Allotment?Veg Patch Thread 10 - Plotmenters busy into summer ! and loving James Wong

[bookbook]

Last thread has filled up so quickly! Thought I had better get one up and running before I get off to the plot.
Busy, busy people, just waiting for the harvests to start, fighting the bugs, slugs and weather :)
Last thread here
THREAD 9

does it smell gin ?

Doesn't smell, and have dug up the potatoes from that plant and they seem fine (but wasn't sure if that was because I've dug them up as soon as I spotted it)

Evening!
Had a quick trip today to the plot - spent the time digging up the old strawberry plants , and weeding .
That clafoutis looks lovely Elle
elephant - that is a lot of tomatoes . We really need Spotted - she had much the same trouble a couple of years ago, and managed to salvage most of the crop I think.
Think it is Gin - black leaves? If you have just noticed, take off all the tops of the plant - leaves and stems, before it goes back into the potatoes. Hopefully, the potatoes will be fine .

I've dug up all the potatoes from that plant (needed them tonight anyway, thought I better pick the ones from the sad looking plant!) - do I need to do anything with the other plants that (so far) all look okay? Just wondering whether to cut the tops off all the plants to stop it spreading. Hope it doesn't get my tomatoes!

Thanks elephant and bookbook - it was the first time I made it, but the recipe is super simple. The family really enjoyed it :)

Gin - It spreads really quickly, so on balance I think if your potatoes are well sized , I would cut the tops off the potatoes ,to not take any chances with the tomatoes.
Elle - some of the best tasting things are simple - its the cook and the ingredients :)

Blackberry liqueur is gorgeous - even if you don't like it bottle it up for Christmas presents!

Most of my green tomatoes are cherry type so not sure if they'd work as fried tomatoes. I did stick some in the oven with tonight's roast chicken though (seasoned with a little olive oil and oregano) and they were rather nice.

In other news, my new-this-year fig tree has two baby figs!

Hi all.

Disaster in the broccoli patch. Ive rather neglected the garden for the past few weeks and when I went out today there are literally hundreds of caterpillars of varying sizes munching their way through the leaves. I'm toying with the idea of leaving them since the broccoli is probably not going to do much more when I've harvested the last few heads and butterflies are nice. Would that be an enormous mistake?

The DSs dug me a pumpkin patch this week whilst I was at work and moved the pumpkins into it. Its very nice but they did it whilst in their cricket whites - which was not so nice!

Hi Newts the cricket whites made me giggle. Was it your DSs who watered with the pressure hose?
I suppose the problem with the butterfly theory is what else have you growing that the butterflies would like to lay their eggs on?

Yes, the same DSs elephant they genuinely do try to be helpful but their brains don't seem to be fully switched on half the time!

broccoli is next to potatoes and tomatoes. Will they much their way right through and then move on to those? So far they're happy on the broccoli leaves. There are so many that I'd have to chop out the broccoli plants rather than just removing the caterpillars. I was hoping to get a few more secondary heads but I think the caterpillars have other plans.

since I 'showed' the sparrows were the caterpillars are, they are greatly reduced.

toms are eaten by woodlice though.

since I 'showed' the sparrows were the caterpillars are

Tell me more!

when I first noticed the caterpillars I spent a nice balmy evening picking them off. a sparrow group 5 or 6 birds joined me and and flew off with the caterillars that I flucked near them.
a very special garden moment.

Only the robin ever seems interested in my gardening activity. The sparrows always keep their distance. I suspect they're rather too well fed as well to be that interested and there's not much cover for them down by the veg patch.

Most of the brassicas are protected by netting but I have a couple of sprouts in the flower border which look healthier than the rest so I'm prepared to spend a little bit of effort trying to keep them from caterpillar food. I've picked some off today and put them in the feeder so maybe i can encourage a taste for them

We harvested our wheat today. Approximately 6kg. I was amazed s I really hadnt expected that much yield.

Part way through the reaping/threshing/winnowing DH ironically suggested that someone should invent a machine which does the jobs automatically!

Gnome

GinGeum I am left with an enormous amount of respect for both farmers today but also our forebears. Doing the job by hand was hard work and this was only about 15sqm. You can see why every development has come in. Throughout the day we refined our technique. I finished the day sat in our garage winnowing the wheat using a fan to blow away the chaff. I looked like some sort of prepper!

We talk about that all the time, Gnome. Harvest is so encompassing time-wise with all the machinery. It's hard to imagine what life would be like without it all. FIL still stands firm that the best invention for farming so far is the mobile phone, though...

Gnome how exciting the possibility of the cake is now becoming a reality! Whilst you DH is in inventing mood, could he come up with a way to sow wheat seeds more efficiently?

Evening all!
enjoyed all the updates -
Una - is it worth putting the cherry tomatoes into a box and covering with some newspaper - that worked for me to get them to ripen a couple of years ago.
Newt - I doubt it as the cabbage white like brassicas basically ! - are the whites now orange? :)
shame about the tomatoes , they look lovely Yellow
Gnome - wow - amazingly hard work . Am I wrong to envisage you with a quern and handstone? .

Might try that, Book - some of the ones I took off are ripening nicely on the windowsill.

Sticking a banana in with the tomatoes should encourage them ripening further

Book, I don't think my teeth are up to stone ground wheat!

Elephant, that's it. We are leaving wheat growing to the professionals from now on.

Gnome we did about half a kilo of wheat in a clean coffee grinder a few years ago. Worked well, fear you might burn one out with six kilos though.

Hi pest we don't plan to grind it all at once so I am hoping that the coffee grinder will stand up to the task but thank you for the warning!