God I love growing our own

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I was given a "Thank you" card by a young lad who has been involved with the apiary that I have been setting up with a local charity. It has some fun bee-related artwork, but is also made using paper produced from recycled material which has been embedded with flower seeds. So once the card has served its initial purpose it can be torn into pieces, covered with a little soil and will produce flowers for (hopefully) years to come. Somehow that makes me feel much better about the entire thing. I shall plant the card in one of the new beds I make this winter.

maybe first you can use it as toilet paper, a sort of 'double recycle'? it would also give extra fertiliser for the seeds

 

[Goran]

We are eating roasted hazelnuts these days.. They are so tasty and contagious, I have to remove bowl far from me to stop to eat it.. Now I am in winter mode and will go to " reclaim" 10 kilos I lost during the season.. It will be " messy"..

 

[JamezF]

Roasted hazelnuts sounds good. It seems like the squirrels get most of ours, unfortunately.

I've been collecting more apples today. I'd guess I have at least half a tonne now. I'm close to running out of sacks to put them in. For the most part it's been cider apples today -- Tremlett's Bitter, Sweet Alford and Dabinett. I still have Yarlington Mill apples on the tree and there are absolutely loads of them, but I just don't have anywhere to put them right now. I could possibly store some temporarily in the link box for the tractor, but I really need to start pressing to free up some space. There are a couple of other (cider) varieties that have done really well this year, but I have no idea what they are. Identifying cider apples seems to be something of a black art.

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

Roasted hazelnuts sounds good.

If you have lots home made Nutella is gorgeous.

 

[Goran]

If you have lots home made Nutella is gorgeous.

We don't know to make nutella of it.. Firstly will have to make pasta of it, but somehow not getting to that yet..

 

[Erichalfbee]

We don't know to make nutella of it.. Firstly will have to make pasta of it, but somehow not getting to that yet..

I make it fir the grandchildren. It’s better than the sugar laden stuff you get in the supermarket, full of nuts picked by child slaves.

 

[Goran]

I make it fir the grandchildren. It’s better than the sugar laden stuff you get in the supermarket, full of nuts picked by child slaves.

With what machine You grind hazelnuts?

 

[Erichalfbee]

With what machine You grind hazelnuts?

I have a high speed food processor. A vitamix.

 

[JamezF]

As well as finishing collecting apples for the moment I cut down my remaining climbing bean plants today and put them in the compost. The runner beans still had a few flowers on. And about a kilo and a half of fresh beans that look so stringy they could probably be used for making rope. I already have plenty drying for seeds and it seems a shame just to throw them in the compost, but I have no idea what else might be done with them.

James

 

[BitterleyBee]

I’ve been collecting bean seeds and cooking up garden chilli with them. Tomatoes, carrots, chillies, chard, parsley and oregano in there. Some smoked paprika, black pepper and cumin. The beans seeds fresh out of the pod that hadn’t dried out cooked in 10 minutes so a lot quicker than dried beans. Scarlet emporer and some big white beans that I can’t remember the name of! Having read about kidney bean seed skins being poisonous I couldn’t find on internet about my bean seeds , so I booked them in water for 8 mins then washed over before putting into the chilli.

 

[enrico]

I’ve been collecting bean seeds and cooking up garden chilli with them. Tomatoes, carrots, chillies, chard, parsley and oregano in there. Some smoked paprika, black pepper and cumin. The beans seeds fresh out of the pod that hadn’t dried out cooked in 10 minutes so a lot quicker than dried beans. Scarlet emporer and some big white beans that I can’t remember the name of! Having read about kidney bean seed skins being poisonous I couldn’t find on internet about my bean seeds , so I booked them in water for 8 mins then washed over before putting into the chilli.

Kidney beans are only poisonous if not cooked properly, a bit like chicken

 

[Lolly Bee]

We are officially in winter now and I’m still picking beans. Must control myself and plant fewer next year - the freezer is overloaded! On a positive note the tomatoes are now over and I picked my last two red ones and the green Tom chutney is jarred up. Now for a final batch of chilli sauces!

 

[pargyle]

I harvested my butternut squash...I did better than Monty Don in what has been a challenging season. They are still flowering and setting fruit but there's no hope of anything coming from them so all gone in the compost bin. Cobra french beans still producing enough for a couple of servings every three days so I've kept them for the time being. My broad beans I planted 10 days ago are showing through the surface.. they are under cloches. Will pick the last few green tomatoes tomorrow...ate the last red one in a sandwich at lunchtime. These are the unknown ones... Still not infected by blight !ll try and save some seeds from them.
Not sure what to do about the chillies in the greenhouse a couple are red, a couple more purple but the majority are still green.

 

[JamezF]

I also picked our remaining red tomatoes this morning. My wife has made them into soup. The weather tomorrow afternoon is forecast to be pretty grim, so perhaps I'll get to work on clearing the polytunnel of unwanted plants then. And I have green chiles in the greenhouse too. They're slowly turning red, but it's going to be a bit of a wait until they're fully ripe. I suspect some won't get there.

This afternoon I picked a couple of kilos of sloes. Not sure what I'll do with them yet. I have a request in for sloe gin already, but for the time being they're just in the freezer.

