Allotment /Veg patch thread 4 "Lettuce and Peppers and Pears OH MY!"

[agoodbook]

as per Cupcakes :)
come and join in the harvest !

previous thread here
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/2386388-The-2015-Allotment-Veg-Patch-Thread-Part-3-already?msgid=55842529

Evening!
no plot today, too busy .
Horribly foggy all day as well.
Lovely pic shove and tomatoes a true harvest festival. The borlotti beans freeze really well.
Cupcakes fingers crossed on the weather - I am hoping to get down tomorrow, though still foggy if the forecast is right. Not that its very cold, but I am just sorting planning to bring my squashes in from the greenhouse, its just starting to feel a bit cool out there.

It's foggy AGAIN! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it clears up for the end of the week, so cupcakes can get out!

I would be proud of the tomatoes, but they really don't taste that good. Sort of grainy in texture and not much flavour. I have a cunning plan to use a cold frame next year on the allotment (which is south-facing, garden is north-facing) to supercharge the sunlight and warmth.

I am pondering whether to get a Chilean guava, after I saw it mentioned on another thread on here.

More tomatoes, Shove Which ones aren't tasty -the Gardener's Delight? Odd, they're usually fab. I am down to possibly my last kg now. And I can confirm that the Black Cherry toms are the best keepers. 6 weeks have past now I think!

I'm not convinced about borlotti beans however - but maybe if I'd frozen the beans I would be? I've dried mine, and the shrink away to virtually nothing when dry. Obvs I've put them in a kilner jar for maximum ponce. They are very very pretty though, and I still have seed, so I guess I'll do them next year.

I harvested some lovely leeks -my first home grown ones! One had bolted and was a bit woody, so that and another went in a soup with my volunteer spuds. Yum. And I gratinated the others. Also yum.

Aarrrggghhh to interfering plotholders. It's always men, 'advising' women, isn't it?

I've ordered about a Chilean Guava too, Shove. But after the travesty that was the Asparagus Pea, I don't really trust that James Wong! My cucamelons year 1 were amazing, but paltry this year. My inca berries probably needed a greenhouse or just more heat and were delicious but scant. My callaloo never showed. My tomatillos were great actually, but I got bored of them. But yes, Chilean Guava and Japanese Wineberry could fit very well with 2016 YOF. Even though I've not actually tasted them.

Evening!
Another dank day here, not quite as foggy as yesterday, but just drippy
Had a quick hour at the plot - DH is on the water butt challenge - No. 2 is now secured properly, a tap fitted and an overflow attached from No.1. Two down, one to go .
I ,on the other hand shifted more manure onto bare patches my poor wellies.....:)
Spotted hopefully, the borlotti beans will be worth the growing. I decided two years on after trying dried and tinned that I preferred mine ! And what joy - your own vegetables in the soup - it just tastes so much better !
(If you eat cheese and eggs, Delia Smith does a lovely recipe with buttered leeks, hard boiled eggs and cheese sauce )
And what we ALL need next year is warmth and sun !!!!

Zebra - my Dad grows Gardeners' Delight and they burst with flavour and sweetness. So I hear you on them being a superb variety. But I think they need sun and a lot of warmth to get to that point, and without those two things they are eurgh (technical term) as my meagre harvest proves! I am going with your suggestion of Crimean tomatoes for next year . I figure they may be better able to cope with Sheffield.

Borlottis: I froze mine because I knew I was way, way too lazy ever to soak and boil them up from dry!! I am simply not organised enough to plan that far in advance when it comes to cooking. It's interesting that they shrink so much. Do you think they will expand on rehydration? (Sorry if that is a clueless question! As I might have mentioned several million times cooking is not my forte). I am going to do a whole bed of them next year because they seem really useful for keeping over the winter, PLUS they are so pretty.

I've done a bit of an experiment on my runner beans (which are only starting to go yellow) - have left a lot of pods on with the intention of shelling them and using the beans inside. I am not sure what to do with these or how to cook with them, but they were starting to go stringy and it seemed like a shame to bin kilos of pods!! They seem to be fattening well, though any advice on when to pick very welcome!!

