The Vegetable Patch

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Now bookbook has sadly left us, and stirred into action by @DobbleDobble, I think it’s time to start a general thread for those of us who try to grow edible produce, fruit, veg, herbs, to share successes, failures, questions and answers

I've just tucked my seedlings in for the night. They are on some wire shelves inside by an all window back door. Fleece and an old puffa jacket . No I didn't just say goodnight to Brussels sprouts and calendula . Honest.

That's an interesting mix of aubergines @deplorabelle I've just looked them all up!

I'm trying early Czech from Real Seeds. Can you bury the stems when you pot on like tomatoes?

@bellinisurge and you didn't whisper 'see you in the morning' either.

@PoseyFlump I've got those too. Will be interesting to see how we get on!

Wow those Czech aubergines look amazing. Let me know how you get on; I might try them next year.

I'm afraid I don't know about burying the stem but Charles Dowding said on a recent video he buries the stems of everything and hasn't had a failure yet so worth a try - do half and half with your seedlings maybe?

Anyone grown physalis? I have one solitary seedling. Also one pomegranate 😂

Interesting reading and good tips…loving @bellinisurge saying goodnight,I go in an tell mine to hurry
Up their signs of life !

@StyleDesperation I got a bit carried away buying from Real Seeds, they all sound fantastic! Even bought tree cabbage that someone talked about on here

@deplorabelle I've got some physalis seeds called 'tomatillo pineapple' that I'm going to start with my tomatoes. Ive just looked at my notes and I've put 'need more than one for pollination' so if that's true you might need to sow more!

When I was a little girl I remember an elderly lady scooping down and plucking a fruit out of her garden, unwrapping it and giving it to me. Ive been trying to figure out what it was ever since and I'm pretty sure now it was physalis (or groundcherry) so I'm excited to grow them!

We have just taken over our bit of land and are setting it up at the moment. This has been mostly structural things, like fencing it off and adding a gate and a bridge over the ditch. We will need to plant a lot of hedging plants.
We have 15 fruit trees that have been in the ground for about a month, apples, pears and plum, and some rhubarb crowns.
We have just constructed 4 raised beds (John, Paul, George and Ringo) into which a friend is going to dump some horse poo. We have an unlimited supply, as they keep number of horses, so we will have a huge compost heap in an old potato box in the corner.
It is clay soil ☹️, so we are going to add something more loamy to the beds. However, at least there are plenty of worms and few stones.

I have some raspberries, gooseberries and blueberries in tubs at the house, which will eventually be transplanted into more raised beds.
I have dreams…

I love daydreaming @Giggorata,
I can’t change my job, am perimenopausal, an although my life is happy there’s lots of things in the world giving me “the rage” the allotment has given me a chance to daydream, imagine, do in life again , it’s fun isn’t it !

@DobbleDobble I could have written your post! I'm so glad I didn't wait until I reach retirement to discover the joy of growing your own!

poseyflump - interested in the realseeds order. i've bought a fair amount from them over the years as i like trying out new things. liked some but not others. let me know please if you find anything exciting (i grow the orach and purple magentaspleen and the miners lettuce....well it all reseeds itself to be honest) I've grown the tree cabbage for a few years now - if you cut off any flowers you can keep it going. I prefer the taste of normal cabbage but tree cabbage is easier to grow and is available for eating when other stuff isnt

@dreamingofsun it's only really me that likes cabbage so I'm hoping I like the tree cabbage!

I ordered tomatoes and some ordinary things but a few I found interesting were:
Poona kheera cucumbers
Cherokee trail of tears beans
Marvel of Peru 4 o'clock flower

The flower comes out in the evening apparently and attracts moths. Good excuse to sit in the garden with a glass waiting for the 'moths'

Oh no @PoseyFlump I hope not. I can't find the packet now which I think means I sowed all the seeds at once (I NEVER do this!!!) I haven't given up hope of getting more germination but it has been up on its own for a little while.

Off to Google now...

Joining in. I have been letting my garden/plot sit over winter for the wildlife, today was my first day out there preparing for spring. Managed to dig out my biggest veg bed (which isn’t huge), remove the runner been vines from last year and plant a few broad beans straight into the ground (never done this before but just hoping for the best), covered the rhubarb in well rotted horse poop, took all the dead leafs and stalks off the strawberry plants and moved some runners into another bed, so I now have to strawberry beds. Oh….and I reported my Christmas tree which is almost dead 😬, I’m hoping I can save it.

