Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 14 ! growing into summer

[bookbook]

Well, here we are - its the end of May and after a cold spell , we are heading for summer .
Everyone welcome to join us in the joy of growing your own , sharing the ups and downs , tips and advice
previous thread HERE

Welcome to the thread Chewbecca. I'm in the south east as well and we have been watering either daily or every other day although most things will survive with a slightly longer gap if you can't get round to it. I think it is better to give things a good soaking rather than just a little bit of water every day.

Loving the pictures of people's harvests. My sweetpeas are growing but no sign of a flower yet so jealous of people's pictures. My normal peas are podding up quite nicely. Mostly harvesting lots of fruit this week - raspberries and loganberries and another mystery berry which might be a boysenberry. It goes dark like a blackberry and has firmish fruit. Whatever it is, it is very nice to eat.

Also harvested my first brokali this week. I thought I'd planted a row with broccoli and then brokali plants, followed by a row of cauliflowers and red cabbages. Realised the other day that what I thought were cauliflower were actually the brokali. I obviously muddled up the plants when I planted them out . So we harvested the first shoots and I hope the side shoots are going to grow as promised.

I might try growing patty pan squashes next year. We have the room for the extra plants. They look so pretty.

Lots coming along well now especially courgettes which are flowering madly. The onions I mentioned upthread are still dying off so I pulled one up and it's small and sort of mushy. Can't see any creatures or anything mild like so wondering if is the clay soil (much of the allotment is good soil but this patch seems to be much heavier clay and is pretty hard) or possibly the fact that I had so many weeds and have disturbed the roots pulling them up? Any ideas? My garlic started to bolt and so I harvested it and it hasn't separated into cloves :(

Please would somebody advise me if it is ok to pull up carrots now? Or too early? Some of mine have the tops of the carrot showing and they are looking quite wide and very orange. I have no idea what I’m doing as this is the first year I’ve done veg. It is so much easier to judge the peas (we’ve had loads, I am absolutely chuffed) as I can see when they’re ready! Ditto runner beans which I have high hopes for as they have grown massive.

I have pulled half my carrots, it all depends how big you want them, if they are orange then they are fine to eat, pull a couple and see how big they are.

I, excited about my runner beans which are flowering like crazy and the first beans are growing, worried I may have too many as my French beans are not far behind them so I’m going to have beans coming out my ears. I need to make room in the freezer.

Titsywoo onion rot do you think? Those ones look like they didn't get going at all. Are all the onions like that? You should be able to see how big they are as they sit on the surface of the soil rather than in it like the garlic does.
Disappointing that the garlic hasn't cloved. This happened to us last year but we were still able to use it, just chopped it into smaller pieces and stored it in the fridge in the mean time like we would an onion. We didn't grow any this year as I didn't get around to buying any to plant.

Welltidy with carrots, as Lovemusic says you can pull one or two and see how they are doing. You can eat them successionally so that you eat some as baby carrots and then leave room for the rest to grow so they become larger ones.

We'll be away this weekend so a trip yesterday to water everything and pick more fruit.

Afternoon!
had lots to do this morning so only went to pick raspberries and redcurrants , and was given beetroot - enormous ones!
Chewbecca - re watering - I only water squashes and courgettes on a regular , daily basis. I will water french beans and peas once they are podding , maybe once a week, or maybe a bit more if its very hot. All the other stuff in the ground - leeks, cabbages , broccoli etc , I really don't water at all unless its nearly drought conditions . The greenhouse -tomatoes/cucumbers/peppers/aubergines/basil etc get watered every day , but they are all in pots , so need it.
Titsy - sadly , I agree with Cedar - looks like onion rot to me , not good news :( . My garlic hasn't cloved either - but I am drying it atm , and will puree/mash it and put it in the freezer as a paste in little bags to use up.

bookbook loving all the fruit, I haven’t got any this year, the dog has eaten my strawberries and my black currants have not fruited, same with gooseberries, I think it’s because it’s their first year? I plan on planting raspberries next year in hope to get a small crop.

I think I maybe watering too much (every day), it is pretty warm in the south. My beans are fruiting and my peas are almost finished, I have broccoli starting to sprout and the last lot of potatoes are dying off. I’m kind of pleased things are a bit early as I will be away a lot nearer the end of August so won’t be able to water as much.

Oh dear. Most of the onions in that bed look fine and the ones in the bed next to it look great. What do I do? What causes it?

just to check Titsy - onion rot usually shows signs at the base of the onion - is it mouldy/fungus- y there?

I don't think that is onion rot, I think it is onion fly.

Check very carefully all the way round all the layers for little grubs.

I realised I hadn't looked closely at the picture -

I didn't see any fungus or grubs

Gosh, it does seem we may be over watering. My DH is set on it though. Many are in pots and the ground is dry however.

Our french beans have grown too tall for their canes and are now reaching for the sky! Might have to get another, bigger one and pop it in the middle of the wigwam.

chewbecca my French beans are the same, in the past when I have grown them they haven’t been half this tall 🤣

Chewbecca - pots need more watering - everything is in the ground at mine , other than the greenhouse stuff :)

Fabulous fruit and veggie haul, bookbook.

It's been cold, windy and hailed for the first time this winter. echtdog, not yet a year old, had never heard hail, which sounds very impressive indeed when hammering on a tin roof, so he absolutely had to go outside and investigate, before returning cold and wet.

