God I love growing our own

[Polymorph]

I also rescued a Honeyberry from the reject bench, so am looking forward to seeing if it produces anything this year too.

I've got a couple of honey berries which went in last year. I understand that you need two different plants for good pollination. Looking forward to getting some fruit this year. Hope the idea is as good as the reality.

 

[E&MBees]

I've got a couple of honey berries which went in last year. I understand that you need two different plants for good pollination. Looking forward to getting some fruit this year. Hope the idea is as good as the reality.

That’s interesting. Thanks for letting me know

 

[enrico]

More seed sowing today -- cucumbers, courgettes, sweetcorn and leeks mostly. The greenhouse is now absolutely rammed full. Getting some more stuff planted out to free up room is now a priority. Early brassicas and onions really need to be in the ground now I think.

My father-in-law did some mowing yesterday, so I added the clippings to the compost heap mixed with some semi-composted woodchip to balance out the green/brown ratio. This morning the temperature was up to 72°C! I reckon we should try baking potatoes in it

I also saw my first asparagus shoot today. This is their second season, so I might allow us enough of a picking for one meal before we let them get on with growing.

James

We seem to be ahead of you down on the levels. Asparagus beginning to go like the clappers! Eating it most nights

 

[philipm]

Sowed some Radish in trays in the greenhouse I never realised that the leaves are edible.The leaves make a nice alternative to lettuce in a ham sarny.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Sowed some Radish in trays in the greenhouse I never realised that the leaves are edible

can't be any worse than the roots which are basically miniature turnips/swedes and, uncooked should be reserved for your livestock.
eaten radishes all my life (used to grow loads as a youngster and, like my lettuce, sold the surplus in the shop) and they are always full of promise but invariably dissappoint.

 

[JamezF]

Sowed some Radish in trays in the greenhouse I never realised that the leaves are edible.The leaves make a nice alternative to lettuce in a ham sarny.

You can buy a variety that has a much bigger root and smoother leaves, specifically to use as a leaf vegetable. I grow it in the polytunnel during the winter. It's possibly just sold as "leaf radish".

James

 

[rossbyjove]

I've got a couple of honey berries which went in last year. I understand that you need two different plants for good pollination. Looking forward to getting some fruit this year. Hope the idea is as good as the reality.

Yes I have been told you need two..............................I only have one !

 

[rossbyjove]

can't be any worse than the roots which are basically miniature turnips/swedes and, uncooked should be reserved for your livestock.
eaten radishes all my life (used to grow loads as a youngster and, like my lettuce, sold the surplus in the shop) and they are always full of promise but invariably dissappoint.

Radishes, a bit like life at the moment, full of promise but........

 

[rossbyjove]

We seem to be ahead of you down on the levels. Asparagus beginning to go like the clappers! Eating it most nights

Probably a week or so behind on the Wilts border.
Hopefully have my first lot with the st georges mushrooms I've found growing in the polytunnel, eggs from the hens on homemade bread....

 

[MillMeadow]

Radishes, a bit like life at the moment, full of promise but........

Let's hope that both stay out of the composter for a while yet.

 

[enrico]

You can buy a variety that has a much bigger root and smoother leaves, specifically to use as a leaf vegetable. I grow it in the polytunnel during the winter. It's possibly just sold as "leaf radish".

James

Nothing to do with the above but have you ever been to :Yeovil plants galore: just off the A303.?
Went there today, if you are ever passing James, worth a visit. Millions of plants at a very very reasonable cost.

 

[JamezF]

Nothing to do with the above but have you ever been to :Yeovil plants galore: just off the A303.?
Went there today, if you are ever passing James, worth a visit. Millions of plants at a very very reasonable cost.

I've not been there, no. I've gone "full bumpkin" these days. I get a nosebleed if I go any further than Taunton.

James

 

[E&MBees]

Nothing to do with the above but have you ever been to :Yeovil plants galore: just off the A303.?
Went there today, if you are ever passing James, worth a visit. Millions of plants at a very very reasonable cost.