Morning!
I cooked a casserole with some of my borlottis the other day ( you do have to make sure they are worth the space!) and they were lovely. I took the precaution of soaking them for a couple of hours before putting in a pan with water and cooking for about 15 minutes. ( some were more 'dried' than others) . It worked really well- they plumped up quite a lot.
Tomatoes apart from my sungold have been a bit tasteless this year - definitely lack of heat and sun I think. I am trying a French one next year, which though a lateish variety is supposed to be full of flavour. Fingers crossed eh? :)
I picked all my full pod runner beans, and cosse violette french beans - whenI took out the wigwams last week - I have put them to dry in the greenhouse. I've left them in the pod, and will try sowing next year along side some bought seed -. I will be watching them ... :)
I suspect, like all 'dried' beans shove that you will need to soak the old runner beans overnight

Oooooh, borlotti casserole sounds proper lovely for the winter!

15 minutes cooking time is actually a lot less than I assumed they'd need - I was thinking it would be days of soaking followed by hours of boiling! Ahem, yes, I am clueless.

I never know with beans when to leave them to dry and when to shell them (for seed or for dried cooking beans). I've had some go bad and mouldy through being left (maybe I didn't space them out enough?), and others dry out just fine. Not sure what the 'rules' are!! Can you advise book?

shove - I've been going on this bit of advice I found for runner and french beans, though I didn't wait until they were yellow, just dried and tough ( I am an impatient soul ) And they are in the greenhouse to let the pods dry more, then I will pod them and put in a brown paper bag.
To collect the seeds, allow the pods to mature fully on the plant until they start to yellow and dry out. In wet weather, collect the pods individually as they get to this stage. Then spread out somewhere out of the rain with a good airflow until the pods are fully dry and brittle. Once they are dry, shell out the beans and dry further out of the pods. The beans should be dry enough that they break when you bite on them, rather than leaving a dent. Store in an airtight container. If they are well dried, and stored in a cool dark place, the beans will last around 3 years.
The beans in the casserole need cooking again, thats just the initial boil before using :) Would you like the recipe?

Wow, thanks book, and yes I'd love the recipe! (Maybe you and the other wizzy cooks should make a special recipes thread! Then I can do a book's cooking v shove's cooking photo thread, a bit like pinterest v real life (see picture).

The greenhouse seems like the perfect place to dry them - I can put them on the shelving I have, which is wire so will let the air circulate underneath.

I guess I'd do the same thing to dry them for cooking?

here you are shove - I recommended this on another thread :) I think you are vegetarian ?- you can leave out the bacon, and I use kale mostly, rather than savoy cabbage, and lots of it ! And for you ,vegetarian sausages I guess, though it doesn't need any at all if so wished. It makes a lot, so I always freeze the rest.

INGREDIENTS
3 tbsp olive oil
4 onions, diced
50g dry-cured bacon, diced (OPTIONAL)
6 fresh sage leaves
3 whole garlic cloves
1 medium savoy cabbage, outer leaves and core discarded, shredded
1 tbsp tomato purée
110g dried borlotti beans, soaked and cooked until very tender (see tip)
8 premium sausages of your choice
1 - 2 tbsp Dijon mustard( to taste )
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

METHOD
1.Heat the olive oil in a very large, wide casserole over a medium heat. Add the onions and bacon and fry for a few minutes. Stir in the sage, garlic and some salt. Reduce the heat to low, cover and sweat for 20 minutes.

2.Add the beans and their liquor to the cabbage. Cook for 30 minutes or until some of the beans are breaking up. Season and remove from the heat.

3.Meanwhile, griddle or fry the sausages for 10-12 minutes or until cooked through and golden.

4.Fold the mustard and olive oil into the beans, divide between plates and lay the sausages on top.

