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

Thanks @MereDintofPandiculation and @CrabbyCat I meant like o have seen some strawberry plants in shops that still don't have any strawberries whereas mine are all growing strawberries now. Not that it really matters!

Ive recently planted courgette seeds but have left them in the greenhouse, should they be inside still? Nothing to show yet. Can't remember what I did last year can anyone advise?

@GalactatingGoddess my tomatoes have been out for weeks now and done nothing. Even the flower buds that were opening as I transplanted have just stayed half open. The ones in the greenhouse have been continuing to grow at a good rate and now need bigger pots. Just a shame about the outdoor ones as usually they do best.

I'm having to self pollinate my courgettes, I have 3 which seemed to have worked and a few that fell off or were eaten by slugs.

It's always interesting how you can grow the exact same seed and have the same variables but such different plants. One of my pumpkin plants has its first fruit (which I used a courgette to pollinate as no male flowers) and is a small tiny plant still, my other pumpkin is a huge leafy plant with lots of male flowers and barely a tiny tiny tiny fruit bud which I only saw on really giving the pumpkin a thorough inspection.

Any advice on garlic? I've sown in Oct/nov before but this year just did March. They look ghastly. Absolutely tiny stringy half yellow things always limp. No idea what I'm doing wrong ☹️. I thought I was over watering so stopped but that's made them sad, I then started watering well and that made them sad, left them to it and nope they still look terrible.

I planted garlic the last week of April and they sprouted very quickly and are doing really well, but I don’t know why particularly, I’ve never really grown it before. It was freshly dug soil (it had been taken over by couch gras so I removed all that first) and I have kept them watered but not overly. Sorry, not much help.

My tomatoes are doing naff all though, they were doing really well in the greenhouse but since planting out about a fortnight ago they are looking very pitiful.

I’m having to self pollinate my courgettes, I have 3 which seemed to have worked and a few that fell off or were eaten by slugs.. You can get parthenogenetic varieties, no pollination needed.

@ExtremelyDedicated redcurrants are pruned in the winter, although I guess you could trim back post harvest. I found this site quite helpful www.google.com/amp/s/blog.primrose.co.uk/2019/03/pruning-currants-gooseberries-jostaberries/amp/ .

@Plantsandpuddlesuits what you wanted in that case was different varieties. You can get late season ones that fruit into July (e.g. Florence) and perpetual ones that fruit starting August and keep going into autumn (e.g. Mara des Bois). I've planted some late season and perpetual ones this year but obviously can't report back yet how well they work!

Thanks @CrabbyCat googling in the past has given conflicting advice. I might have to prune sooner as they are overhanging into the next door plot, which has just been given up by the occupier who has not touched it since last summer, if someone new takes over they might want it cutting back, although it’s only over a grassy path and into a blackberry bush, not the main part of the plot. Hopefully someone will take over soon as it’s in a dreadful state, waist high grass everywhere.

Thanks @MereDintofPandiculation. I had seeds from last year I wanted to get through. Most definitely in future I'll be buying self pollinating varieties. Make life a lot easier.

@ExtremelyDedicated hmm I had fresh soil too, a lot of compost added to mulch, they're just very sad. I may add a picture to just remind myself again for pitiful they are 😅😂. I've told myself I probably won't get any garlic this year.

Here's to our tomatoes puckering up a bit and flourishing

@ExtremelyDedicated I find pruning advice horribly confusing, trying to work out what to do with apple trees I'd swear half of it directly contradicts the other half! The primrose article is more helpful than most in that it at least explains which age wood you are aiming to keep / supposed to get rid of.

Hello all..first time poster to the gardening section!

I have some raised beds full of veggies, which were started this year, lots of activity which is exciting. In the last week I have copious amounts of mushrooms growing, I have read this is because of the organic matter in the soil, my question is can you eat them?

No, never eat any fungi that you cannot confidently identify (and if you have to ask the question, I’d suggest your fungus knoledge isn’t extensive enough for you to confidently identify them) There’s a large number of fungi which grow on humus in the soil, some edible, some not, some mildly toxic, some capable of killing. And some of the deadly ones look remarkably like young field mushrooms.

Woo hoo, some warmth finally. I have lots of little embryonic fruits that need the sunshine

Excellent @tizwozliz.
Things are looking a bit more promising here too. I have my first ever cucumber and lots of strawberries. Blackcurrants colouring up nicely and I don't think the red and white currants will be far behind.

My pumpkins gave germinated well the potatoes are looking good, first earliest nearly ready, and I've finally sown my peas, beans and sweetcorn.

My asparagus bed only went in late may (when the crowns arrived so not much activity. I'm thinking of sowing quick crops between the rows, maybe rocket and radishes.

My veg patch it taking shape, but my newly planted plum tree is going to get moved to where the washing line is in the autumn to make space for more beds. Failure to forward plan on my part!

I'm a bit late with some of my autumn veg but am going to give it a go this week and hope that the warmer greater London climate will save me. Still no sign of the greenhouse so my aubergines peppers and toms are still splitting their time between the patio and the garage at night time.

My summer raspberry canes are a failure though. Only growth from a few of them, the others just sticks in the ground. My autumn canes which I've had for years are doing great but I'm quite disappointed in the new summer ones.

