christmas potatoes are sown as are kale and lettuce, carrots to go in very soon.

SouthWesterly

Homegrown chicken for dinner tonight with homegrown salad

CelticRambler

Found out yesterday that I've been watering my tomatoes wrongly all this time. :mad: I've been following the "water well, not often" mantra ... only it seems that that's not a good strategy for toms, especially in the heat we're having here. And despite years of successful harvests, it's taken me till now to learn that tomatoes don't like heat, and stop ripening when the temperature gets too high. I've a few kilos of green-ish tomatoes taken off the vines now and incubating with a bunch of bananas to see if that'll turn them red; and I'm taking my chances with the local authorities and from now on watering the plants afternoon and evening to try to cool them down.

But I'm fairly pleased with the cherry toms, which are still mildly blight affected on their lower parts, but producing a decent crop all the same, and with flowers on the new (still disease-free) foliage.

The gerkhins are gone completely mad; fortunately, I discovered that I like them added to a potato salad, so I'm getting to use up last years quite quickly, and I have a houseful of vegetarian Covid refugees this week and next, so I'm sure one or other of them will find a use for anything I can't pickle right away.

Chilis and peppers continue to do well, though still some way off being ready to harvest. Charentais melons (first time) are coming along nicely too. Sweetcorn sown from saved seed last year has surprised me with a decent sized cob on every plant - about sixty; and the beetroot and carrots growing in their shade are looking good too. Green and butter beans are also really prolific - staggered planting did exactly what was expected.

That just leaves the leafy-greens: nothing. Not a single green leaf of any kind. I haven't been able to get anything to germinate since March, and those lettuces bolted faster than I've ever seen. Worse - because I can always make up a salad with beetroot leaves - the ground I cleared of potatoes, onions, peas and a few other bits and pieces is completely unworkable because of the heat/drought, so I don't know how I can get anything planted for the second half of the year. A major re-think is needed for the future ...

SnowyMuckish

Here’s to my late father. This year’s harvest. Not a lot but always a very poignant day. I saved his seed potatoes 4 years ago after his sudden death and have grown them every year since. It’s like reaching out and connecting to our past

Little Miss Fairy

Beautiful post Snowy.
Delighted to see my tomatoes finally turning red after an age of wondering had I actually planted tomatoes. Can’t wait to taste them.

Frogeye

Little Miss Fairy wrote: »

Beautiful post Snowy.
Delighted to see my tomatoes finally turning red after an age of wondering had I actually planted tomatoes. Can’t wait to taste them.

Same. I sowed Moneymakers on the 25th March and they are only coming ripe now. Still haven't had the first on off the vine yet but they are going red.

I hope my blow away poly tunnel lasts the night and they get the chance to finish ripening!

Had some cherry tomatoes ripen over the last 10 days.

first fruit on my pepper plants only coming now.

Frogeye

patnor1011

So I just got a call from my wife that our garden is toast. Storm ellen erased couple months of work
Beans and tomatoes pretty much ripped out of the ground.

beggars_bush

Sweetcorn, gone
Sunflowers destroyed

Living Off The Splash

Sun flowers and hollyhocks lying on the ground. I will try and tie them up tomorrow.

Peeling my turnips yesterday was like peeling a rock.

SouthWesterly

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

Sun flowers and hollyhocks lying on the ground. I will try and tie them up tomorrow.

Peeling my turnips yesterday was like peeling a rock.

Had turnip last night. A pleasure to eat. Along with own spuds and local beef

Thats awful ,
Had a glance out the window this morning before leaving and all looked good.
Corns still standing ,greenhouse intact too.

CelticRambler

Those of you who have lost stuff this weekend have my sympathies - of all the times to lose a crop, it's gut-wrenching when it's almost at the point of harvest.

Little Miss Fairy wrote: »

Delighted to see my tomatoes finally turning red after an age of wondering had I actually planted tomatoes.

Frogeye wrote: »

I sowed Moneymakers on the 25th March and they are only coming ripe now. Still haven't had the first on off the vine yet but they are going red.

We've had the opposite problem here - too damn hot so the tomatoes won't ripen on the vine. I took about a kilo off last week and threw them in with some bananas, which did get them to turn red, but the flavour wasn't the same.

Still and all, I've just said goodbye to the last of a houseful of guests. There were nine of us altogether, of whom six were vegetarians, and despite the lack of leafy greens, everyone was well fed. Over the course of two weeks, all they bought in the shop were some lemons and a watermelon. Everything else came from the garden - potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, peppers, chilis, gerkhins, green beans, sweetcorn, beetroot, plums, blackberries, strawberries (picked earlier), figs (picked earlier), rhubarb (picked earlier), apples, pears, home-made raisins ...

