God I love growing our own

[pargyle]

My autumn raspberries (polka) have suffered from the wet winter, indifferent spring weather and then the dry cloudy summer. As have most of the other fruit and veg in the garden apart from apples.
I've had a couple of blight free years growing a couple of the Crimson tomato varieties, yield was poor this year compared to 2023. Seed are expensive (£4.49 for 10?) but better than an afflicted crop.
Beetroot have stayed golf ball size, celeriac tennis ball, not many borlotti beans, sweetcorn was average, mange tout were thirsty, salad leaves were good until the flea beetle arrived, courgettes never really got going. I had a satisfying time yesterday clearing the summer veg and spreading last year's leaf mulch.
Parsnips look promising though, looking forward to them at Xmas. They're definitely veg planted without much rational thought - we don't eat that many, they're cheap to buy and I doubt freshness is an issue.

I think that pretty much sums up this year's fruit and veg growing for a lot of us ... certainly reflected in most of the people I know down here with allotments.

There have been exceptions - my neighbour is picking Brussels sprouts on his allotment already and reckons they are going to be a bumper crop right the way through to Xmas ... some things just defy nature.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Slugs have eaten all my cabbages.

 

[JamezF]

Holy jalapeno harvest, Batman!

One of my favourite harvests of the year. These will be sliced and pickled to be used on pizzas, in calzone, fajitas and suchlike. I was genuinely surprised to have this many to pick given the poor weather and I'm not sure they'll last until next year's harvest, but hopefully we'll get a fair bit of the way.

And since we mentioned sweet corn a few days back:

Not as many cobs as we'd normally get, but the plants clearly struggled this year so I'm glad to have this many.

James

 

[Lolly Bee]

Holy jalapeno harvest, Batman!

One of my favourite harvests of the year. These will be sliced and pickled to be used on pizzas, in calzone, fajitas and suchlike. I was genuinely surprised to have this many to pick given the poor weather and I'm not sure they'll last until next year's harvest, but hopefully we'll get a fair bit of the way.

And since we mentioned sweet corn a few days back:

Not as many cobs as we'd normally get, but the plants clearly struggled this year so I'm glad to have this many.

James

My chillis have been a disaster this year. Chance of reddening now zero which is a shame as I love the colour of sweet chilli jam and pretty much anything else chilli and explosive.

 

[JamezF]

My chillis have been a disaster this year. Chance of reddening now zero which is a shame as I love the colour of sweet chilli jam and pretty much anything else chilli and explosive.

Yes, I gave up on ours ripening fully which is why I have picked them green. The Cayenne peppers I might give a little longer as I don't mind so much if they dry out on the plant because mostly we'd dry them and turn them into chile flakes/powder anyhow. Generally though, my pepper harvest this year has been very poor. I think the plants need more warmth and more sunshine than we've had this year to do well.

James

 

[enrico]

Yes, I gave up on ours ripening fully which is why I have picked them green. The Cayenne peppers I might give a little longer as I don't mind so much if they dry out on the plant because mostly we'd dry them and turn them into chile flakes/powder anyhow. Generally though, my pepper harvest this year has been very poor. I think the plants need more warmth and more sunshine than we've had this year to do well.

James

Always amazes me when we are so near each other. Our peppers have been amazing, huge crops of chillies and sweet peppers. Corn has been good too. Brussels are about the only decent brassica as the late cabbage white have managed to get into one of our netted beds. Grapes are slowly sweetening although started eating them already. French beans have been brilliant and are just finishing. Cucumbers a bit of a disappointment in the end but we have had one or two a week.
Best of all is the honey crop.

 

[JamezF]

Always amazes me when we are so near each other.

Indeed so. There's a marked difference between the plants in Frankenstein's greenhouse and the polytunnel this year and clearly both will have received broadly the same lack of sunlight, so I suspect one of the major reasons has been the temperature as the soil was prepared in the same way and the plants just randomly ended up in one or the other. Plants that really need decent temperatures such as melons and aubergines have done very badly. I think we have two melons from eight plants and only a single small aubergine from four plants.

Fortunately some other crops have done exceptionally well, so it hasn't been a total disaster of a year.

James

 

[pargyle]

I picked another bowl of my blight free tomatoes .. still very little sign of any browning on these plants and the fruit is still ripening but there's still quite a few good size green ones left so .. living in hope. I'll definitely be harvesting some seed from them again this year ... best crop (almost only crop !) of tomatoes I've had in years. My 'Snack Red' chillies are huge and still green .. they are in the greenhouse but I can't see them ripening so I think I might take a leaf out of James' book and pickle them. Perhaps add a few of the unknown demon red to the jars to give them a bit of bite ?

