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

Today's harvest, French beans, runner beans, courgettes, broccoli and rhubarb (wasn't going to pick any more rhubarb but it's getting in the way of my courgettes). Also have peppers growing at last, hopefully next year I will have a greenhouse to grow them in.

A quick visit to the plot today, not as planned, to get potatoes and courgettes for dinner and I noticed some of my out door tomatoes are ripening .

Oh and I bought cabbage and leek seeds to fill in the gaps.

Evening!
fabulous pictures of produce - its worth all the hard work , isn't it?
For a small space , that is an impressive list Watcher - and yes - go for that bit of lane , use every bit of space you can!
Love - as far as I am aware , cauliflower curds don't regrow , sadly .
One quick trip to the plot this morning to hoe and weed around the sweetcorn and peas . I didn't water , as we had a couple of good heavy showers overnight , but will need to be on top of it this week . Picked a cabbage and some calabrese, then checked everything over . Sadly a couple of small savoy cabbage have succumbed to cabbage root fly . so whipped them out . I will replace with the calabrese plants I bought the other day when they are big enough . Think I may have to protect with some root collars , or maybe some fleece wrapped around bamboos in a box around the plants .
I was there ages though , as everyone wanted to chat , as the annual plot judging was on Friday , and results were out last night . If its one thing allotmenters like better than their allotments , its talking about other peoples plots!

Yay, it's finally happening. The tomatoes are beginning to ripen. Mine are all outside, and the first to ripen are, reliably, Losetto which is a small bush cherry hanging on a South facing wall.

I have LOADS of tomatoes set, which is excellent as my courgettes and squash, and beans, are crap. The beans I sowed about 2 weeks ago are doing OK - I'll probably plant them out after this hot spell has gone. I have 10 good plants. No idea what has gone wrong with my courgettes - the plot ones are just not motoring and are barely setting any fruit. I've a few emergency plants at home in pots and they've been ok, but not much. I planted more seed maybe at week ago, but it's not germinated. WHERE IS MY GLUT?

Sorry your courgettes aren't doing much SpottedZebra. My question is not where is my glut but HOW COME I HAVE TWO COURGETTE PLANTS WHEN I DIDN'T SOW ANY? I've never had courgette seeds so I didn't get courgette seed mixed up with squashes and pumpkins.. But there are two plants which are definitely looking like courgettes. Which of my seed is wrong? Typically didn't pay enough attention to which way round DH planted my squashes and pumpkins so will have to wait a bit longer to see what I don't have coming up.

Nice to see a few ripe tomatoes. My are still green but in this heat they might ripen up a bit quicker than normal.

Going to take a quick stroll over to the plot and tackle a few brambles. But most of the work will be later on - too hot to water now!

Evening!
I don't have a courgette glut yet either - but fingers crossed the new plants will give me some . I still have one throwing out some , but the other is another sickly specimen which needs to come out ....
Had home grown cucumber and tomatoes at lunch though . Needed to water in my greenhouse twice today - 10 o clock and 3 o clock . Thinking I may splash some more later on tonight
Just one very quick trip tonight to water squashes ( have had to pull up one of those too, but it was a gifted pumpkin plant, and squeezed in so not too sad about that) - I had DH with me , so done nice and quick with 4 watering cans on the go . Was about to just come home , but very quickly picked some loganberries - I have found once they ripen , they tend to shrivel up really quickly, and go beyond edible

Delicious roast courgette slices for dinner - from my Striato di Napoli plant and they had a lovely full flavour, not at all watery.

My courgettes are rubbish too. My chard is doing great and pak choi is popping up. I have one melon ripening grown outside in a grow bag under a plastic cloche. The one in the greenhouse is hopeless.

Kalettes are massive, leeks starting to look like leeks, munchkin squash is starting to get out of control. Cabbages covered in debris netting and my runner beans are nearly ready to pick. Celery, carrots and beetroot shouldn't be long. Potatoes have already been eaten.

My tomatoes are now ripening so now I am starting to find out which varieties are which after my disaster with Poundland permanent "sharpies" used on plastic plant labels. They faded quickly and I didn't know my sungold from my super sauce and sweet cherry smile.

Bookbook I tend to pick my loganberries when they aren't quite ripe and let them ripen at home. They do tend to go from nearly ripe to overripe in the blink of an eye, particularly when it is hot and dry as it has been here in the south east. Make very good jam and sorbet.

I've picked my first runner beans and there are plenty coming. First blackberries are ripe - grown against a wall so they are early than ones in the hedges. Also harvested first summer cabbage the other day. We've had some cooked with chorizo, some in a curry and some in a salad and there's still more of it left!

Allotment neighbour has offered some chard as he has gone away and has loads of it so I plan to pick some later when watering the plots (his and ours).

I sowed a ton of seeds this year, some from really old packets or donations and wasn't sure what was going to come up. Everything that did, was planted in the allotment.

I had alot of success with Zapalitto squashes. I planted them in the raised beds. The bag was a very old, over 15 years old, and the seeds were mostly shrivelled up and I didn't expect anything. They started growing but like courgettes? So I then found out they grow as a bush not a vine, and grow round green squashes, that are not left for winter squashes but yes, eaten like summer squashes. The first one is starting to form, and I have better hopes than my courgettes to be honest.

