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

I picked these yellow courgettes today. They're only finger sized but I think they have stopped growing and the flowers are withering and browning, suggesting they're over ready? Planning to halve lengthways and roast later.

Also decided to put an extra long cane in the middle of my french bean wigwam yesterday, they've taken to it already and grown halfway up the new cane already!

I am sulking ☹️
Picked the last of the peas today, enough for my dinner tonight, was going to post a lovely photo of my harvest, they have since vanished from my kitchen and the pods were found in dd2’s room. She’s in big trouble when she gets home from her dads, I was sooooo looking forward to my peas with my dinner. Why couldn’t she steel the courgettes instead 😭?

My runner beans are a few days off being ready, I might have to cage dd for the week so she doesn’t eat them.

First blueberry changed colour today! It wasn't there this morning, but it was there just now.

Picked, washed, eaten. Lovely.

My blueberries keep getting nicked by something - a bird I assume, DH claims it isn’t him. As soon as one looks nearing the right colour, it vanishes.

he does the watering does he Chewbecca ??

We all water!

First globe artichoke eaten during the final set, delicious and messy.

Morning!
ah , once beans get going , they reach for the sky.
Tiz - gorgeous harvest - amazing after 8 days , I think my tomatoes would be dead !
mm Chew - pets ? or just a very intelligent bird :)
elephant - joy eh? :)
Had a very nice half an hour in the garden and greenhouse this morning ,
before getting busy for the day. I love this time when everything is quiet and not too hot . Picked my home raspberries , and went and checked on the jostaberries ( which I had netted properly at home! ) so I have picked about half so far . Then the greenhouse - the very first sungold tomatoes picked for lunch - mmm a bit tricky when there are 3 , and 2 for lunch . Cucumbers ( a mini variety 'La Diva' ) now properly getting going , and I saw my first set aubergine - I was beginning to fret . Its so nice , that I decided to put my newly germinated courgettes outside - they are only 8 days old , but going along well, so at this rate , they won't be long before I can plant them at the plot .

I'm not sure exactly what the weather did when we were away, and mostly my tomatoes are only at the flowering stage so their needs are a bit less. But they basically were watered well before we left, then each had a 2 litre bottle with pin sized holes into the soil beside them. I'll probably carry on watering them like this as it keeps the moisture level much more consistent

Do you hand pollinate your aubergines bookbook? I've never got as far as the flower stage previously so not sure if it's necessary or not.

Tiz - aubergines are self pollinating , but I think heat has a lot to do with it . I didn't bother doing anything last year , and had loads but I must admit to going around and tickling the flowers with a fine paint brush a couple of times this year . Supposedly just a gentle breeze/air waft should be sufficient !

Pictures of harvests: soft fruit (to be fair, picked over 2 days), together with my cornflowers from my "cutting" bed and nasturtiums from my brassica bed (sacrificial plants that so far haven't been munched by anything ) and, what I'm most pleased with, my first cucumber ; green salad leaves, some onions that had already keeled over and my 3 pathetic and tiny non cloved garlic (out of about 10 cloves planted ); and my purple podded peas, podded, with a few of their pods - came to about 100g, which I've blanched and put in the freezer

For those growing berries and currents, how long have you had your plants for?
I need more fruit but the blackcurrants and gooseberry plants I planted this year have not produced anything and my strawberries have been eaten despite netting them. I want to plant raspberry canes next year, how many will I need for a good crop?

I haven’t got much to harvest at the moment but broccoli and runner beans are growing fast so won’t be long. I think my peas have finished so I will dig them up soon and plant something else.

My apple tree is full of apples, I got rid of half of them as was told it makes the remaining apples bigger and tastier?

I planted new currants last year and got enough this year for a good harvest.

I took cuttings of blackcurrants 3 years ago and had currants on it the next summer.

the best time to plant any fruit is years ago, the second best time is now.