BEANS
To cook the beans: Soak in plenty of water for at least a couple of hours, preferably overnight. Drain thoroughly and rinse, then transfer to a saucepan and add cold unsalted water to cover the beans by a few centimetres. Bring to the boil and cook rapidly for 15 minutes, removing any scum. Reduce the heat and simmer until tender. Keep the cooked beans in their stock, unseasoned, until you wish to use them.

That recipe sounds good bookbook, making me feel hungry.

I think the key thing with all dried beans is to remember that the soaking overnight is to rehydrate the beans so that they plump up and they need to be boiled to get rid of the toxins in them. Kidney beans are the worst for this (I think that's where we get the impression that beans have to be boiled for ages and ages) as they can give you food poisoning.

We're definitely going to try growing borlotti beans next year. We're thinking we probably won't bother with sweetcorn because although we liked it the cobs got eaten by a mouse or something and it does take up quite a bit of space and a lot of watering as well.

We went to the garden centre on Sunday and bought garlic as I realised we need to get on and plant it - we got a white which grew quite well this year and elephant garlic which we haven't tried before. I also bought an autumn fruiting raspberry and a blackcurrant. I resisted the urge to get a white currant as well, simply because it was there to buy! Hopefully over time I can get more plants off both of these by taking cuttings. Don't suppose it we'll get much fruit off them next year but maybe the year after will be the year of fruit for us!

Morning!
We certainly like it Cedar :)
Its funny though - we liked our first proper sweetcorn this year, so will grow more next year !
I really, really want a white currant - that is next on the list for me. Though they do take a few years to settle in, as you say. Some gardening is just a bit more delayed gratification
Well, as a total surprise this morning, I have just been gifted brand new Glen Cova summer raspberries. my DD's 'ILs ( if you can follow that) double ordered, and have brought me them as I have lots of room.....30 canes!!!! - where am I going to put them all ??
And today, its raining

Yes, it's raining here. But then I'm working today.
30 canes is a lot! Will you have room for them all? You'll be eating raspberries with every meal all summer with that lot! (Or make tonnes and tonnes of jam).

I also like the taste of sweetcorn when it comes straight off the plant so it's possible that we'll buy some plants in the spring and squeeze them in .

Cor book that sounds delicious! I am veggie, but you can now buy Quorn lardons that are not a bad approximation (says DH, who is a much more recent veggie than I am. I honestly can't remember now - it's been 25 years!). So I will give it a go with those!! I will remember to boil all beans in future, too, cedar - thanks for the explanation! I had assumed it was just to soften them up.

And hooray for free raspberries - what a fabulous gift! With 30 canes, you'll be joining Zebra in Year of Fruit!

I have a whitecurrant (I think it's called 'blanka'). I was a bit disappointed by the flavour of the berries- I don't think they are as nice as the red ones. But I've only had one harvest so it could be the year!!

I have just read my recipe, written out a bit hastily and missed out a step!
After step 1 :-
stir in the cabbage and the tomato puree, and cook for 5-6 minutes, THEN add the beans as in step 3 and carry on

Gifted 30 rasps I'll be right round.

Oddly, today was my best raspberry harvest to date. Almost a whole tub! And I had more strawbs too - surely they won't last much longer? I picked some blackberries to go with them. It's rained a lot here in the last week, so the blackberries that I have been watching ripen, mostly rotted. I got a few though.

A lovely home grown food day today. I made toad in the hole, with a neighbour's chickens' eggs, which we had with allotment spuds and onion gravy. And cavolo nero - I still have a forest of that and it's like the magic porridge pot as it never seems to get any less. Then apple cake for pud.

But it's been too wet to do anything other then pop up to the allotment / round the garden to pick stuff. Maybe it will dry up a bit soon so I can get my fruit planted out? I have loads of weeding to do before I can do that, but the clay is already sticky as he'll, and the ground is super slippy.

I have a whitecurrant (mine is Versailles Blanche), planted last year along with a red brother. They did precisely nothing. The blackcurrants were only slightly better. But next year...