I am harvesting a handful of tomatoes every day and after seeing the results of using an electric toothbrush on tomato flowers and fruit setting, am off out to buy one!

And chard I've sown in the last month is already bolting so I've pulled that out and will go again in august.

Morning!
that makes sense Cedar - this is the first year we have really had much crop from the loganberries - they are still setting and ripening , so good for a while yet .
Welcome Troy :) - hah my brassicas end up in all the wrong places due to that - I use pencil and old lolly sticks now .
It rained really well last night . I believe we had storms , but I didn't hear them , but woke up to puddles , and 7.2 mm of rain on the weather display.
So, I went early , did a quick hour of hoeing , and hand weeding the asparagus bed . One of the new plants I bought , which I thought hadn't come , had a spear on it this morning , so eventually ., all 5 have come up. Cut flowers , took some seed heads off my bright red poppy to save - just the first few , there are loads more which I will leave for sometime longer .
Home now to lurk in side - it was already 23º when I came home

HOW COME I HAVE TWO COURGETTE PLANTS WHEN I DIDN'T SOW ANY?

I have a similar mystery. I only planted interesting varieties of courgettes this year but the only one that has thus far produced courgettes is not any of these varieties!

Well on further investigation I've decided that what I was worrying were courgettes are actually my honeyboat squashes. I don't remember the plants looking like courgettes last year, though, and we had a lot of squashes from them. So I will stop shouting

Warm here already but there is a pleasant breeze right now. We are expecting temperatures of 35 later. Not sure how much work I am going to get done working from home but at least I haven't had to go in on the train this morning.

I’ve got some squashes growing cedar, the plants look very like courgettes but the flowers are very different, not the big white airy things, they are tight. First time I have grown squash so I don’t really know what to expect but they look healthy.

Morning!
ah Cedar - all the squashes and courgettes look much the same , don't they? The flowers in particular .
Had an hour first thing at the plot - bright sun and 27º at 8.30 , so I watered the squashes and courgettes. Typical in that I left a courgette on the plant yesterday as is wasn't that big - today it was on its way to be a marrow .
Hoed and weeded , then carried on digging up a couple of rows of the old strawberry bed . They were due out this autumn , but getting rid of some now to make room for my 2 new baby courgette plants , which I want to plant out at the weekend , well away form the others , and near the water butt .
Just trying to keep on top of things , and keep an eye out for any more plants suffering from cabbage root fly - none for the last couple of days , so fingers crossed .

We've had our first harvest! A princely haul of two runner beans, which my DD are with her dinner - the first time she's ever deigned to eat runner beans. So a tiny achievement ended up delivering a massive sense of satisfaction

Lots more on the way and our first pumpkin has set.

The bargain dahlias I thought would be good to fill a space and use for cutting turn out to be a short stem variety Nevermind, I can move them to the garden next year instead!

It is so damn hot here too.

I've had a bad year - logistic stuff not gardening stuff. Using it to get bulk and goodness into my soil for next planting.
We have a load of trees on our road that are a bit "hairy" around the trunk. Spotted some blokes "from the Council " cutting the low growth off with chainsaws. I ran out with my bag and asked them to fill it up. Which they did. Chewed up leaves and twigs now on compost heap and borders. As well as on a couple of containers I have to act as mulch to keep the water in.
I know there's a downside to stuff that's been growing by the road. But it isn't sprayed - I see it daily .
Mini score!

My courgettes are going mad - I've got 12 in my fridge so will need to give some away! Tomato plants are also flowering and fruiting madly and the canes supporting them are starting to struggle under the weight. No time to sort before I go away for the weekend so hopefully they won't collapse before Monday. Sweetcorn looks fab - hopefully the deer won't eat them before we get to enjoy them! Onions now have a little bit of yellow on the tips - how do I know when to harvest? Carrots look good although a little bit green at the top part poking out of the ground - do I wait until they are fully orange before I take them out?

Onions - the stems normally collapse. You don't need to wait for them all to go but once the first couple go that's the sign that they are ready.
Carrots - I'd probably wait a little bit longer but a bit of green is OK.

Free stuff is always a bonus bellinisurge

We also have a random courgette growing!
The rest of the non-accidental veg is growing like a jungle, I blame all the rain in june

My regular courgettes are growing like crazy but my round ones are not doing so great.

Just picked another load of French beans, never been this successful with French beans, I’m picking them more often than the runner beans.

Today's harvest: my first tomato (a small Ailsa Craig), a cucumber (have 2 more large ones on the 2 plants and about 4 medium sized ones and loads of babies), my shallots and one more onion. Plus some sweet peas and cornflowers and a few of the last of my raspberries (picked for ds, who was suffering from a really bad hangover and had recovered enough to want some fruit).

My runner beans are finally starting to grow and a couple have flowers. None have set yet though.

My patty pan squash now has flowers. My black beauty courgette has 3 small/medium courgettes but the 2 Atena yellow courgettes are still not setting properly. The male flowers and female flowers seem totally out of synch and they're both getting mildew

Yesterday's and today's harvest. Everything seems to be enjoying the weather, although tomatoes don't appear to be doing much. I need to encourage them to put some more energy into fruiting rather than greenery.

Planning to put some dwarf french beans, beetroot and radish into the bed that the potatoes have come out of.