I bought 18 raspberry plants, the non-spiky ones, and had rasps for around 5 months, from earlies in June to october/november until the frosts come. I got rid of those last year when we redid the allotment though.

And yes, I thinned out my apples too.

And whilst I do like currants, black, red and white - I am thinking that actually I would prefer one good red gooseberry, and strawberries and raspberries so am going to take the currants out of the strawb bed, which now has runners all over it, and create a new bed with a gooseberry which I will prune to a flat wine glass shape, and non spiky rasps in the other half of the bed.

I have 2 red gooseberry plants which are growing slowly but no sign of fruiting, hopefully next year they will double in size and produce something. I will plant raspberry canes early next year if I can find space. Hoping to get an alotement next year as my patch in the garden isn’t big enough.

I've had most of my berry and currant bushes for years Love . And I am a big fan of lots of mulch/manure - love em and feed em is my motto . I was gifted a dozen brand new raspberry canes which I planted up in the autumn of 2017 . ( Thats a pretty good amount , but 6 at a pinch if you don't have the space .) They produced some last year , but it was a really dry year , which didn't help . This year , they have done much better , but still a bit small of berry ( may be the variety , but not sure what it is ) what I would call okay for cooking /jam . My older raspberries produce much bigger berries , nice to eat just as they are .
Yes to thinning apples , as sack says - i tend to thin to get bigger apples and don't like them to be close to one another , so they don't rub . I shake the tree in June for the June drop , then thin a bit when they have got going , then thin again when they get bigger .

Two years here - strawberries were great and blackberries and redcurrant plants are almost collapsing under the weight of fruit, unfortunately the birds got my blackcurrants. We might even get a few grapes though I'm trying to be good and thin drastically. Gooseberries didn't do well first year, much better this year but still not a great crop - delicious though (a red one called captivator). Thinning apples is definitely the way to go, particularly early on in the tree's life. I think about 5 summer and 5autumn raspberries would be good - they spread very quickly so you'll build up more plants over time.

I got good amounts of gooseberries the second year they were in the ground, but the redcurrants and raspberries took a few years to get established and have enough fruit worth picking.

The sky is very dark here, trying to decide whether i can risk not watering this evening.

So hot and sticky today , that I left it until later in the afternoon to do a quick trip to the plot . DH came along - he watered all the squashes and courgettes , and picked 2 baby courgettes, dug up potatoes for tea , while I picked blackcurrants . I have managed about a third of the branches so far , (such a slow, tedious job) so need to keep at it for the next few days . Went and checked and watered the neighbours plot , and picked her 3 much larger courgettes, which she asked me to use whilst she's away .

Hi, please could anyone help with neem oil suggestions? What do you use and do you fine it works? My PSB is being badly attacked by whitefly, and we've had a literal plague of flea beetles over the past week (they are getting everywhere!). Not to mention the large and small white butterflies which keep patrolling around my plot. I really don't want to use pesticides, so am looking for more 'natural' alternatives. Thanks for any advice! x

Afternoon!
wideawake - yes , I use Neem oil - 100% organic that I bought off ebay . Can't link , as that seller has gone now . I think it was about £8 for a 500ml bottle . It has worked incredibly well for me - particularly on the white fly and aphids on my sweet potato plant this year. I looked at a couple of youtube videos , so I make up about 500ml of warm water , a few drops of washing up liquid and a small capful of oil , and shake well. It needs to be warm , as its incredibly thick. I have one of those pressure pump sprayers so I can get everywhere on the leaf . It worked on my brussels sprouts last year too . In fact , you have reminded me to go and spray a couple of plants in my brassica cage . To be fair , unless it is really infested , I wouldn't bother for just whitefly , but I have a couple of caterpillars on them . Spray on all the leaf surfaces , 3 times over 3 weeks , and around the base of the plant too , and that should break the life cycle.
Today was picking and watering again . Still not finished the blackcurrants , as I needed to pick raspberries and loganberries . Some peas were ready, along with a couple of small calabrese heads . Also watered neighbours plot , and picked more courgettes. Should have cut my flowers too, but ran out of time . There is always tomorrow !