Also planted a climbing rose against the fence, just a cheap home bargains bare root, hoping I can keep it alive, I’m much better with fruit and veg.

I have made a plan for what’s being planted where and I’m trying to remember what I grew last year and said ‘never again’ to, I’m not growing squash this year after being over run last year, planting more beans, peas and broad beans. Not putting any tomatoes outside (lost them to blights last year) and not growing any brassica because I can’t be bothered with the battle of the slugs and the cabbage whites.

My fruit bushes are starting to bud, hoping I get a good crop this year as it’s their 3rd year.

@deplorabelle how long ago did you sow the seeds?
If physalis and tomatillos are the same in all but name then I've found the following:

"Plant tomatillos in pairs during spring once all chances of frost have passed. Planting 2 or more at a time ensures the blooms will be pollinated."

And I also found:

"In 2014, we conducted an experiment where we bagged the blossoms of tomatillos see if they could self-pollinate. We discovered that tomatillos are in fact self-incompatible, meaning that their flowers cannot self-pollinate. In other words, tomatillos must cross pollinate in order to set fruit, and they rely on insects to do so."

Also found:
"Pollination can occur between two or more tomatillo plants of the same variety, so you don’t need to grow different types of tomatillos. Just make sure they are two plants grown from two different seeds. Propagated tomatillos from cuttings are genetically identical clones and won’t cross-pollinate."

@PoseyFlump from what I can glean from googling, although they are both physalis, Physalis peruviana is a bit different from tomatillos and everything I've read says mine are self fertile, so crossed fingers it will be okay. I'm chronically short of good light in my garden and always grow far too much/silly things so I'm used to failure!

@Giggorata awesome names for your beds 😁. Clay soil is fine if you have a ready source of organic matter to improve it, which you do. I do no dig which makes it dead easy to manage my clay, and it's no longer noticeably heavy or claggy in the bits I've been mulching for a couple of years. I always get a shock when e.g. we dig a hole for a gatepost on the drive and realise how bad the soil used to be.

@deplorabelle ah okay! Mine definitely say tomatillo on the packet so I'll sow loads and have no where to put them all

We try & grow fruit & veg, but our garden is north facing with clay soil so can be a bit hit & miss. We do better with fruit bushes that are well established such as loganberry, gooseberry & wild strawberries. We have a cherry tree but as we don't net it we loose all the viable cherries to the birds.
Last year we had mixed results, had loads of tomato plants but got hit by blight just at harvesting so ended up ripening indoors.
We got one artichoke from three plants & only one plant has survived the winter.
Potatoes in potato bags did ok - lots of foliage but not that many actual spuds.
Got one massive squash, but the rest didn't grow/ripen in time.
Courgettes - one variety did great, others were abysmal.
Tried a dwarf blackberry in hanging baskets - didn't work at all!
Blueberries did fine. Our self-seeded raspberry did ok. Got a fig tree but it's tiny atm.
Carrots in pots didn't do much.
Asparagus pea was a bit meh.
My tubs of wild garlic are just starting to come through; & our herb garden out front is doing great (thyme, rosemary, lavender & marjoram)
Not sure what to grow this year as we're hoping to move.

The weather was weird last summer. Very hot or cold and wet. Lots of people were complaining that tomatoes were late to ripen. I didn't do much better in a south facing garden!

@APurpleSquirrel last year was terrible for squash. I got a crop but a small one and succumbed to fungus much earlier than usual.

In your shoes I'd grow lots of wonderful unusual salad leaves (which prefer it not too hot), and edible flowers for visual interest. In your sunniest spots I'd grow strawberries and sunflowers. I always grow broad beans because I love them and the flowers smell amazing. Grow the variety Crimson Flowered it's pretty enough for a vase and would look lovely but also deal with cool shade.

Managed to get all the rest of my allotment beds down, fix the storm damage to water butt.Got cardboard I’d been storing down into the beds too and finally shed door fixed so a great day! Am aching now though.loving reading about all the different veg .