Most liked posts in thread: The Vegetable Patch

Congrats on your results you must be very pleased with your efforts, However I have a question to see if you can help, My apple tree is overloaded with fruit as is my pear tree but my plum just refuses to fruit, It is now 3 years old and around 12ft tall and has loads of foliage but fruit there is none, Any suggestions to help on next years crop?

 

I wouldn't worry too much. Most full size (i.e. not a cordon type) plum trees won't start fruiting until they are 4 years old, so may be next year you will get fruit. The only other thing to bear in mind is the variety. Victoria is self pollinating I think, but lots of plum varieties need another tree nearby to set fruit.

 

Thanks AB, It is a Victoria and just planted another the same nearby hoping it will help, Should I prune fruit trees hard after leaf has gone? ( Novice at this )

 

Come the apocolypse, I'm pitching my tent on @Allotment Bantam's lawn.

 

First parsnips pulled today, as needed for dinner, a turkey pot pie. Own carrots, onions, and thyme in there too... Mmmmm.

This wasn't a good year for parsnips, in that most of the seeds did not germinate. No idea why, unless the spot in the veggie patch was a little too much in the shade of the pear tree. Still, if the rest of the ones that did come up will be as good as today's, I'll be happy.

RCB

 

Went out to prune the fruit trees and are beginning to show signs of life already

 

Plum trees fruiting at last after 3 years and looking abundant with fruit, Great crop of pears that look good and plenty, Apples a disappointment after a good crop last year nothing at all this time, Cherries in abundance at last but the birds already lining up to eat them and be lucky to get any myself, will net them next year

 

Here put your plums to better use : https://andhereweare.net/quick-easy-plum-wine/

 

Sorry mate I just though what a waste on chutney if he has loads of plums he could use some for an odd bottle of plum wine.

 

Round up some ladybirds and let them loose on your plants. I had some greenfly on my peppers. Gathered a few from the allotment and brought them home. They flew off eventually but a couple stayed eating them up for a couple of days. Worked very well

 

This one's for more than just plums; I started doing it because of the glut of pears... It's by a Mary Meredith, from Woman & Home magazine -- so must date back to the 70s. It's good as a regular jam, and excellent with dishes such as fried rice, curries, roasted or fried chicken/turkey, roast pork.

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Orchard Jam (pear / apple / plum)

1 lb each of the fruits, with apples and pears peeled, cored, and sliced (or cut into small chunks), plums halved and stoned

Add to the prepared fruit the juice of 1 lemon and a piece of bruised root ginger, and 1/4 pint water

Simmer 20-30 minutes

Add 2 lbs sugar and stir til fully dissolved

Bring to a rapid boil, and boil til setting stage reached (recipe says 3 minutes, but mine usually takes longer)

Let jam sit off-heat a minute or two, then pour into sterilised jars (I use Mason jars of various sizes), and store in a cool dry place

(recipe says approximate yield 3 1/2 lbs)
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Experimentation needed, given that lemons don't have standard amounts of juice in them...same thing with how big a chunk of ginger you want to include.

Once a jar is opened, it's better to keep it in the fridge -- I've found that mould starts growing easily on this jam if opened jars are kept in a cupboard. (If mould does form, skim it off and re-boil contents of jar for 1 minute before re-potting.)

RCB

 

We're in zone 7a (used to be 6b but got upgraded some decades ago). Planting varies quite a bit -- but not necessarily because of the weather. The first seeds get sown in early April, usually. Last year was a cool spring, and I was working on the house, so didn't get the veggie seeds into the ground until 8th May. This year was a miserable damp spring, but I got the next renovations done earlier; the first radish, carrot, and lettuce seeds were sown 4th April, though parsnips and beans were sown in May, and peanuts were the last, just at the start of June. First frost is usually around the middle of October, so it is a nice long season.

The Welsh (aka Japanese bunching) onions are always the first harvest of a year; I note that last year I had the first ones on 14th April, this year it was the 9th April. They're already dying back now, but will send up a new set of stalks later in the summer.

RCB

 

You can easily buy them as either grown adults or in Larvae form, The are very effective as long as they stay

 

so far I have got 5 or 6 Cherokee Purple tomatoes! Despite the odd name, these are fantastically tasty heirloom tomatoes.
Not done anything else with garden though this summer, were expecting to come to Europe for 4 weeks and it never happened and then to put the cap on it all, pool got a leak near bottom of steps, patched it, refilled the pool and the patch didn't hold. 5.5K for a new liner, will be put in late next month. So pool is now a frog nursery. And in these temperatures, it is a pain in the arse not being able to fall in and cool down. Going to try put some taties in in Sept, see if they can grow before frosts set in.

 

The Day of the Cucumbers... I might try them next year, but there's a slight problem -- production would almost certainly outstrip eating capabilities!

It's been a busy time at RCB Towers, with all the berries coming in to join other produce. But I now have a pantry filled to overflowing with pots of blackcurrant jam and jelly, gooseberry jam, raspberry jam and jelly, rhubarb & ginger jam, and strawberry jam. Everything is about a week earlier this year than usual; even apricots are now in season, so bought a big basket of those and just finished turning them into jam. Now a bit of a rest until the freestone peaches come in, for making spiced peaches, and then my pears, for my own brown sauce along with orchard jam.

It's also been a weird year for the garden, presumably due to the weather. All the above-ground crops -- berries, beans, lettuces, herbs, Welsh onions -- have been excellent, while the root crops have been very poor indeed -- only a couple of radishes were edible, very few parsnips sprouted despite fresh seeds, the Spanish onions have remained very small, and I don't yet know about the carrots.

Still, the berries have more than made up for any shortcomings in other areas.

RCB

 

Needs a bump. How’s everyone’s marrows, doing?

 

My jostaberrys are coming along nicely as well as my gooseberrys. strawberrys i planted last year are flowering like mad. I have not planted any annuals this year as my landlord has put the house up for sale. Bout time i bought my own place but kind of feel its the worse time to take the plunge. Needless to say I have nothing in terms veg this year which is a big shame. If I can get a big garden in my new place im going to practice some permaculture techniques and see where it takes me over the years to come.

 

Pear harvest just about completed here, so just parsnips to go. It's been a year of mixed success -- most berries, pears, lettuce, rhubarb, welsh onions, and herbs were excellent, beans, chives, and onions good, strawberries and carrots meh, and radishes a dead loss.

Bought-in peaches were excellent too; I now have several large jars of spiced peaches waiting to liven up winter meals.

Now I have to start processing the pears, but as always there are far too many; the compost heap will get a lot. Orchard (pear+plum+apple) jam, my own brown sauce, spiced pears, and dried pears. Oh, and poached pears for desserts. And then I'll be happy not to see another pear until next September!

RCB

 

That’s fantastic! Congratulations and well done.