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

evening
well, much too hot today for me .
Went down early to the plot , prepped up the bed ready for planting spring greens , harvested the last of the pink fir potatoes , some beetroot , french beans , raspberries and all the rest of the plums bar a few not quite ripe .Cut dahlias , and also took off some more of the baby pumpkins . All go at the moment!

Harvest looks beautiful tiz!

I've just had a quick trip up this morning, my sweetpeas are still going strong, I'm really impressed with them!
Not too impressed with my patty pan or yellow courgette plants though, definitely no glut here. Picked my first few tomatoes, finally

I love those pumpkins book, I'm definitely trying them next year! Do you just use/cook them like you would a normal sized pumpkin? Your dahlias are beautiful.

Pyxie - yes , they are just like miniature pumpkins , so I have just roasted them with garlic , seasoning and olive oil to use in soup or risotto .
So, so hot again today - no plot but picked a load of tomatoes and made pasta sauce with onions , garlic , courgettes and cut up french beans - again all my own produce , which gives me a bit of a glow :)

I went to the plot today primarily to water and then I see that we have a thunderstorm forecast tonight. I'm going to be making more tomato sauce Book tomorrow. The freezer will be nicely full for the winter.

Evening!
wow , we got some rain yesterday evening and overnight . Torrential at times , 10 mm up to 8 o'clock this morning
So I went and did some tidying up of the half I am giving up - pulled up the sweet peas , as they had all gone to pods nearly , and weeded all around that area . Then picked raspberries , lots of french beans , a courgette , and the very last few plums plus some sweetcorn for tea . ( Oh they were good :) )
There is a lot going on with squashes/courgettes/pumpkins . Someone asked me to look at one of their plants - the fruit look like a cross between a melon and a squash- really large with stripey/blotched skins she had no idea what had happened, that wasn't what she thought she had planted at all.
Its rained this afternoon too , so everything growing away well - particularly the weeds

Evening again!
Hope everyone is okay and busy :)
Just popped to the plot this afternoon - you need to pick the raspberries regularly at this time of year , they go over so quickly . Picked all the french beans I missed yesterday , and a couple of sweetcorn. Trying to get these picked and eaten fairly quickly , otherwise once they find them , they start to get eaten by rodents .
I found 1 greengage - my very first one !!!

Oooh I love a greengage.

it was delicious elephant - but only a small morsel :)
Yet more harvesting today , but primarily went to plant out spring greens and spring cabbage . Another pot of raspberries , lots of flowers , and lo! some cauliflowers , so picked the biggest . Lots of calabrese too - some the main head, some the side shoots from previous deheaded ones .
What was weird - in my winter brassica cage , some of the plants are crawling with flying ants . I presume they have hatched , but not been able to get through the netting . I'm actually not sure whether I can just leave them , or if they will damage the plants . Not seen anything like it before .
My NDN had asked if I wanted any beetroot , so said yes , ( I will always manage to use beetroot ) and we talked about tomatoes . I said I use everything I grow and make into tomato sauces of one form or another . When I got ready to leave , she had left me a big tray of tomatoes , and some whopping beetroot ...

Quick trip up today, did a bit of weeding, picked yet more sweetpeas, runner beans, tomatoes and raspberries. Also a couple of sweetcorn but they weren't very well pollinated which isn't surprising really as I don't have many plants. I'm very excited for this beauty though!

Afternoon!
wow Pyxie - exciting - aren't they pretty?
A quick trip today to pick raspberries and sweetcorn. Also cut some sprouting broccoli - the first wave of my succession planting is starting . Ended up there a bit longer than I anticipated , as I needed to weed around the row of carrots I sowed a couple of weeks back, and hastily constructed a cage of bamboos and fleece to deter the carrot root fly . They wouldn't have know the carrots were there before I weeded !

Evening all.

I have neglected my plot a but of late and it is covered in weeds, but the harvests are plentiful. Masses of raspberries (masses of blackberries at home too), cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, sweetcorn, chard, baby leeks and a few late strawberries.

Lots of flowers too. The Cosmos self-seeded, I haven't planted any since 2016.