@CrabbyCat I have a great book on fruit tree maintenance by Ben Pike. I just follow that and ignore everything else although I still like to read about other methods just in case!

I'm attempting to thin my apples this year. Have a very old beauty of bath that sets fruit like grapes but they're so close they tend to get brown rot, the remaining fruit is delicious so might as well try and help things along!

@MereDintofPandiculation yes I agree, I wouldn't think of eating anything I hadn't properly identified. Thank you.

I don’t think I’ve ever managed to id with certainty any fungi that have appeared with compost. Whereas I did id (and eat) fungus from my woodpile

@MereDintofPandiculation best left to the experts methinks!

I’m pretty clued up on fungi/mushrooms but would advice people not to eat anything unless they are 100% sure on its ID. Since using peat free compost I have had a lot of fungi popping up but none edible. I am growing my own oyster mushrooms at the moment and plan on growing more if these are successful.

How do I know when my gooseberries are ready to harvest? I have a good crop for the first time, most are still green and pretty firm, a few are turning pink/red. I’m unsure when to pick.

My broad beans seem to be really short, I have one that’s grown a lot taller than the others which seems odd, all are in flower, I wonder why only one has grown tall?

I planted more beetroot and lettuce yesterday along with some last minute kohlrabi (not sure where I will put them), my first lot of beetroot are almost ready to pull.

@StyleDesperation ooooh I thought I was too late sowing sweetcorn!! I bought some small plants from the garden centre last weekend to make up for it! Have you sown directly outdoors or into trays?

Lovely pictures all. @tizwozliz how do you already have a tomato ?! One of my tomatoes snapped right down the main stem today. Near the base. Seems like a cat jumped on to it from the fence nearby, last year they damaged them so many times but usually it was a superficial break. This time it's quite substantial. I've sealed it and cello-taped it together. I hope it heals its very very wilted.

I dug up a few potatoes today just so they would sort overshading my beetroot and garlic. They're a small/medium size. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll take out the remaining plants and they'll be a good size.

First two courgettes almost ready, strawberries ripening nicely. Lots and lots of leaves on the squash and pumpkins but no fruit as of yet.

Garlic still very miserable and aubergine plant is ginormous compared to a few weeks ago. First fruit showing on it too. Lovely time of year ☺️

Strangely no bees in my garden this year, normally it would be covered in them but they've just disappeared. The lavender is out, the lilies have flowered, roses, jasmine etc. But nothing.

@Lovemusic33 I pick my green gooseberries once they have some give to them, if they are solid and unsquishable they aren't ripe. For the red ones, I mostly go by the colour change. Mine are varieties which are just sweet enough to eat raw so the DC tend to 'test' plenty of them for me anyway though.

I'm pretty annoyed, I bought blueberries last year and carefully bought ericaceous compost to pot them on into bigger pots). They have been starting to look less happy, one isn't growing very well and all are starting to show yellowing of the newest leaves suggesting iron deficiency. I've now tested the soil and the ericaceous compost isn't actually acidic, the pH is neutral :( . Reviews online confirm this is a general problem with this particular ericaceous compost, but we didn't think to check reviews when buying something as basic as compost from a national chain!

@StyleDesperation I bought a book by Chloe Ward called How to Prune an Apple tree that helped a lot with working out what to do in theory. I still struggle when confronted with the complexity of a sizeable older tree versus the simplicity of the pictures though, so I'll check if the library has the Ben Pike one, thanks for the recommendation.

Well, spent an hour at the plot this morning, I have been using alpine strawberries as ground cover (they are great at suppressing weeds and lift out really easily when you need the space) and cleared a square metre or so of those. I have to say this is (so far) looking like a really good year, I am far more on top of planting out and weeding than usual, everything I have planted out has survived, I have lots of self-seeded flowers popping up and I’m really happy. I often spend half of June frantically trying to find time to clear couch grass and plant things out. The reason I have got on top of things this year is that my DCs are doing A levels and GCSEs so I am spending far less time in the evenings taxiing them about compared to usual.

At home I found a pack of cucumber seeds last week, so I sowed them in a windowsill incubator at the weekend, they have grown into healthy looking sprouts already so I potted them on into the greenhouse tonight, hope to get them out into the newly cleared of strawberries patch in a couple of weeks.

Talking of strawberries, those are doing really well too after a couple of years where I moved them and they didn’t settle in time to fruit properly and had my first raspberry yesterday (they are a golden variety)

Hello,
This is the first time I've written on this thread. I'm an avid reader though and really appreciate the posts I read. Thanks to everyone who contributes to this thread.

I'm wondering if anyone can help me with a problem of tiny black beetles and whitefly that are steadily eating through the leaves on my aubergine, cauliflower and cabbage plants ? In my garden, I do have ladybirds that eat greenfly, but they don't seem to making much difference with these other plants and I'm steadily losing them to the insect feast.😞

Another gardener has advised me to use a bio-friendly insecticide and during the treatment to cover the plants with fine netting. Can I ask for opinions please ? Also, if anyone thinks this is a good idea, to protect the ladybirds, how long after treatment would you leave the netting up ?

Thanks !