Lovely harvest pictures! Got home from work yesterday to find that DH had harvested our onion crop - interesting range of sizes from tiny to big. We've also enjoyed our first peas and I think the first runner bean should be ready too.

Fruit bushes - I planted one blackcurrant bush about 4 years ago. First year nothing much. Next year small crop pinched by the birds before ripe. Following year enough for a crumble. I'm hoping to remember to take some cuttings this year to expand the crop. Strawberries we bought a dozen new plants last year and had a reasonable crop off them. I think you aren't actually supposed to do that, you're supposed to take the fruits off to encourage the plants to grow but never mind . Our older strawberry plants which were given by a neighbour did the best they have ever done this year. I'm not sure how old they were when he gave them to me though.

We've actually got some rain this morning. It's been so dry here - which I know hasn't been the experience of everyone in the UK recently. Surprising to actually see the rain again.

So I was upset about my lack of fruit this year, went for a walk this morning with ddog and found wild raspberries. They tasted amazing, will deffently be planting some next year.

Afternoon!
they look delicious Love - the wild ones always seem to taste better :)
We had a bit of overnight rain , so I didn't pick the blackcurrants this morning . I sprayed the brassicas that had a few holes - could only see 2 or 3 tiny pale green caterpillars , like 1 on each plant which I rubbed off , but sprayed with Neem Oil as a precaution . Took nets off strawberries and jostaberries . Cut sweet peas and dahlias . Went to pick broad beans off the overwinter plants , and realised they had all sprouted more stems and flowers , so instead of pulling them out , I left them , and just picked the last few pods . Also a few more raspberries were ready to pick , along with a handful of tayberries . I finally sowed carrots - a short row of Chanteney , and a short row of some recommended long ones . Not sure the long ones will do any good - we are on chalk, with a thinnish top layer of soil , so we will see. .
Went back this afternoon to pick the rest of the blackcurrants . Once that was done , the door has been left wide open , and the nets tied up at the sides of the fruit cage ,what is left of the berries will soon be gone to the wildlife. Did a bit of weeding . Have all the potatoes to lift as the next big job, but now most of the berries are done , I can concentrate on keeping things watered and weed free ( some hope! )
I picked about half a kilo of raspberries at home too - the freezer is nicely filled up with berries

So many lovely berries! I need to plant some raspberries. How many canes do you need for a decent crop?

We are due a massive thunder storm here tomorrow so thought I'd nip up quickly this evening to see what needed picking. The onions are finally ready, they smell very strong! Might need some goggles on when I get around to using them. And I even got a few salad leaves before the slugs got to them. Although now I'm panicking i may have inadvertently picked some ragwort too (allotment was riddled with it when we took it on).

Lovely harvest pictures!

Day off today and finally got out in the garden having been away last week. Decided I need to LEARN FROM MISTAKES fir next year.

So to that end- summer raspberries are coming out, second year running they’ve gone from unripe to mouldy seemingly over night.
I’m only going to plant mange tout next year. I’m not on top of the watering enough and my normal peas all dried out past being edible whereas these crazy huge mange tout from Real Seeds survived the neglect and are delicious
I need to make war on snails - I cut my rubbish peas down today and they had been just devastated by snails at least 15 of which were still on the plants. Entirely down to neglect of snail hunting duties
I’m going to replace bad edible peas with lovely flowering sweet peas in my raised bed as I love them and they seem to survive snails .
I’m going to get round to netting my strawberries in time to actually eat them.
When DH offers to set up a watering system for raised bed I’m going to say yes please do it immediately instead of dithering.
I’m going to buy the longest bamboo canes I can get my hands on.

On the up side I’ve had some lovely gooseberries and for the first time ever , 5 years after planting the tree- I got plums! Very happy about that.