They need to be, as we're down to our last pot of blackcurrant jam. The currants were donated if you remember, and I took a million cuttings from the material.

I think the currants take a while to get going, Zebra! Mine was definitely better the second year. I bet you get loads of berries next year. After all, it will be Year of Fruit!

I didn't get many squashes at all this year, but I cooked one of the two I did get last night, and it was lovely! So my sulk at the plant has abated and I am even thinking of trying again next year now.

I am trying to compile a list of things to remember for next season, based on things I got really, really wrong this year.

Shove's messages to self for Spring 2016:

• Get seeds on early and make use of cloches to get them into the ground as soon as is feasible. Esp: squash, sweetcorn, hot weather crops.
• Grow tomatoes that thrive in Siberia, because that is basically Sheffield in the summer.
• Do not panic and plant things out far too early just because others are doing so, esp if they are in the south.
• Do not keep sowing beans after beans (as you did this year) because you are frightened they won't germinated. This results in a bean forest and there are only so many runners two people can eat. Borlottis, however, store well and are yummy.
• Do not, under any circumstances, leave brassicas uncovered especially during winter because: pigeons.
• Thinning out is necessary. Brutal, but necessary. Embrace it and do not weep for the fallen seedlings.
• Plant things in larger blocks rather than doing a fussy row of carrots, row of turnips arrangement. They seem to do better together.
• Experiment with spacing things slightly closer than the packet suggests as this seems to be OK in raised beds.
• Try to use every inch more.

Morning! -
Cedar - we already have tons and tons of raspberries - jammed/frozen/ eaten .I am just hunting down a freezer that I can put in the garage safely , ready for next year....But 30 canes is miles too many in truth. Its a shame none of you are near me, as I would be glad to share them.
Spotted - thats sounds delicious - kale per se is the veg that keeps giving And after reading about your strawberries, I meant to go and check mine, but didn't. The raspberries are just all going mouldy on my plants now - so many days of wet. I have found one plant in the middle which is a little bit different - a bit later, bigger and not going mouldy- so I have tied some coloured string around it to remind me to keep the canes from it when I move them next year.
I have picked my first sprouts!! and some perpetual spinach and broccoli, along with a very sad haul of half decent raspberries - they will be cooked this afternoon as soon as possible.
shove - that is a great list - I always mean to take notes , but very rarely do. I have a diary, but I go weeks without writing things down, and then forget half the things I should have remembered!
I must admit, most of my planting is done as mentioned way up thread by Doreen - a sort of dice /zigzag pattern so each plant has its allotted space all the way around it, without being shadowed. That way, the plants are closer and stop a lot of weeds ( well - you cant see them as well anyway!)
Beetroot has been my downfall this year. I had a bad year last year, and rather over- compensated - everyone is sick of beetroot now, and I still have a fair few to go.

bookbook we've been enjoying a recipe where you bake beetroot in a tin foil parcel with a bit of oil, quite a bit of balsamic vinegar and then cloves of garlic and some thyme. I think it's a Jamie Oliver recipe.

Shove like you I should have hardened my heart and thinned out more. Some of the above beetroot would be a better size if I had, and so would the carrots. (Although the slugs got quite a few of the carrots anyway). That is a great list of things to remember. We had 10 runner bean plants for 2 adults and an 8 year old and that was plenty. The freezer is still half full of them.

Some packs of seeds definitely seem to allow huge amounts of room between rows which seems unnecessary for the smaller things or those that are going to grow straight up like spring onions.

For me I'd add:
Buy plenty of the wool anti slug stuff as that seemed to work but I ran out of it and then the shops had sold out.
Don't run out of slug pellets just before going on holiday as the slugs will eat the carrots in the mean time.
Invest in some of those copper thingies to go round plants like the squashes.
Make more allowances for my daughter's enthusiasm to plant lots of different crops -that she won't then look after and let her make her own mistakes on it.

