The 2015 Allotment / Veg Patch Thread Part 3 already!

[agoodbook]

Just seen the other is full , so here goes - we are heading for summer now! Welcome to everyone old and new :)

here is a link to the previous thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/2350947-The-2015-Allotment-Veg-Patch-Thread-Part-2?msgid=54546739

Ours stopped after about 30 mins

No rain at all here.

(Yes, I deserve the right to bitch about how very much it rains in Sheffield 95% of the time, how the garden is drowning, how I may have to start building an Ark and ALSO to moan when it doesn't rain when we do get nice weather).

Made a huge salad with my broad beans last night. It was yummy. They are a lot sweeter than the ones in the shops.

Wow, your cherries, WhoKnows ! They are my very favourite food. In at no 2 is raspberries. Yet my harvest of each will be paltry - I only have a few young canes, and my cherry tree is new this year and didn't even flower! I have spotted some cherry trees, from which I've been nabbing the few ripe fruits that I can reach. Someone said that they're not edible ones though - whaaat? I've eaten some and am not dead. They were sweet ones too. Are all cherries edible do you think?

Cedar I've never tried a loganberry but I love that whole family, so I am sure that they are delicious. I never did track down my Latin American variety, tho I have not given up hope! I have had a couple of raspberries at the allotment -literally 2 or 3 per visit, that's all I have. Not enough to take home, and certainly not enough to share I've also harvested 4 tayberries, so that was 1 each. Lovely though. I want to expand my soft fruit, exponentially...

I've tried posting last night and night before but it kept getting lost so I gave up. I too have been doing late watering -it's been scorchio here but today is lovely and temperate. We've had about 7 spots of rain but am hoping for more.

Plot - wise, I now have 2 teensy courgettes on a plant, and some more flowers that have been threatening to open for eons. I'm up to about 7 flowers on my 20ish bean plants - which are nowhere near the tops of their canes. But I have checked and it doesn't say that they are dwarf! Odd.

What else? BenSquash looking well, easily my healthiest cucurbit. My cucamelons look a bit wan and they have hardly grown since being planted out. Last year they took off very suddenly so I hold out hope. My tomatoes I dint think we're blighted, just suffering with the cold damp weather as was. They've recovered now, and if I squint and ge in the right light, I can convince myself that they're starting to change colour.

2 asparagus pea plants have suddenly died after months of being in the ground with no problems. And bindweed continues to flourish. But I don't care as I saw the nicest, fattest hedgehog on my plot the other night. So I put out water for him, and will now use him as an excuse to not clear up a pile of branches and twigs that I should have cleared months ago. Lots of frogs too. No slow worms yet (per other thread). I really want them.

Of course you do, Shove. We all know that the best weather (like hair) is whatever you don't have.

'You' as in one. I'm not dissing your hair!

Whatever one does not have.

My hair is definitely dissable right now! I had to cut it all really short when I was ill and it's at that awkward stage of growing out where I look like a scarecrow. I sometimes try to do things with straighteners and stuff in pots but I don't really have a clue and FRANKLY I CANNOT BE BOTHERED. I embrace my Wurzelgummageness and will frighten all birds off my soft fruit with gusto.

I don't think any cherries are poisonous, are they? Some from ornamentals are supposed to be horribly sour, but I reckon if they taste sweet they're for eating. I am a cherry lover too - they are wonderful. I'm sure you'll have loads next year, once your tree is established.

(This has me wondering whether it's possible to compile a 7-a-day list of fruit and veg that would be completely indulgent and not at all dutiful. Cherries, home grown strawberries and those cherry tomatoes grown in the ground that burst with flavour would be on mine).

I am jealous of your fat hedgehog and frogs! I don't think anything frequents our plot except fat pigeons and slugs

Zebra I thought that cherries were normally edible but maybe its not a 'proper' variety? The ornamental cherry we had when we were growing up didn't produce any cherries at all.

