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

[bookbook]

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

Any tips for picking gooseberries? I’ve finally got a good crop on 2 bushes but they are hard to pick without damaging myself!

I was mainly wondering how contained your garden needs to be. We have decent fencing on one side, but a hedge on the other boundary. It's a fairly dense hedge, but I know cats can managed to sneak through, not sure if chickens would try and make a break for it. If we got chickens we'd look to have them in a moveable run most of the time, but i'd like to be able to have them wandering about when we're out in the garden. If we'd need to fence to do that then it's a non starter for us.

hah elephant - I don't need any excuse to hoe off important stuff !
Cath - to pick gooseberries . I have hide gardening gloves , so I wear one of those on one hand , pick up the very end tip of a branch and arch it up to get at the gooseberries underneath to pick with my other hand (. the branches are usually quite springy ). It sort of works!

Hello may I join? Am a keen gardener, particularly anything that can be eaten! First haul of the year from the blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes.

Welcome Restro those fruits look great, as do the cook books!

That’s for gooseberry tip- I’ll try that tomorrow.

Re Chickens escaping - in our limited experience it comes down to chicken personality , some are braver than others. I think heavier/ less flighty breeds are less likely to go up and over fences and walls, and ours didn’t ever go through hedges but that might be as there is a drop on the other side of our hedge. We have a longish drive that opens onto a busy road and in our sum total of 5 chickens only 2 ever actually went off down the drive and they only did it the once after a bit of a traffic hoohar. I like that they - or now just one - can wander about free range and it is making me a bit reticence to get her new companions, although I do need to, as I can’t guarantee they will be as easy as she is. You could maybe get away with some chicken wire tucked just along the bottom of the hedge as I can’t see chickens climbing up and over through dense leaves. Mostly when I am gardening they followed me about in case I turned up anything edible. They will wreck any lawn under a run though very quickly. We have a permanent pen under some privet trees so that area is just written off.

@WinterfellsStarbucksConcession I think you might be right! I tried it on a plant ID app that a friend recommended when she agreed it was most un courgette like and interestingly it said the same. It's resemblance on google images is the closest I've seen to anything all far.

The strange thing is the lady who kindly donated it is a professional gardener with many qualifications and all...and she still insists it's a courgette!

Regardless, it's outside in a huge pot in a sunny spot now and it's growing at an admirable pace so it's definitely happier there. Who knows - we shall find out when it flowers! Thank you though

My Anya potatoes have started to go a bit yellow. They are in bags. Is this normal? Depends what state they're at. If you can feel potatoes just under the soil surface and they've been growing healthily for quite some time (and especially if they've flowered), then it's just normal dying back for the winter - wait till they've died down and then harvest. If they haven't been going that long, then perhaps they need a feed - especially if the yellow isn't uniform, you have yellow leaves with green veins, for example.

If it's just basal leaves which are yellow, and the shoots are still healthy dark green, then that's normal, nothing to worry about.

lymph, Go me! I'm ridiculously pleased with myself!

Hello hello, I've rather fallen off this thread again. I've been reading though! I can only excuse myself for the past week, as I've had plenty of time until now. But recently I have been PICKING FRUIT!

So much soft fruit! It's finally come good after what - 6 years? The most strawberries ever, and delicious too. So many currants, and I couldn't be bothered to pick many of the reds and whites. But of course I furtle out every last blackcurrant. Of my many bushes. Tayberries so so, but plentiful loganberries. Loads of gooseberries too but I've run out of ideas for them. And so many jostaberries also. Still to come are the blackberries and raspberries-mine are mostly autumn. Luckily I bought a 2nd (lockdown) freezer!

But on the bad side, I must have had some weedkiller-infected compost (bought in haste, lockdown...) as all my seedlings are shite and curled up and not thriving. Only 1st batch of tomatoes which I did with different compost are viable really. I resowed courgettes and beans so hopefully I'll have them, just late. But lots of things just had to be chucked. Well eventually, after I nurtured them and fed them with hopes and dreams for too long.

Luckily I bought a 2nd (lockdown) freezer! Yes, I've got my parents' old freezer, which I run during fruit season.

Our freezer died a month or so back. Good timing season wise as no home grown stuff left in it. Took the opportunity to upgrade capacity :-)

Going to have to investigate freezing mange tout, I think they need blanching first, but we have an oversupply!

Afternoon!
welcome Restorationinsanity - always room here for another - pull up a garden chair :) Lovely looking bowls of fruit there . Being a nosey soul I always ask whereabouts you are -North/South/East/West
Hello Spotted - lovely to see you again . Not good on the compost - such a shame to find out about too , but glad to hear your blackcurrants are doing well :).