Afternoon
thanks Cedar - that is one I will be trying this weekend- it was Jamie Oliver
well - I lied! I have been in the garden this afternoon, to do some much needed tidying/planting/potting and I decided to pot up the raspberry canes until I knew what to do with them. They were in 3 bundles - I thought 10 in each, but no - 12 in each, so 36 in all
I also moved my fresh spinach in the big trough into the greenhouse. Its looking a bit sad and slugged, so I can keep a better eye on watering and pests in there. Its certainly not cold
Raked up yet more leaves , I am fast running out of bags and only half the trees have shed their leaves....

Afternoon!
hope everyone is well.
I just didn't go today - it was grim this morning
Went and had a look around a plant nursery instead. I did not buy anything - but I hankered at a boysenberry and a gojiberry. I also saw a saskatoon, and only when I came home and googled did I realise its another Amelanchier! Really don't need another one of those :)

Afternoon again!
once again grim today, but I gritted my teeth and went down to the plot . It wasn't raining after all.... Got fork, wheelbarrow, bucket out, trundled down the path, and it started to rain. I stayed, put on the waterproof and kept weeding. It only rained a bit - about 10 minutes, I managed an hour of weeding , and another area finished - mulched and everything.
And dug some beetroot to try out the recipe recommended by Cedar
I think 'claggy' is probably the right word for me, my boots, my gloves.

Good to see people still at it. After spending most of October getting our shed up (don't ask) I finally got round to doing some actual gardening today.

I weeded the overwintering bed and saw the shallots and onions were doing well.

Dug out the jerusalem artichokes my allotment neighbours have been winging about. There are so many I have had to find two charities to donate them too There are still loads left!

Planted the garlic as it is about time isn't it?

Weeded the raspberries

Started mini hugelkulture bed for strawberries fashioned out of jerusalem artichoke and sweetcorn stalks and grass clippings. Will cover in manure and plant up with runners next week.

DP spread new wood chips on the paths as the plot had a recent delivery.

Harvested: j artichokes, raspberries (considering making them into raspberry and mint gin this avo), black radish, beetroot, chard and tonnes of kale.

I had really wanted to get some stuff mulched as I feel Im running out of time for getting the poo on. I have an afternoon off work next week and may dedicate it to shovelling poo!

Feeling as though I'm a bit behind still though. I need to mulch 1.5 of my four beds, and finish off my strawberry hugelkulture beds, split my raspberries and keep on top of the weeds and grass that are STILL GROWING.

Are people seriously still picking tomatoes? They sound blight resistant and a half!

We had a pj day yesterday [my Oh has NEVER had a pj day] and so didn't do anything [well, I sowed some spinach seeds but that's all].

Today - went down the garden to gaze at the grass, some is up to nearly mowable length but still got loads to germinate. Raked loads of leaves off the neighbour's lawn and mowed them for leafmould. Gently raked some off my grass path to let the light in, and left them on the soil. Picked out some leaf bundles that worms had dragged down - need to do this again in the weed on a drier day.

Then went to the lottie; put all the leaves into the leafmould bin, got my pitchfork out and turned the chopped dalek [one dalek only has chopped or shredded stuff; it composts in about a month so is ready much quicker.

On my drive back, the bloke who gave me grief was walking his two dogs and I gestured 'thanks' as he moved out of the way. He looked grumpy at me. Perhaps he might keep his opinions to himself next time.

Lovely it was, being out there in the breeze. I get stir crazy staying indoors for more than a few hours.

ethelb - I will ask! What happened with the shed? :)
I put my garlic in about 2 weeks ago I think - same time as the shallots, which are well up and sprouted now
It does feel a bit like a race against time for me too - so much tidying before the bad weather. We have a tayberry to plant as well, before it gets too cold.
Oh a pj day sounds wonderful Doreen - it was that sort of day yesterday, and its turned into one again now. I am sat here thinking I may close the curtains, its that dark. I know what you mean about needing to be outdoors. Its like cabin fever.When it started to rain this morning, everyone else left- I was by myself!