Now that sounds like heaven! Only an hour away

 

[JamezF]

Not got much work done in the garden this week thanks to the weather, but I have potted on all my tomatoes, peppers and chiles and the greenhouse is once again fit to burst. First and second early potatoes are looking good, though some of the first earlies got caught by a frost, and the peas are starting to settle in. Flowers are starting to appear on the field beans and perhaps one or two on the broad beans. Sweet corn plants are also poking their first leaves out of their compost.

This weekend I'm going to make my last sowings of peas, which will mainly just be to fill in gaps where the existing ones are planted out. I think sowing edible flowers is also on the agenda.

It's not all positives though. I had about six metres worth of early carrots that appear to have been mown down by slugs, all bar two or three plants. The story isn't much better for parsnips either. I may try a late resowing of the latter. I'm also a little concerned that some of my squashes aren't germinating despite other varieties in the same module tray looking very good.

I added another 7m x 1.2m bed this winter and I'm still not sure where I'm going to fit everything in. I have at least ordered most of the materials required to allow me to finish Frankenstein's Greenhouse so I should be able to use that space for the overflow of tomatoes and peppers if I get my finger out. I have been considering buying one of those cheap polytunnels from Amazon to grow squashes in during the summer and to house the chickens during "lockdown" over the winter as I don't see that going away in a hurry. I'm really not convinced about the quality though, and the more the description tells me what good quality it is, the less I believe it.

James

 

[enrico]

Now that sounds like heaven! Only an hour away

Don't go on a weekend or bank holiday. It was busy enough on a Friday afternoon! Haven't seen a place like that for years though. Reasonable sized pots 3 for £3, flowers veg and bedding. Mature plants obviously more but I could have filled a trailer. Had to stop myself buying stuff as we have no more room|!

 

[E&MBees]

Don't go on a weekend or bank holiday. It was busy enough on a Friday afternoon! Haven't seen a place like that for years though. Reasonable sized pots 3 for £3, flowers veg and bedding. Mature plants obviously more but I could have filled a trailer. Had to stop myself buying stuff as we have no more room|!

Thanks for the tip off. The garden centres around Bath charge eye watering prices. I lost a lot of standard perennials over the winter and need to replace them but I’m not prepared to pay £6.50 for a 1L plant.

 

[pargyle]

Charlotte in tubs and a few in the ground. Put a late crop from the stored early crop in tubs for Christmas. Main crop we now only grow sagitta which is second early really but they are amazing taste and do everything. Chips and roasts are unbelievable and they boil and mash well too. Tried so many different ones before we decided on these two varieties

Wow ... The Sagitta are romping away - They are already earthed up to the top of the potator bags ... by comparison the Charlottes are only at the first earthing up. Looking forward to seeing what sort of a crop they produce and what they are like flavour wise. Added some blood fish and bone to the bags to give them a bit more food.

Planted out my runners and stick beans as they are well on their way. About a week ago I planted some butternut squash seeds harvested from the last squash we ate from last year ... 100% germination and really strong looking seedlings coming up. I'm growing them vertically this year to save a bit of space. The beetroot has germinated, first pods on the overwinter broad beans are set and the second crop is sprouting, strawberries are in flower and a few are just starting to fruit, the loganberries are in flower and some fruit set. Leek seeds started a week ago are already showing those first little hooks through the surface and the basil I put in at the same time..

This lousy weather is great for growing stuff ... this time last year it was hose pipe time ... but I just love it when it all starts to kick off. Weeded out about another zillion sycamore seedlings and docks but, touch wood, no bindweed !

Failures so far .. ? Sweetcorn - fresh seed this year and not a single seed has germinated, I might have overwatered it and put it in too early, going to get some more and try again. The oregano has not germinated ... a mouse has had all the tops off my peas, I'd had them covered with wire to keep the birds off but the mouse got through. I'm going to dig them up and use the space for something else less desirable to a mouse - I've got a lot of kale seedlings, far more than I have room for and space is valuable.

The greenhouse is now full of flower seedlings and plantlets waiting to go in, Sunflowers, marigolds, cosmos, morning glory, poppies all ready to plant out and more stuff coming along to keep m'er indoors happy.