I need to get some test germinations of my saved tomato seeds under way. Sadly my attempts to save seed from peppers were not very successful. Overall I'd not say they did particularly well this year, probably down to the miserable Summer. I must try to save seed from some other vegetables next year. I did save some fruit from our few alpine strawberry plants and put them into pots a few weeks back. A small number have germinated, but less than half I reckon. Fortunately not in need of germination are the cuttings I took from my father-in-law's (F1) Orange Paruche tomatoes. Eighteen out of twenty cuttings produced roots and are now looking quite healthy in pots in the greenhouse. If they may it through the winter then we won't need to be paying ridiculous prices for seed. I may have to look at moving them if we're going to get frosts, but last year the plants I grew from cuttings and kept in a bay window over the winter became very leggy so I suspect I need to have them somewhere a little cooler and lighter.

James

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I also picked our remaining red tomatoes this morning. My wife has made them into soup. The weather tomorrow afternoon is forecast to be pretty grim, so perhaps I'll get to work on clearing the polytunnel of unwanted plants then. And I have green chiles in the greenhouse too. They're slowly turning red, but it's going to be a bit of a wait until they're fully ripe. I suspect some won't get there.

This afternoon I picked a couple of kilos of sloes. Not sure what I'll do with them yet. I have a request in for sloe gin already, but for the time being they're just in the freezer.

I need to get some test germinations of my saved tomato seeds under way. Sadly my attempts to save seed from peppers were not very successful. Overall I'd not say they did particularly well this year, probably down to the miserable Summer. I must try to save seed from some other vegetables next year. I did save some fruit from our few alpine strawberry plants and put them into pots a few weeks back. A small number have germinated, but less than half I reckon. Fortunately not in need of germination are the cuttings I took from my father-in-law's (F1) Orange Paruche tomatoes. Eighteen out of twenty cuttings produced roots and are now looking quite healthy in pots in the greenhouse. If they may it through the winter then we won't need to be paying ridiculous prices for seed. I may have to look at moving them if we're going to get frosts, but last year the plants I grew from cuttings and kept in a bay window over the winter became very leggy so I suspect I need to have them somewhere a little cooler and lighter.

James

When we bought tomato seeds from D T Brown they were conditioned in HCl (stomach acid) before packaging. A tour of a sewage treatment plant with thriving population of tomato plants in the filter beds shows the benefit of the seeds passing through a human alimentary canal. Maybe there's mileage in composting the material from an earth closet?

 

[JamezF]

Maybe there's mileage in composting the material from an earth closet?

Such a project is already well-advanced

James

 

[Newbeeneil]

When we bought tomato seeds from D T Brown they were conditioned in HCl (stomach acid) before packaging. A tour of a sewage treatment plant with thriving population of tomato plants in the filter beds shows the benefit of the seeds passing through a human alimentary canal. Maybe there's mileage in composting the material from an earth closet?

I worked on the Chertsey-Thorpe (junction 11-12) section of the M25 which originally had a very wide central reservation to allow for a future 4th lane.
The contractor had run out of topside so imported “Thamesgrow” from Thames Water which is basically s**t from the local sewage works and spread it over the clay subsoil.
All went well until it was necessary to cut down thousands of semi mature tomato plants before the opening.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

a local character who was my ganger on the buildings for a time, one summer would come in to the club with bagfulls of lovely plump tomatoes every night and trade them for a few pints, there were plenty of customers and return business as the tomatoes were so good - then it dawned on me that Glyn didn't have a greenhouse (we could see his garden from the club window in any case) so I asked him 'What project are you working on at the moment Glyn?' he shiftly said 'Pantyffynon extension' and all of a sudden was almost trampled when people rushed to return all the tomatoes - Pantyffynon is an area on the outskirts of Amanford where the sewage treatment works for the whole valley is. Everyone knew about the triffid like plantation of tomatoes in the neighbouring spoil area!!

 

[drex]

A warning for gardeners with dogs. A few days ago I turned over the compost heap in it's plastic bin. Yesterday the dog was sick, hyper alert and shaking. Took him to vet. Mycotoxic poisoning from eating rotten matter. ( never heard of it before now) .Has been kept in overnight with drips etc. Recovering well. Will cost about £850.
Now going to make garden as dog safe as possible. Will remove a couple of plants toxic to dogs and fence off compost area.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

a local character who was my ganger on the buildings for a time, one summer would come in to the club with bagfulls of lovely plump tomatoes every night and trade them for a few pints, there were plenty of customers and return business as the tomatoes were so good - then it dawned on me that Glyn didn't have a greenhouse (we could see his garden from the club window in any case) so I asked him 'What project are you working on at the moment Glyn?' he shiftly said 'Pantyffynon extension' and all of a sudden was almost trampled when people rushed to return all the tomatoes - Pantyffynon is an area on the outskirts of Amanford where the sewage treatment works for the whole valley is. Everyone knew about the triffid like plantation of tomatoes in the neighbouring spoil area!!

But they were delighted to eat the delicious tomatoes before the type of fertilizer was disclosed. It's all part of the carbon cycle innit?