Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 15 - will winter ever end?

[bookbook]

Hi everyone , just putting this up quickly , will add on later
Everyone welcome! :)

Oh yes please Book that does sound lovely.

here you go Rhubarb ( small boast - I won best in show jam/preserve at our local show a couple of years back with this recipe :) )

Rhubarb and Vanilla Jam

Makes 3 x 1lb jars

1 kg rhubarb , weighed after trimming, cut into 3 cm chunks
1 kg Jam sugar - (or 1 kg caster sugar + 1 x 8gm sachet of pectin)
2 Vanilla pods, halved length wise
Juice of 1 Lemon

Into a large pan, put rhubarb, sugar, and vanilla pods.
Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved.
Then add in the lemon juice , and increase the heat.
Boil for about 10 minutes- and test for setting point (105º ) .

Discard vanilla pods , and bottle into warm sterilised jam jars .

Thank you. I am sure my attempt will not be to your level but I look forward to trying it! My children love jelly as when I cook rhubarb I save the surplus sweet liquid and add it to jelly in lieu of some cold water!

I will add vanilla pods to my shopping list, I have everything else in.

So thank you for both sharing the recipe and for typing it out

Ooh book that sounds lovely! And well done for being a competition jam winner!

Rhubarb I followed the recipe on bbc good food. But I didn't have a lemon. Or ginger .

What a lovely story about the rhubarb jelly :).

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/rhubarb-ginger-jam

Newbie lockdown gardener... DH made the raised bed and a dug up the first lettuce and radishes this morning 😋 as you can see my raised bed is small so i plant up my seeds in trays and plant out when they are bigger.. I've now run out of seeds! What shall I grow?

It's ages since I've posted.

The Melbourne winter has been wonderful - cold, but with concomitant blue skies.

Here are my stunt pumpkins:

oooh @echt they look lovely! Darn slugs have just munched 3 of my squash plants. 3 left. I put down some beer traps to kindly kill the blighters.

What shall I grow? You either buy more seeds, or you start propagating.

It's a good time to start chard for winter use, you'll soon be able to start the various Japanese green leaf vegetables, there's winter radishes with long white or black roots, winter lettuces.

You could pot up runners from the strawberries (wait till they've developed roots) to make new plants for next year. Find plants that you could take cuttings of (with permission) - mint is easy, rosemary and bay is worth a try. Buy pots of living herbs from the supermarket, plant them up into a bigger pot and let them grow on.

Very impressed by your raised bed - it's looking good.

Hello, new here just wanted to share my excitement that my pumpkin plant grown from seed has a flower. Also got some beans I bought as plugs and picked some redcurrants this morning for a crumble

@Hellohello2020 a flower already? Marvellous! Naturally the question is, custard, cream or ice-cream with your crumble?

Custard all the way!

And I'm extra pleased as I thought frost had killed it a while back as I planted it out a bit too early.

Afternoon !
what a lovely looking raised bed sandwiches77 - oh , and welcome :) . As up thread - more seeds , or even plug plants from a local nursery ? . Most important thing is to grow what you like to eat :)
HelloHello2020 - welcome to you too! :) wonderful pics , and totally with you on the custard!
I had a lovely morning at the plot . I planted out the last of the leeks , hoed ( yes ! hoed! ) and checked everything . I had good news and bad news . One squash and one courgette - stems munched through = dead since Friday but - of the 2 crown prince squashes i planted a while back - one is a courgette , which now has a courgette . And my friend 2 plots down gave me a crown prince she couldn't use , so am back to same number of plants . I have pea pods forming too .
So many aphids though - some attacking a couple of cabbages and cauliflowers , so had to get the neem oil spray out .
I thinned out the beetroots , so brought those home to use , picked a few more broad beans , sweet peas and strawberries . I lost some of the strawberries to them having too much rain the other day - all squelchy , but not complaining :)

Everything seems to have gone on hold with the cold weather, hoping it speeds up a bit now it's warmed up again.

Picked a handful of mange tout, will add to that over the next few days. My shirts mange tout are just starting to flower, the colour is great. French beans on a go slow.

I also seem to have a pumpkin in a place I didn't expect , which is odd as I don't recall planting any! It's rampaging so I've had to hurriedly relocate some onions.

I'll be picking wild strawberries everyday now to go in my breakfast. Proper strawberries haven't got any colour yet. Redcurrants are just about ready too.

Courgettes just starting to flower, plenty of mini cucumbers on their way.

Torrential rain, thunder and lightning now. Saves watering anyway.

Yes the rain is great for filling after butts this week Tiz

Managed a trip to the allotment today and started tackling the creeping buttercup. Something has stripped every pear odd the tree and the apple tree is covered in grey coloured insects which are causing the leaves to curl. Plus the black currant leaves have raised lumps and yellowing leaves - not a good year for fruit here! No idea why.

It's lovely seeing everyone's pictures.. Mine don't seem to want to download! Loads of flowers on my tomatoes and I noticed the first little green tomato today which excited me! I have lots of lovely yellow courgettes on my plants and my pea pods are growing well. The French, runner beans and peppers are all flowering well too.

I was going to pick my first strawberries this morning but they've gone! I was so disappointed. We've had some jackdaws around so I'm wondering if they are the culprits? (I accused my dh of eating them but apparently it was nothing to do with him or DD)...

Lovely progress from you all and we’ve enjoyed some rain too!
First of the cherries picked today-think they will be done or eaten by the birds by Wednesday... strawbs are coming along but generally never make it home
I’m trying to rejig some beds so that I have some more growing space-DS2 wants his own bed (I don’t think he quite knows what he wants to put in it yet!) so might condense the herbs a bit...

Picked our first cherries today too but we are also resigned to losing most of them to the birds. They ate quite hard to reach, our lawn is uneven and slopes a bit so its hard positioning the stepladder.

Just a quick plot visit tonight for weeding and watering. Dug out a load of chard that had bolted before the roots get too massive, hopefully it will have self seeded again (it usually does). First raspberry is almost ripe. Strawberries are few and far between, as are redcurrants.

I'll be picking wild strawberries everyday now to go in my breakfast Having muffed my supermarket delivery, so I'm now not going to get any food till Tuesday week, I was sitting eating my breakfast oats with wild strawberries and thinking "well, at least I know now that I'll have daily fruit from now through till March".

I have black currants which are almost ready, not a huge quantity as it’s only their 2nd year (didn’t have any last year), what does one do with a small amount of black currants? My red currants haven’t fruited at all but it’s their first year.

lovemusic I've also just picked the first black currants. Not sure I'll keep on top of them as there are more and more going black every day!

I picked 250g worth and it made one jar of jam

Was thinking about what to do with the next ones - black currant cordial, black currant sorbet and once I've done that I might just freeze the rest. I was thinking about making cassis but I'm not sure I like it enough to bother!

We had some very tasty black currant ice cream last year. I’m hoping to pick our first batch tomorrow too! Summer pudding?

I think I will pop them in the freezer until I have enough to make something. The ice cream sounds good.

Picked the first mini cucumber today, was too bitter to eat though :-( Fingers crossed later ones will be better.

Blackbirds are desperate to get at the redcurrants as usual but the netting is standing up to their attacks so far. I always wonder what it is about the redcurrants specifically, they don't touch the wild strawberries which are all over the place and are also small and red.