Beautiful flowers and harvest Expletive. I'm very jealous of your cosmos, I've grown some from seed but I'm still waiting for them to flower as they keep getting munched by slugs/snails.
I managed a bit of weeding at the weekend but I really need to put in a good few hours to get on top of it. I've been up since 3am with DS2 though so it's not happening today!

First cucumber this weekend which i was very excited about - i've not grown them previously. Blackberries and courgettes continue aplenty, and a smattering of french beans, raspberries and tomatoes (which are taking an age to ripen).

I turned a load of blackberries into sorbet yesterday but haven't sampled it yet. Someone was asking about the variety, they came with the house but just a generic bramble i suppose - probably the sort that many allotments ban as they'll take over given half the chance.

One of my courgette plants had to come out as it had some sort of mosaic virus. I've got rid of the remains but are there any other preventative measures to take?

Jealous of the cosmos too, mine are like triffids - 6 foot high and with stalks resembling small trees but only a couple have flowered. I've read that it might be down to the soil being too good.

I grew Cosmos from seed in 2016, they were spindly and sparse. In 2017 I spotted lots of seedlings in the same part of the plot and let them grow, they grew huge (about 4') and were stunning, covered in flowers so I had high hopes that they would re-seed again last year. Not a thing. Then this one appeared in a totally different part of the plot. It's only about a foot tall but lovely colour.

What's the one in your pic Pyxie?

Evening !
tiz - my cosmos has been flowering for a fair while , and I sow into plugs then plant out onto soil that is manured every year . They have ( and always do ) gone beserk . So I don't think the poor soil can be a problem , unless you are direct sowing?
Great pics Expletive !
A really quick trip today , just to pick raspberries and french beans - the green ones are overtaking the purple ones now . A couple of courgettes ready too .
At home , picked a big bowlful of tomatoes to roast , along with some aubergines . I only picked enough sungold for lunch , but i have a rather large surfeit of those on the plants . May need to roast those too in the next couple of days

Re Cosmos: I was looking back at old photos today and my 2017 self-seeders were still in full flower on 1st Nov, so I guess there's still plenty of time.

So I don't think the poor soil can be a problem , unless you are direct sowing?

Opposite way round, the suggestion is if the soil is too good, the plants produce lots of greenery but few flowers.

For reference that's a 6 foot fence behind them

It all went a bit wrong here, as the japanese anenomes that are behind them which are supposed to grow to about 4ft are flowering but are only about 10 inches tall! I've got cosmos from the same seeds in a different position but huge and no flowers. They were sown into pots in the greenhouse initially and planted out about mid may

sorry Tiz - I meant the other way round! ( head in another place altogether today! )My soil is very rich , and I have loads of flowers

Feeling smug this evening as dinner is entirely home grown apart from the sausages - potatoes, onions, beetroot, courgettes, carrot, rosemary.

On the other hand, tomatoes are remaining stubbornly green and the carrots and beetroot that were sown a few weeks back have failed to germinate.

The cucumbers have gone on a rampage, growing into the hedge and amongst the raspberries. I'll be lucky if I can actually locate the cucumbers.

May I join in...

Tonight's harvest. Scrummy. Couldn't be arsed to cook though and had some left over corn chips for me tea.

I have to do something with this lot at the weekend. Making courgetty based pasta sauces for the freezer I think.

Today's harvest, plus raspberries and blackberries.

I had lots of tomatoes and cucumbers at home already and a day off work so I have a trayful of tomatoes and herbs slowly roasting in the oven, three jars of pickled cucumbers, pesto and have frozen the runner beans and soft fruit.

Evening!
great harvest photos!
Had a good go at the plot this morning - it had rained a bit , but I braved it , and it soon stopped . Did an hour of digging and weeding , then another hour just picking stuff and tidying rubbish away .
So raspberries , sweetcorn , loads of broccoli and french beans , cauliflowers and flowers :)
My next bed is prepped up to sow some beetroot and spinach - it has cooled down , so hope to get a late crop , fingers crossed

3 degrees overnight here, that's not going to get my tomatoes ripening any faster!