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

French beans appearing very sporadically so going straight in the freezer one at a time.

This seems so obvious now but I've never thought to do it. Just got frustrated waiting for a meals worth! Thanks for the lightbulb moment @tizwozliz

They also keep well in the fridge, in a lidded box so they don’t lose moisture

Thanks @MereDintofPandiculation and what would you say is the best way to keep courgettes? Mine seem to go limp quick in the fridge.

I pick mine quite large (supermarket size) and leave them out on the work surface. They’ll keep several days at least.

I keep courgettes in the fridge, easily last 2 weeks.
If a glut, I roast with onions, tomatoes and whatever other veg I have spare, add passata and use as base for vegetarian lasagne. This base freezes well so I will used when the fresh ones have run out

Courgettes, you can't just keep eating them when they are producing so I just don't harvest for 2-3 days, then get them all, everything above little finger size, clean and slice and salt overnight. Then make bread and butter pickle [you just need apple cider vinegar and turmeric]. It give you a break from eating them every day and gives them a few days to let them grow back before you have to think about them again.

I have also startedcleaning, slicing and cooking them in the air fryer for 15 mins, and then freezing. For winter soups etc.

@AlisonDonut - could you give me the recipe/method please?

I've stopped looking at my courgette plants 🤢. I have made some very nice courgette and ginger jam though.

Just heat up vinegar until boiling with some turmeric, turn off @and leave to cool. Drain the courgettes after the salt has extracted as much liquid as it can, squeeze it of the excess liquid and pop into the vinegar. Then once it is all in the vinegar, you can transfer to sterilised jars, squish it down and pack it down and make sure it has vinegar over the top and no air in the jar and pop a lid on it.

It is basically bread and butter pickles I do it with courgettes, onions, cucumbers, peppers, beans - anything that I don't want to freeze. Tomatoes don't work unfortunately.

I'll give that a go - thank you!

In the last month of winter here in Melbourne, and unseasonably warm. A winter of trialling Asian greens tells me that I do not like shungiku (chop suey greens) at all. The celtuce was affronted by the very cold first month of winter and has been slow to take off so not tried that yet. Pak Choi not bad, but I see from driving past the market garden fields that it's grown on top of furrows, so mounded, and will try that. It needs two rows to pay its way. Gai choy (mustard greens) continues to pop up all over the back yard, like the flat-leaf parsley, and is very good, very versatile.

I patiently pulled out all the rocket (hollow laugh) and planted a broad-leaved variety which is doing very well. I grew bored of picking tonnes of the stuff to strip back very thin leaves, though echtdog loves eating the flowers. Rainbow chard doing well, and will undoubtedly bolt when I go the UK later this year.
Everything is slower this winter the broad beans and snow peas, too.

Indoors in the kitchen I've started three kinds of tomato seeds: kumato; a cherry truss which is amazingly prolific but planted too late last year to ripen, and Doncaster, a peerless soil-grown commercial plant which resemble the tomatoes of yesteryear. They've just stared to sprout.

Courgette and orange cake. It’s just like a carrot cake. Freezes well also. So if you or children take lunches make triple batch of muffins or traybake/loaf and slice, then freeze until needed. I Add cream cheese frosting fresh if taking out for people visiting

Anyone got blossom end rot on their tomatoes? These were the plants I nurtured after a frost got into greenhouse one morning and nearly killed them all too! We’ve not had rain here in the south since 18th June except a sprinkle twice and I mean not even enough to turn windscreen wipers on for 2 minutes ! , I think the permanent heat and lack of water got to them, watering at the lot every night for nearly 2 months but just can’t keep pace with evaporation.
I’ve even got tennis elbow now from carrying watering cans every day.😮

@DobbleDobble - it is mainly caused by calcium deficiency in the soil, so you could possibly remedy using a tomato fertiliser with calcium in it.

Yeah they say in heat , they can lack calcium so can use powered milk in water too! creates curly cucumbers too🤣
anyone having same issue?

I had blossom end rot on a few tomatoes but it didn't spread to the whole plant or other plants. I just picked the affected tomatoes off.

I read that it's primarily caused by erratic watering and the plants roots drying out so they can't transport the calcium in the soil to the plant.

I’ve looked around the neighbouring plots, some have too.
I think being in raised beds hasn’t helped , ones in the ground are much better , I can only assume the water is evaporating in the raised beds so quickly , so not retaining the calcium .
mind you, I don’t like tomatoes on their own anyway, fine in sauces etc so was growing them for others 😂
butternut squash doing well and the corn, have had fun reading about the courgette gluts here and the imaginative uses for them in cakes and pickles etc

We've had courgette fritters for lunch today. Some of my plants suffered a bit in the heat so we've got a nice steady flow rather than an over supply at the moment.

How's everyone doing?

Picked first sungold tomatoes this evening. These were sown really late so pleased to have ripe tomatoes already.

I've struggled to keep up with watering requirements so other things have not done so well. Courgette plants are ok and still flowering but some baby courgettes didn't make it through the heat. Really disappointed with my french beans this year. Plants look ok, but don't seem to be getting any beans

I'm drowning in tomatoes. And beans. And tomatillos. And achocha. And I have green peppers just starting to turn red.

What a season.

Sowed carrots and spring onions this evening. Bitten to buggery though.

Bitten to buggery though.

I went to the allotment yesterday. Got stung by nettles, bit by ants and then to top it off stung by a bee (nearby hive) and had to hide in the shed for ten minutes because it continued to dive bomb me. Gawd knows what I looked like flailing my arms and running for cover!

On the plus side I now know I'm not allergic to bees 😂

My tomatoes are starting to arrive, which is great, and the aubergines are also looking good. Courgette plants appear to be dying after a good start, and I don't know why!

My peas/beans are a total disaster, the birds are eating them before they get to be any size and I'm really frustrated. The squash is not thriving either, I think the heat has damaged it and it's just limping along not growing but not dying either. It's not been a great vegetable year for me!

Ouch @PoseyFlump 😢

We have moved and now have a smallish garden but with lots of potential and a lovely old apple tree full of cooking apples, probably a Bramley. We haven’t built the chicken run yet so they are out and about and I hope will start getting rid of all the scrubby stuff on the floor, composting down the dried leaves and fertilising bits of it.

I am on the the allotment waiting list but will be a couple of years and really I would like to make the garden as productive as possible. Vertical growing will be the key I think .

Sounds exciting @Volterra . Make sure to protect those hens against foxes.