Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 12! Plotmenters hoping for better weather

[bookbook]

Well, previous thread is nearly full, and I am busy the next couple of days, so thought I had better get this up and ready.
Thanks for the plot title Una
Everyone welcome to join in and share their experiences, tips, the woes and joys of growing their own .
Summer and harvests here we come ( and we''ll do our best to beat the pests)
Previous thread HERE

Interesting conversation - loose freezing for beans and rhubarb was a success laste year so I'll try that again. I also did ratatouille in portions. But freezer space was always an issue so I've just bought a dehydrator and am keen to make my own dried fruit and experiment with veg too. Oh, and I have just frozen a batch of strawberries for making liqueur!

"Can I make gin from it?" is my first question when it comes to preserving!

We don't really grow enough to have to seriously worry about preserving. We just try to meal plan to use as much as possible up fresh. We give away stuff to family if we have no room in freezer.

The only preserving we do (because we like the preserved products rather than to use up gluts) are pickled and dried chili peppers, strawberry & raspberry jams and 1 or 2 chutneys. I'm growing pickling cucumbers for the first time this year because I spend a fortune on cornichons.

My cornichons were the most foulest sourest bitterest things ever. Pickled them with a super spice mix, utterly foul. Not getting greenhouse space again. Mini munch all the way, one passandra too. We eat fresh, lots of mouths to feed. I tip a bucket of spuds as needed, tomatoes and cues rarely make it to lunchboxes.

Any soft fruit will get gubbed immediately, except black and redcurrants, which I will turn into jelly. We have a lot of roadside scrumping trees, so a glut of pie filling and sweet jelly gets made each year too.

careful with gourds (corgette/pumpkin/cucumber) that taste bitter. they are actually poisonous.

Afternoon !
yes, I had that with a few cucumbers last year - really bitter as they had got stressed with a couple of cold nights .
We tend to get through all the potatoes and onions fairly quickly here , everything else we eat as much freshly picked as possible, and give away loads too - particularly courgettes ......
Just been to the plot with DH - he gallantly watered everything , while I planted out 2nd succession beetroot, some swede and perpetual spinach.
Picked strawberries - the big , main bed ones are just starting to ripen. Pulled up spinach that had started to bolt, so stripped some leaves to have tonight. Then I remembered the weather forecast is for wind and rain on Thursday, so decided to cut some peonies as well - better that than leaving them to get battered :)

I didn't know that blue, we only tried a tiny bit of a couple, they were like biting into a crab apple but worse dp did that once, how I laughed pickling made them worse.

I have planted up my beans, sweetcorn and squash bed. My lovely neighbour gave me some spare beans, and has lent me a cloche for my microscopic marrow plant.

Beautiful peonies book

about cucurbitacins poisoning
luckily it tastes disgusting and unless you force it down it's unlikely to cause too much damage. though it can cause nasty d&v and people have known to die from it.

I didn’t realise eating cucumbers could be such dangerous sport! Had first strawberry today, and it was completely delicious- like strawberry jam- it was a new dark red variety whose label I’ve gone and lost so I dont know what it is. Eyeing my red PVC in the greenhouse bd thinking I really should get young to putting it under the strawberries a la James Wong .

the bitter cucumber problems can occur due to shock (late frost, draught) or due to cross pollination in self collected seeds. especially if someone close by grows ornamental pumpkins.

Beautiful peonies bookbook!

We picked our first strawberries last week. I've no idea what the variety is because they were given to me by neighbouring plot holder and he's given his plot up now. They taste lovely and they hull like strawberries ought to. First loganberries are now red so they won't be long.

We planted out broccoli, red cabbage and perpetual spinach last weekend. It rained yesterday but I am hoping the slugs haven't found too many of them. I have got another tray of broccoli in reserve so I can add a few more if they have.

Re preserving - we freeze beans (don't bother blanching first), and spinach and fruit. I make strawberry and loganberry jam. We ate a lot of crumble last winter because we had a bumper crop of blackberries - still eating them in fact. I have made bramble jelly before - didn't last year but if there's enough fruit will give it another go this year. It was a Delia Smith recipe and she does say that it doesn't keep for long so its a make and eat recipe. Not tried making chutney.

Rhubarb freezes well and I use any surplus soft fruit for jam.
Squashes, onion and garlic store well in my shed. Plus potatoes. Everything else we eat or give away. Have learnt not to plant too many courgette plants now!

