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.