We had a couple of Belgians who took it upon themselves, as a matter of pride, to make chips for the whole group, for which they first dug up all of my Charlotte potatoes! Absolutely gorgeous, they were!

kylith

The tomatoes, my last hope for something this year, are pretty much toast. Flattened and tattered.

Living Off The Splash

CelticRambler wrote: »

We had a couple of Belgians who took it upon themselves, as a matter of pride, to make chips for the whole group, for which they first dug up all of my Charlotte potatoes! Absolutely gorgeous, they were!

Do you run a B & B or Gite?

CelticRambler

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

Do you run a B & B or Gite?

Nope - just a dancers' refugee camp! French trad festival friends from around Europe who were desperate for a fix of non-socially distant entertainment and an escape from their urban normalities.

SouthWesterly

Fruit Hill farms have preorders for onion and garlic bulbs

patnor1011

I came home morning after the storm and spent 2 hours in rain putting more bamboo in my about 60 tomatoes. I used miles of string to try to straighten them up a bit. I can say that I lost about half of what I could have get out of them next few days will show. Tomato is a pest and can survive a lot so there is a hope there.
Sweetcorn survived as I had it tied down really good also only 1 out of my 11 beans took a hit as bamboo broke but I fixed it as much as I could and it looks it will survive too.
Leeks were quite tall and they are still flattened - I hope they survive.
Storm hit us but we will salvage whatever we can. Nothing else we can do about it.

Living Off The Splash

Do you eat your runner beans, pods and all or just the beans inside? I find them quite tough to eat. Maybe I am leaving them too long before picking.

Bill Hook

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

Do you eat your runner beans, pods and all or just the beans inside? I find them quite tough to eat. Maybe I am leaving them too long before picking.

Pods and all... had a load of them for supper!

patnor1011

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

Do you eat your runner beans, pods and all or just the beans inside? I find them quite tough to eat. Maybe I am leaving them too long before picking.

We leave them till they are semi dry on the plant then we harvest them and leave pods to dry out in the air. We harvest beans and dry them out even more so they are bone dry. That way you can store them for a very long time. When we plan to cook from them (soup or stew) we usually soak them in water for a few hours but only if we want to cook faster. They can be used as they are they rehydrate while cooking. Pretty much like you would use your beans or lentils.
Only french beans and peas when small are used whole with the pod in the house.

countrywoman

I'm on the lookout for winter potatoes....the places I've tried are sold out. Any ideas?

1990sman

any ideas/links on setting up a coastal homestead? got a tiny patch on the atlantic coast, its baltic and windy but its mine

patnor1011

1990sman wrote: »

any ideas/links on setting up a coastal homestead? got a tiny patch on the atlantic coast, its baltic and windy but its mine

Congrats. I would love to live on the coast. I know it is colder and windier but I would swap this for a city like right now. Perhaps one day when kids will finish studying I may get to live my dream. (fishing)

I would probably go for greenhouse or at least some stone walls to break up a wind a little. Also dont forget that being on the coast you got another garden which lies between high and low tide. Some of it is edible while all of it is great fertilizer.

Living Off The Splash

patnor1011 wrote: »

. Also dont forget that being on the coast you got another garden which lies between high and low tide.

I got my name "Living off the Splash" from this idea. It's a great way to live your life. A bit of this, a bit of that. Mix and match. Make do and mend. Take a bit of whatever blows your way.

SouthWesterly

Sowed some late turnips which were coming up nicely.

Went out today and they were gone. slugs got them.

patnor1011

SouthWesterly wrote: »

Sowed some late turnips which were coming up nicely.

Went out today and they were gone. slugs got them.

Yeah. Lol week ago when there was bit of nice weather my daughter was happy chasing beautiful butterflies. Like look how many and how they are so cute...

Now I looked at my kohlrabi - hundreds of caterpillars decimating them like you can actually see leaves dissappearing right in front of your eyes. These things are relentless... Caterpillar extinction event is planned for today as I have to go after their food source to save some of that for myself.

SouthWesterly

patnor1011 wrote: »

Yeah. Lol week ago when there was bit of nice weather my daughter was happy chasing beautiful butterflies. Like look how many and how they are so cute...

Now I looked at my kohlrabi - hundreds of caterpillars decimating them like you can actually see leaves dissappearing right in front of your eyes. These things are relentless... Caterpillar extinction event is planned for today as I have to go after their food source to save some of that for myself.

I learnt early in the summer about scaffold netting.

Slug pellets though are slow to be used on open ground though as the chickens free range

Living Off The Splash

SouthWesterly wrote: »

Sowed some late turnips which were coming up nicely.

Went out today and they were gone. slugs got them.

We found a slug among our lettuce plants that if you wrapped it in breadcrumbs it would feed a family for a week. It was a monster.