I haven't dared/cba to go out to see if if the hail has shredded my veggies.

After a cold start, this has been a warm winter, lots of sunny days, so lovely for gardening, but bad for skiing and stone fruit, both of which require low temperatures.

Evening!
I do love my fruit , and when I got the allotment , it was with the aim of growing things we love , which are expensive to buy, or hard to find . In truth the fruit is expensive in the shops due to the picking time, rather than anything else . It is nice to go into the freezer in winter and bring out berries from the summer , so it is worth all the effort :)
hail echt ? you are getting some weird weather !
Only a quick trip today to water squashes - nice to see them setting . Picked the first 2 small courgettes , though these plants aren't looking too clever either . and then went and picked loganberries ( our first proper year of having any ), a few raspberries and tayberries .

The courgettes which have germinated at home are really putting on some growth , so will hopefully still have courgettes this year . I am watering for a plot neighbour this next week , and I am to help myself to theirs whilst they are away , so I should be okay for a little while at least :) It is so nice on our site for this - we all try to help one another .

I went watering and weeding this evening, lots of picking to do tomorrow. Dd is away so I will have to pick the wine berries at home as well.

Thanks Book, I gave one a try and it was delicious! And here was me thinking I didn't like gooseberries that much...

I think the greenhouse must be about 8ft by 10ft, I'm definitely scaling up my growing plans for next year! They left lots of pots, seed trays and tools as well, which is a lucky head start!

Hi Chewbecca, I'm southeast too. I'm watering stuff in the ground a couple of times a week, and pots every couple of days (ish). The ground is definitely getting drier!

Has anyone grown round courgettes before? They're looking like my first harvest(!) but I don't know how big I'm should let them get??

Hi Aqua I grew round courgettes last year. I let them get to the size of a small charantais melon. I cut them in half and scouped out the seeds and stuffed them . I gave a few to my Dsis and she thought they were brilliant.

Thanks Elephant! And stuffing them is a delicious idea! The seedling was a kind gift, but I hadn't even considered how to prepare them yet!

Morning!
Just got back from a couple of hours at the plot . It finally rained last night - a decent amount and mizzled a bit this morning too while I was there, but the ground is pretty dry a few inches down . Didn't stop me getting clarted this morning mind :)
Aquitaine - thats the joy of growing different things to what you can get in the shops . DH thought he didn't like sweetcorn much , until we had grown our own, and cooked the same day .
So , I tidied up where the succession peas where pulled up earlier in the week - I was going to sow some more beetroot , but decided to put some carrots in for a change - but of course , i didn't have the seeds with me , but it's ready for a bit later in the week . Lots of weeding . I didn't pick fruit due to the rain - I like it to be nice and dry , so that had to wait . Cut flowers , dug up some charlotte potatoes , along with the first sweetheart cabbage , and a couple of little lettuces . One of the beetroot had bolted , so pulled that up too. One of the brokali plants had thrown up the next lot of spears , should have cut them the other day , but still edible .While in the brassica cage , I checked over the winter brassicas - , mostly looking okay now , white fly there , but also a few tiny beasties on a couple , so need to get those sprayed with some Neem oil .
Weeded all around the calabrese - heads are forming , so some should be ready to cut soon .
Not back until Tuesday now to pick blackcurrants hopefully .

i've grown all sorts of courgettes, I particularly grow the yellow ones and the long Italian ones...which are all just getting going now.

We harvested the early spuds yesterday, and weren't particularly enthralled with the variety - been picking a few for a few weeks and they just haven't got as big as they should be. Epicure. And they were a bit scabby.

Made a new one pallet collar deep bed, and put in kale and cabbages [I sowed the seed mixed to see what happened and they all came up], so am interplanting those as well amongst other things ie beetroots and chard.

Today I'll be planting up the bed we cleared yesterday, with some of the above brassicas, and sowing my late peas, I'll sow a row on the most easterly side, and then a row next week 6 inches away, and then another in a fortnight...all the way to mid august. Then I'll get some succession crops later in the season.

All my seedlings from my mix are coming up, I'll wait until all the roots are poking out and then transplant module by module into any spare spaces. Including under the tomatoes in the greenhouse.

Oh and my Maskotka winter tomatoes are up...they will be potted on when the roots start to show just as if it was spring...and then go into the greenhouse in October when all the other toms are finished.

Back home after 8 days away and it looks like everything has survived.

Quite a few more strawberries which I wasn't expecting as i thought they had all gone. First of the beans and mange tout picked and plenty more on the way. The last of the early potatoes too, these were ones that got dumped in a random tub when i ran out of room and they didn't really have enough soil or get watered enough so I wasn't expecting great things from them.

Picked a couple of small courgettes, still another 3 a similar size on the same plant so easier to use up whilst not too big. Onions are a bit overcrowded so pulled a few to make some space, and pulled up all my rubbish garlic. Only one cloved but is tiny.

Tomatoes still alive in the greenhouse, this was what i was most worried about as they were surviving on my bottle watering system only. There doesn't appear to be much sign of fruit so and they're now too tall for the greenhouse and pressed up against the roof. First chillies too, and aubergines are flowering.

Spinach doing great, radishes are gone to seed (which i don't actually mind as the seed pods are great in salads), beetroot coming along slowly.

Need to get some weeding done today, and increase the height of the sprout cage, and remove the cabbage white eggs on the leaves that were pressed up against the edge.