We don't grow courgettes because none of us are particular fans. I accepted one or two from my plot neighbours when they were giving away their extras but we won't eat more than that. One neighbour kept trying to give me his extra plants, I kept saying 'no thank you', he kept saying 'are you sure?' I have to be strong because we won't really want them but I find it hard to resist plants that are going spare

Back from a week away so first chance to pop down today. Everything has shot up including the weeds! Reinforced the tunnel and crossing fingers it stands up to the storms tonight.

Afternoon!
We quite like courgettes - the favourite way is to saute them in garlic butter, so maybe not the healthiest way. But I do use a lot in the tomato sauces I make, in soups like minestrone, vegetable muffins and I also have to make courgette brownies every year too - they are a firm favourite .
Did a good load of weeding and tidying this morning at the plot. DH did all the fruit cage, then realised he had left a gap - 2 blackbirds straight in , so had to spend a bit of time sorting out the gaps. Feeling very sorry for the blackbirds - they are desperately scratting for food for their babies. Everywhere I went was a bedraggled parent following me closely !
Harvested the very last of the spring cabbage, and cut the very few first sweet peas too.
This lunchtime had our first mini cucumbers out of the greenhouse - they were warm , and gorgeous. So much better than chilled out of the fridge .
I must remember tomorrow to sow some more beetroot. Don't think I will be going to the plot looking at the weather - though more wind than rain by looks. May have to start thinking of doing a rain dance ...

I would be over the moon t come back with peonies and strawberries like those, gorgeous !

Plot neighbour left some kale plants which I dotted in amongst the broad beans in the hood the birds won’t find them for a bit. Picked a few broad beans. My inherited strawberries currently look a bit pathetic. Spuds starting to die back a bit so had a furtle and have brought about 3 Home.

Only intended to have 2 courgettte plants but somehow have 4 which I know I will regret later this summer !

I never knew before this thread how prolific courgettes are!

courgettes are thugs.
but from experience you need 2 plants to cross polinate.

my potatos have been squashed by thug cats/foxes. will they be all right? have 'marked my territory' with tea tree shower gel...

I feel a bit of a failure as I've not yet ever managed to have a glut of courgettes, even with 3 or 4 plants. Plenty of growth and male flowers always but they don't seem to produce courgettes at any great rate.

do you want a glut titz ?

comfrey juice and lots of manure is what you need.
and warm soil.

Tizwozliz that failure is a blessing, trust me - I have on occasions resorted to leaving courgettes under the cover of darkness on my neighbours’ doorsteps . Carrots on the other hand I am only able to talk about in the singular, leeks pretty much not at all and peonies are my flower nemesis.

I once traded 5kg for a trampoline for the dc.
I was desperate to get rid of some :o

I have been known to leave courgettes and marrow courgettes in the reception at work with a 'free to a good home' label on them. They always get taken. This year I am growing 'ugly yellow' courgettes and sphere green ones. They may not be taken. I clearly didn't think this through

It's odd isn't it, how much it varies. I have no trouble with carrots or leeks - half my leeks are self sown from ones that went to seed last year! And my attempts at re-siting peonies have just resulted in propagating multiple plants in new and old locations!

A colleague struggles to grow rhubarb but it grows like a weed for me.

Fingers crossed this year will be the best yet, this week's status photo. Brussels are a bit chewed but seeing as I have way too many I'm not worrying about this.

Not vegetable related but pleased with my home grown hanging baskets - petunias grown from seed, home made compost and moss raked from the lawn as a lining.

That basket is so charming, tiz and what a great idea to use lawn moss. I certainly have a glut of that...

I too have never reached glut status of courgettes, despite having multiple plants including flying saucer, round and giant phallic shaped ones. I do eat a Ton of them though. Incl in Booky Brownies, a recipe I recipe I can heartily recommend. And I picked and ate my first courgettes today - delicious. May there be many more.

I also made rhubarb cordial. It's soooo good - but maybe more of a syrup. It's rather thick.

booky your harvests are so inspiring. When did you sow your sweet peas? Last year? Mine Mine are nowhere near flowering yet, and I want them to hurry.

Evening !
tiz - your veg patch looks lovely.
well, I have a little gap now with veg, until my broad beans start - the overwinter ones got chomped, so the insurance ones in pots are about 2 weeks behind were I would like to be . Garlic is nearly ready, and some of the overwintered onions are trying to bolt, ( been too dry I suspect) so will be using those .
Hoping I do get a glut of courgettes this year - I have about 4 set, but still small. Last year they got a virus , so never really got many before they succumbed .
Spotted - I sowed my sweet peas when I got back from my holiday, so early February, in pots in the greenhouse ( 5 seeds per smallish pot ) I did some more about 10 days later as insurance :)