 

[JamezF]

My greenhouse is absolutely rammed at the moment. I desperately need to get some stuff planted out. Hopefully I can get the sweetcorn in tomorrow if it will just stop raining for a while. I never find germination is that great with sweetcorn. I think this year I have 42 seedlings from 60 seeds sown and that's fairly consistent with previous years. They'll be taking the place of PSB which my in-laws had a final final picking of at the weekend. It's probably the best I've ever done with PSB. I also need to find some space for the remainder of my maincrop onions.

The tomatoes are starting to look like they need to be out of their pots too. I've been trying to hold off as long as possible because we're still harvesting lettuce from the polytunnel and the outdoor salad leaves aren't sufficiently advanced to start on yet. We had a few issues with whitefly in the polytunnel last year and if at all possible I'd like all the lettuce to be gone before the summer crops go in rather than overlapping the two as I did last year. The leggy over-wintered tomato plants that I chopped up into pieces are a bit of a mixed bag. The bottom ends of the stems that I left in the pots aren't doing much, but they're not dying either. Some of the pieces that I left in jars of water have produced roots and I've potted about a dozen of those up today. Others seem stubbornly disinterested. The tomato seeds from Dani seem to be growing into nice-looking plants, so I'm looking forward to getting fruit from those.

My peas seem to be mostly doing ok, though given the weather I may well have planted the first batches too early and it's taken them quite a while to really get going. Broad beans and field beans are in flower, but not particularly heavily as yet.

The potatoes seem to be doing nicely after a slow start -- the earliest got hit by our last frost, but have recovered. Summer brassicas are also growing well and are mostly beyond the point at which slugs are a problem now. It's a tricky call. I net the plants to keep flea beetle off, but that also provides any lurking slugs with protection from most predators. The asparagus plants are growing like crazy too. I was going to harvest a few spears -- possibly just enough for one meal -- but at the moment I'd rather see them making good growth. I might perhaps cut a few of the later shoots.

The carrots that I'm fairly sure got mowed down by slugs have been replaced by a second sowing that is looking good so far. I suspect the slugs took a fair toll on the parsnips too, but hopefully what's left should provide us with a fair few meals next winter. My other source of trouble this year has been some of the squashes. In particular all six of my Crown Prince seeds failed to germinate. I sowed some more today.

Oh, my big failure this year is raspberries. I bought twelve canes to replace some that my father-in-law managed to kill last year. They were heeled in the day they arrived and moved into their final place in January. Not a single one is growing

We're almost at the end of last year's produce now (unless it was bottled or frozen). All the squashes are gone, there are a few tiny garlic bulbs left from those that were hit by rust and I think we have about a dozen onions -- perhaps a dozen and a half. I still have a few spring onions in the ground, but they're thinking about flowering so they won't last much longer (just as well, because I need the space).

I think deer are sneaking in and eating the leaves off my blackcurrant bush. If they continue doing that there are going to be ructions.

After allowing the project to stagnate for a few weeks because the bees have been going a bit crazy, I've had timber delivered and am again making progress with Frankenstein's Greenhouse. I just need to get the wall facing north-west built (it will be timber framing and clad with featheredge boards), cut a few bits of frame to go above the semi-detatched compost bins, get the door on and glaze it to have a usable space. Just as well, given the number of tomato, pepper and aubergine plants that I have.

James

 

[enrico]

We have gooseberries that are large already. We too have had poor large sweetcorn germination but the small ones are 100 percent.
We have our tomatoes in the ground in the greenhouse and our Sagita are twice the size of Charlotte and that is in the ground. I hope everyone gets a good crop from them or I might feel guilty
The one thing we are struggling with is our Chillis they usually tomp away but this year we have gone totally peat free and they have stopped at one inch tall! Feeding isn't helping. Been eating strawberries for a couple of weeks and getting between one and two kg a day of asparagus. Selling loads, eating it every day and freezing some.
The hedges and grass are growing so fast I am struggling to keep on top of them

 

[Erichalfbee]

asparagus. Selling loads, eating it every day and freezing some.

THIS is to die for. Use more cheese. Use fresh pasta or even better make your own and don’t forget the lemon which really tops it off
https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/asparagus-linguine/