I think once you are serious about growing fruit , a second back up freezer is mandatory isn't it ? (I have 2 - one indoors , one in the garage )
tiz* - I did an experiment a few years back , and found out that open freezing works just as well, if not better ,for french beans and runner beans , so may be worth trying with mange tout?
Went with DH this afternoon to the plot . No trip yesterday , as it rained all day . He fiddled around sorting dry storage for the lawnmower, as we have given up the shed we stored it in . Netted the loganberries , checked everything over , and sowed some maincrop peas ( Ambassador) as my last sowing are germinated and growing away nicely . Picked another 3 courgettes - next week ,.and I shall be in glut land I think . Noticed the first calabrese heads - didn't quite realise they would be ready yet , they got plonked in as back up plants when I lost a couple of summer cabbages.
Flowers doing really well, picked the strawberries and cut the grass . It is almost looking tidy !

I got my husband to have an experimental feel of my potatoes and they are small but not tiny, so hopefully the yellow leaves are not a sign of anything weird and I can harvest them in a few weeks.

Noticed that I have beans on my dwarf beans, and plenty of courgettes to pick.

Thank you for the welcome! Fruit is currently in the fridge while I procrastinate over whether to use it now or freeze and add to it for jam/crumble etc!

@bookbook am in the south, border of Surrey and Greater London. Lucky to have a big garden now so gave up the allotment last year and moved the fruit bushes etc to the garden. They're currently in a temporary cleared patch as the garden needs a lot of tlc. But we've also managed to clear another patch and get our veg in for this year. The house is being totally renovated too, so also gardening away from the piles of rubble etc.

This is the veg patch, big bushy bits at the end of the soil are the potatoes, and we've got garlic, dwarf beans, and now courgettes, tomatoes, winter squash, sweetcorn and climbing beans in! Haven't got a recent pic of the fruit patch for some reason!

Sorry for rambling!

That's a good space RestorationInsanity I steal a little bit more of the garden for veg growing each year and have some things mixed in with the more decorative parts of the garden. Tomatoes, chilli and French Beans mainly

I've read conflicting reports about freezing mange tout and blanching them first. I did wonder why they would be so different to French Beans. I might do an experimental freezing and try them this weekend before building up a stock of them and report back.

A few more potatoes pulled for dinner tonight, still collecting the odd strawberry, although quite a few totally unripe too, masses of alpine strawberries as always. Had a couple of beetroot trying to bolt so picked those although small, never tire of the chiogga and something has been digging in my onions so a few of those came up too. Will roast them whole.

Still no courgettes :-(

Lovely reading about everyone's progress here. I enjoyed an evening in the garden tonight. Gave the grass a good mow and pulled out some more of the dreaded bindweed. I noticed several cucumbers growing and added canes to the pots as being a novice I hadn't realised that they would grow tall! I also tied in some more of the tomato plants and started pinching out the tops.

My courgettes are doing well... I think I'll have a few more to pick by the weekend.

Plenty of flowers on the French and runner beans but no beans yet. Oh, and I picked my first peas! That was exciting, but I have frozen them to add to as I pick more! (not enough for a meal yet!).

My eldest daughter is finally coming home from Uni tomorrow and I'm so excited to see her after so long. She'll be very surprised to see that the garden has been taken over by veg growing... It's a new venture for us here 😁

My veg patch is a bit of a mess, my peas are almost finished so I need to pull them out in a few days and possibly replace them with something? Any suggestions?

How do I know where swede is ready to pull? They have taken over my patch but the leaves on some have started to go droopy so I’m wondering if they are ready?

I need to sort the lettuce out this week too and the spinach which has been half eaten by something.

Going to have to investigate freezing mange tout, I think they need blanching first, but we have an oversupply! In theory, yes, but I never have. I think the blanching is more for hygiene reasons that quality, but I'm not sure it's strictly necessary or a hangover from when the only option was bottling. But don't rely on my advice.

Well, i've put a handful in the freezer this evening, so i can see at the weekend how they turn out and decide what to do from there. I've been quite good at succession sowing them this year so will have a good supply for a while yet hopefully. It's easing the pain of the lack of courgettes

I find veg keep very well in the fridge it you put them in one of those plastic boxes you get from takeaways so they don't lose moisture. You can then spend several days accumulating enough of something for a meal, without having to cook something where half the veg have been frozen and half are freshly picked.

There's only two of us and I'm picking enough for a meal every day at the moment so if I can start freezing some we can have a day off from eating them :-)

I have harvested a few strawberries, the majority of my blueberries and another round courgette today. I was tempted to pick my watercress but they are still a little small.

Evening .
Lovemusic - I tend to think of swede as an autumn/winter veg - and pull when they are about 6-8 " round . Mine are all leaf atm . Could you sow beetroot , not too late for runners or french beans /chard/perennial spinach perhaps . My next planting is autumn cauliflowers and winter savoys in the next week or so ,
We have had some hefty showers today , no plot .
But from my greenhouse , the first Sungold cherry tomatoes - they were delicious :)