My loganberry is several years old. First few years we had just a few berries but last two years it really seems to have got into its stride. I took some suckers from it earlier in the year and potted them on. I've since planted them out in the allotment (well just shoved them in rather than planning it). I could see my helpful neighbour looking at me planting them too far together but I plan to move them again later in the year. Its berries can be quite sharp if picked underripe and its quite hard to judge when they are fully ripe because they have to go a dark colour. Of course, in the kind of heat we've had they go from underripe to overripe in the blink of an eye!

I have a loganberry and a tayberry: one is shiny the other not but I can't remember which! They taste similar to each other to me (& gorgeous.) They root quite easily too.

evening!
no plot today, and we have just had the briefest heavy shower known to man . (We have a weather station in our back garden , and it registered 0.9mm rain, so hoped that was enough to not need to go and water ). We are due sheds loads tomorrow night instead, so shall hope it arrives - it never really does here!.
shove hottest ever day in Sheffield yesterday, I believeI have a loganberry at the allotment - only a youngster at 4 years old. No flowers as yet on it this year . They need to go really dark wine coloured to be ripe - the birds know before I do.
On another note, the strawberry lollies I made yesterday were such a success, I have just ordered some silicone push up ice pop moulds going cheap on Amazon

Shove only growing the fruit and veg you really really like and having enough for every day all season would be an achievement. I'd have strawberries, peaches, and sweet corn on my list.

cedar - peaches would be on my list as well. I tried really, rally hard for about 6 years with a trained one on my most south facing brick wall. No peaches at all, but lots of peach leaf curl. I threw in the towel .
But I am going to have a greengage planted this year - along with Victoria plum , both very high up on my list :)

Top of my list would be a mulberry - I've tried and tried here, but they really don't seem to take to our soil/site.

They're my absolute favourite fruit - our neighbour had a massive tree when we lived in Spain and always let us help ourselves as there was so much fruit.

I grow things that are expensive in the shops or difficult to find - like Morello cherries, true quince, blackcurrants, and my new favourite, wild white strawberries. I would love a mulberry but think the garden isn't big enough.

Would you care to share the strawberry lolly recipe Agoodbook? I too have been shopping for things to help me use my produce rather than actual gardening today, went to Aldi this afternoon and bought a jam making pan and long wooden spoon. I've always wanted a jam pan, but have nowhere to keep one, now I have my shed it can go out there when it's not being used . I also hung up all my washing on an airer in there today. I'd like a Victoria plum tree too, but DH says no, it would just be a wasp magnet,his parents had one in their previous garden. There is a PYO farm near here that has them so I am going to content myself with that.

My tomatoes are starting to flower! At last. They stayed in small pots for too long really, but I put them in bigger ones last week and they have taken off.

How are other people's cucamelons doing? Mine look very healthy, but aren't actually doing much, will post a photo in a minute.

Cucamelons

morning quick dip in!
WhoKnows - it was my 1st attempt and I shall probably tweak it - freezing thinned the flavour, so maybe a few pieces of small chopped fruit would be nice
250 gm strawberries
100ml yoghurt ( I used full fat greek , as it was what I had in)
2 tsps runny honey
caster sugar to taste
I put everything in a bowl and blitzed with a stick blender then added sugar until I thought it tasted right for DGS (about a teaspoon)
Poured into moulds ( it made 4 biggish lollies -) .
Your cucamelons look healthy and ready to rampage!
I love making jam -DH 's favourite is gooseberry, and you cant buy it easily . (So that will be next week, as they are just ripening now !)

All this talk of tayberries and loganberries is making me want to go shopping. For more plants! Yes, all previous passions - clothes, magazines , beauty products, kitchen tat etc -have now been cast aside and I just want to accumulate growing things, and their aids. I def want a loganberry, and have just noticed that my tayberry has a long shoot of new growth -which I will attempt to tip layer soon. I actually have 2 tayberry plants, both bought last year. 1 was bought from a garden centre, about £9 IIRC. The other was from the 99p store. Can you guess which is my best plant? Yes, the latter. It was a sad stick for the first few months, but it grew foliage last autumn and then turned triffid this year. And the fruit on it is def a black/raspberry hybrid, often you hear of mis-labelling, don't you?