The greenhouse cucumbers (Mini-munch) are still producing big thumb sized fruits about one a week but we've had a good few off them.

 

[JamezF]

Finally got around to processing the jalapenos today.

In case it's not clear, that's a couple of grammes shy of 2.4kg. I split them into a batch of 1.8kg, which I picked using my usual vinegar/sugar/salt solution, and 600g for which I substituted unsaleable honey for the sugar as an experiment.

Eleven jars might well see us through to the next harvest now the children are away for more than half the year.

James

 

[Penninetrader]

That would see me throught for several lifetimes, Picalilli is my limit

 

[Penninetrader]

Indeed so. There's a marked difference between the plants in Frankenstein's greenhouse and the polytunnel this year and clearly both will have received broadly the same lack of sunlight, so I suspect one of the major reasons has been the temperature as the soil was prepared in the same way and the plants just randomly ended up in one or the other. Plants that really need decent temperatures such as melons and aubergines have done very badly. I think we have two melons from eight plants and only a single small aubergine from four plants.

Fortunately some other crops have done exceptionally well, so it hasn't been a total disaster of a year.

James

Some years ago my sister gave me some daffodil bulds taken from her local church after a tidy up. I randomly planted them on some terraced hillside in groups a few feet apart. Some grow with dark yellow petals and some pale yellow. Nature has some funny old ways and fails to explain why.

 

[enrico]

Some years ago my sister gave me some daffodil bulds taken from her local church after a tidy up. I randomly planted them on some terraced hillside in groups a few feet apart. Some grow with dark yellow petals and some pale yellow. Nature has some funny old ways and fails to explain why.

There are hundreds of varieties of daffodils of all sorts of colours and shapes. We used to show them, more of a challenge than you think!

 

[enrico]

Oh pure heaven. Found this giant puffball in my apiary. Just had a huge slice with a fried egg on top. Absolute heaven

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

just ate my last tomato sandwich of the season, cleared most of the vines now, just a few left for the Ayatolla to pick the green tomatoes off. Loads of chillies still to pick and waiting for the long pointy peppers to finish turning red, also got a few large green bell peppers left to cut

 

[Penninetrader]

There are hundreds of varieties of daffodils of all sorts of colours and shapes. We used to show them, more of a challenge than you think!

I did not explain that very well, what I should have said is......the daffs were planted in groupings a few feet apart each group had all the same colour petals but entirely different than their near neighbour's. Same soil, same level, but each tribe differed in color. The chances that I could at random select 50 or so bulbs of the same type from a huge bag full repeatedly would make me some kind of daffy whisperer. Nature

 

[enrico]

I did not explain that very well, what I should have said is......the daffs were planted in groupings a few feet apart each group had all the same colour petals but entirely different than their near neighbour's. Same soil, same level, but each tribe differed in color. The chances that I could at random select 50 or so bulbs of the same type from a huge bag full repeatedly would make me some kind of daffy whisperer. Nature

Oh I see.....buy a lottery ticket

 

[pargyle]

The gift that keeps on giving...another meal of runners...and there's at least another two pickings on there and they are still flowering ...these are Whiteladies and I've been picking the same 10 plants since May.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

these are Whiteladies

always had good results with White lady, sometimes thought the taste wasn't as robust as some of the traditional varieties, but they made up for it with yield.
nothing like a bowlful of runner beans, boiled with a pinch of bicarb, then pleanty of white pepper and butter on top, eathen with a few slices of brown bread and butter - my grandmother who used to pick at her food would heat panfuls of then every summer

 

[pargyle]

always had good results with White lady, sometimes thought they taste wasn't as robust as some of the traditional varieties, but they made up for it with yield.

I grow a mix of Whitelady and Scarlet Emperor - they are both good croppers - I think the Scarlet Emperor has a slightly stronger taste but I pick them both before they get too big and stringy so neither have a really strong 'bean' flavour to them. We've got a fair few meal sized packs in the freezer as well, once they start cropping you just can't eat them all !

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

scarlet emperor was always my favourite (only after one bad spring many years ago when my grandfather lost all the beans which had been hoarded year after year since before the war, God knows what they were) but I was always taught to pick my beans young and every day. I used to have two rows in my mother's garden as she was always there to pick them, I don't bother with beans any more as SWNBO doesn't like them and even with my love of them they just go to waste