The Vegetable Patch

If we offer them a good celery I'm sure they'll turnip.

RCB

 

As an old Sage once said "Thyme will tell".

 

Just back from the plot with the brussels sprouts and parsnips for tomorrow's Christmas lunch. Harvested some red Russian kale and some Italian flat parsley too. Merry Christmas!

 

Traditional Boxing Day bubble.
You can take the boy out of Essex ..

 

Grrrr...rabbits....invading Huns would be preferable. Past experience has taught me to put chicken-wire around my beans for protection, as well as around some flowers. But this year's example has branched out in unexpected, and therefore extra-destructive, ways. The leaves off many of my strawberries have gone, my pea-plants are little more than stalks, and just today I noticed that the tops of most of my carrots have disappeared as well.

More chicken-wire and stakes were bought today, for installation tomorrow. The little Rahic (excuse my language, but the usual words are just not strong enough) has one more night to stuff itself; and may it get indigestion! ( I remember, many years and two houses ago, seeing a rabbit trying out my onions. One bite of the green tops, and the rabbit then began frantically wiping its nose.)

It's still early enough to put down more seeds as well, so all is not, I hope, lost. At least the radish crop has been excellent so far, though even some of their leaves have been et.

Mr. McGregor was right!

RCB

 

My problem this year is slugs. Beans and carrots have suffered. Lots of stuff a bit behind due to lack of sun and low temperatures. The spuds are coming on great guns though. Picked a decent early cabbage today.

 

Luckily no slugs bothering my veggies and berries, just rabbits. The garden now has chicken-wire fences everywhere; not great for looks, but the plants have been saved. The rabbits can eat as much of the grass as they like.

First crop of radishes now finished; chives and Welsh onions now dying back before the new greenery arrives later in the season; lettuces just ready for eating.

RCB

 

Great thread!

Surprised no one has mentioned Courgettes. Very versatile. You can put them in anything, curry, pizza, chilli, spaghetti Bol, roasted in salads.

Haven’t grown any this year but always got some in the fridge.

 

Well, look what happened when you did -- thread killed dead! Never tried to grow any myself, I suppose because I wouldn't eat enough of them to make it worthwhile.

Raspberries, on the other hand, I can eat any amount of, which is good as I've been getting well over a quart a day for most of the past week, and just under a quart yesterday and today. There's been so many berries that I haven't even had to worry about how many the various birds -- grackles, finches, sparrows -- eat; there's been enough for all of us.

RCB

 

This year I planted 3 courgette plants - 2 green and 1 yellow. A cutworm sliced clean through the stem of one of the green ones not long after planting out but the others are doing fine. They are just beginning to motor now, a courgette from each plant every other day. I feed the plants with home made comfrey tea.
I am getting lots of raspberries too this year.

 

I got given 24 tomato plants this year so thought l'd have a go.

24 x 3" pots and saucers + 24 x 6" pots and saucers + 24 x 9" pots and saucers + 24 x 12" tubs + compost, feed & bamboo = £125+ = no toms at all so far. Garbage.

Done 7 chili plants which are doing OK.

 

Did you buy them in leeds.......

 

Cheapest places l could find, Wilko, B&M, Poundstretcher, all that stuff mounts up.

 

@abbomf You could save yourself some money by not potting on so often. I start mine off in old Longley farm yogurt pots with a hole made in the bottom. Depending on how quickly they grow, I might pot them on into an intermediate sized pot, but mostly I move them straight on into their final destination. This is either outside in the ground or in old flower buckets. I got mine from Asda. Not all will oblige, but many supermarkets will sell their unwanted buckets from flower sales for a small fee or you can get them on ebay or Amazon for the fraction of the cost of large pots in the high street.

Unless you started your plants very early, you won't be getting fruit yet - August and September is the peak, sometimes into October. Outdoor ones tend to be later then greenhouse ones.

Glad chillies are doing well, they are tricky to get right. They don't need as much watering as tomatoes.

 

Courgettes, tomatoes, 2nd early spuds, green beans all been fine this year. Carrots, beetroot, squashes, cavolo nero, purple sprouting broccoli, leeks, more toms and squashes all getting on well for picking later.

Lots of slugs about including this monster:

 

Thanks for all that, I never thought about yogurt pots and I get through 10+ Longley Farm per week. Some little green toms are now making an appearance.

I know nothing about growing anything, some people told me to incrementally pot up, others said go straight from 3" to 12", some said prune religiously, others said don't bother. What I do know, is that when you know nothing and have nothing then taking on 24 tomato plants and 6 chili plants, is waaaay too much! I know a £65 wooden (Amazon-Chinese) small greenhouse is rubbish too

 

The raspberries were very productive this year -- almost a fortnight of a quart to a quart-and-a-half a day; now they're down to a pint every other day, and just about done. So it has been a raspberry festival at RCB Towers: jam, raspberry cake, raspberries and cream, raspberries and ice cream, raspberries and custard, raspberry fool, raspberries with a garnish of raspberries...

Not to be outdone, my one, still small, blackcurrant bush produced 2.5 quarts -- one's consumption of blackcurrant jam will have to more than double this year.

The pear tree is having a quieter year this year, fortunately -- last year the amount of pears was simply overwhelming. I have enough brown sauce to last me through this coming year still...

Beans have been decent, radishes excellent but just about done, lettuces excellent but done last week, peas enough for a few meals, but perhaps more trouble than they are worth. Waiting on the carrots and Spanish onions now, and for the second growths of chives and Welsh onions.

It is very satisfying to grow one's own edibles.

RCB

 

My Pears are doing good this year and Apples are weighing the branches down, The birds have enjoyed all my Cherries but Plums are a real disappointment this year for some reason although may not have pruned them hard enough,

 

I think there must have been a frost at the wrong moment this year. Our lovely mirabelle tree at home has 1 plum and the orchard at the allotment is bare too.

 

At least they left you the pears. A long time ago now I had a neighbour with a pear tree; one day it was full of pears, next day just stalks hanging off the branches. A flock of starlings, I think it was.

Meanwhile, the cardinals, from above, and the grackles, from below, look over the raspberry patch with puzzlement: there used to be berries here, what happened? Another marker of the passing season -- cutting-out of the old canes and pruning of the new.

RCB