Exciting news just in from the Garden of Zebra .The first tomato is ripening! Another day or 2 and it'll be ready. The pic's colours are a bit wrong, it is actually bright yellow.

Shove I have been pondering your non - dutiful fruit and veg list. My issue is that whilst I do like cooking and can while away many a happy hour in the kitchen, I actually find daily dinners a bit of a faff, and a drudgey chore (especially in this heat ). So on that basis, my list wwoulwould only comprise of all and any fruit, that I didn't have to prepare. Mostly berries and cherries, but with the odd bit of apple and peach for variety. And a massive pile of varied tomatoes. All perfectly ripe, and magically available all year round.

But the game changes if I take prep, oven faff out of the equation. Racing to the top of the list wpuld be squashes. Yum. And the spud, actually. Butter is allowed, right?

Takver We talked on these threads yonks ago about mulberries, didn't we. When I was yammering on about that Latin American rubus. I've still not tried mulberry (I don't think), and I really want to. Maybe I should make a resolution to try some - white and black - before the year is out. My secret plan of winning the lottery big style and buying a giant house with established orchard and nuttery does not seem to have bourne fruit -ahem- yet.

Cucamelons looking good, WhoKnows! Have they enough support, once they get going, they scramble everywhere -up and out... I'll take pics of mine later at the allotment, but they're not looking as healthy as yours I don't think.

We had a Victoria plum tree growing up. As long as we iced up fallen fruits, it wasn't too bad for wasps.

Picked up. Not iced.

Zebra I like iced!! Reminds of me of William Carlos Williams

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

And I can actually smell your tomato when I look at it onscreen. It's going to be ready before you blink!

goodbook - it has indeed been warm here this week. I've lived in Sheffield since 2005 and I've never experienced weather like this before up here. Normally it is 18 degrees and rainy and then my Mum rings me up moaning that it is 28 degrees in Suffolk and they have the fan on . It has been hot in that continental way where you can feel the air all wispy around your body as you walk outdoors. I am enjoying it while it lasts, as it's already cooling down. We had a big downpour yesterday, which has helped perk everything up and get rid of the grit that you start to feel is in the air.

I am enjoying everyone's non-dutiful veg list. I agree about stuff that you can just pick off the plant and eat. I sort of dream of just opening my mouth and running around my allotment eating it all. I forgot fresh peas on my list, which I absolutely love eating straight out of the pod. I definitely need to try some of these exotic-sounding berry plants. They sound smashing.

And YY to the vigour of cheap plants too!

Ha, Shove I remember reading that poem for the 1st time, totally missing any appreciation of the text or form, and just being OUTRAGED that poor plums were in the fridge

Another super hot day here. I really want to go to the plot but the sun is too strong for me right now. I wonder what apart from bindweed will have grown? I actually marked a notch on a twig supporting my cucamelons so I could track its height.

Ooh something else lovely - honeysuckle! At the plot on weds eve, there was such a strong smell of honey, like someone had smeared it under my nose. I've never smelt such honey-smelling honeysuckle!

I posted that without finishing what I was saying, as my posts always seem to vanish. It's been an amazing few weeks for flowers, hasn't it? Roses have never looked so good, and so floriferous. That honeysuckle was immense, and my clematis which has never done much at all has suddenly got abput 50 buds on it! I don't think it flowered last year -certainly I can't remember what colour it is/was.

TheSpottedZebra oops - I do tend to be a bit obsessive about mulberries

I've tried the Black Tabor and I think Carman (a white var.) from the ART I do know other people who've failed with mulberries where we are, though, sadly, so i suspect it's not just me. Maybe sat on a mountainside in Pembrokeshire is just not their thing . . . I may yet try again, though!

Love the poem.
Peas would be on my list too - lots of fresh caught before they get too big and not quite so nice.

Hot again here although nice breeze. Am currently making loganberry jam - waiting for the fruit to cook through.
We had a quick trip earlier to the plot to water - picked a handful of peas and some lettuce leaves to have for tea. The radishes I sowed on Saturday are through already. Everything was looking reasonably happy. Must get over there and do some weeding though.