The Vegetable Patch Mark 2

[MereDintofPandiculation]

A continuation of the thread for those of us growing edibles, to share triumphs and failures, swap expertise and solve problems

a great harvest titz

how does it compare with other years?

I am still harvesting tomatos. the yellow pearshape turned out very tasty and vigorous. will definitely grow that again next year.

It's the first year of the allotment so nothing to compare to really. At home, our tomatoes didn't do so well as last year, not warm enough I expect. French beans did amazingly well.

We had a wet summer, so the runners did well. I find the runners do better in a wet year, and the French in a dry year.

Need to start thinking about where to plant things next year. Want to get some garlic in the ground now so need to have some sort of plan to know where to put it.

Not been here much since I lost September to being ill and then my mum came and then my OH went back to the UK for a week and then it rained. And rained. Alot of rain.

So I've been concentrating on getting my new raised beds in, and picking and preserving figs, and taking the tomatoes out as they exhaust themselves, and sieving compost for topping up the polytunnel and planting onion sets, and then when it was raining hard sowing fresh winter and spring veg, and then when the rain stopped raking up leaves, and digging out trees that we don't want [mainly an old christmas tree and holly that the previous owners put in], and starting the winter pruning of dead wood. And moving water from the collection butts to the storage butts. And planting trees and shrubs that we've moved and bought over the past few weeks.

I've got a bag of oranges I bought to eat but they are too tart so I've got a quince from the supermarket today and I'm going to use both with some of the frozen peaches to make a quince, orange and peach jam later today.

We are still eating well from the garden, I'm harvesting leeks, carrots, beets, kale, peppers, coriander, aubergines, the odd courgette and a range of salady leaves every day. And my winter veg is coming on nicely, so brussels, cabbages, kales, more leeks etc that are all in the ground and sowing rows of carrots which will come up as and when they want to every few days .

And still got strawberries ripening. I've moved what I could into the polytunnel to carry on growing hopefully out of the rain. They get destroyed by the rain splashing mud up and onto the fruits which makes them pitted and not edible.

And I got 76 garlics in.

We are still eating well from the garden, I'm harvesting leeks, carrots, beets, kale, peppers, coriander, aubergines, the odd courgette and a range of salady leaves every day. This is where we notice the effects of being in Yorkshire rather than the SE. No frosts yet, so things are still green, but they’ve stopped flowering. The late August sowing of winter lettuces are sitting there not doing much, and courgettes are just sulking. There’s still some late Cornish Aromatics on the tree, and a few quinces and medlars, but otherwise the harvest is over.

At the moment we've still got rocker, swedes, turnips, kale, cabbages, caulis and carrots coming on. My winter lettuces are tucked in the greenhouse so I'm hoping they'll be ok. I can't decide whether to try overwintering peas or not.

My late summer planted potatoes are all ready for digging up now which is nice as we've just come to the end of the maincrops which I'd lifted and stored in August.

And, having used them as decorations, my squash and pumpkins are about to go down to the cellar for eating/storing.

I can't decide whether to try overwintering peas or not. I've tried autumn sowing broad beans, and they did come on well and flower earlier than spring sown ones - problem was, no insects, so the set was very poor.

Maybe as the packets are always more than I need I can try a few and see. Might try some broad beans then too. Do I sow and plant out or keep them under cover until late winter/early spring?

I kept mine under cover

@tizwozliz - think garlic is good for overwintering but is it not too wet at the moment? Planning to plant some hard necks but fear risk of rot with all the rain.

Having a not very good summer in Melbourne. LOTS of rain, overcast but warm. A good indicator of the rubbish summer is nasturtiums and parsley are still growing freely, when they should have been frazzled to oblivion by the sun by now. The weeds are making comeback too.

My tomatoes are fruiting very late and have been bedevilled by slow ripening, then the depredations of rats. Each plant is immense so hard to net so I've hit on this, using little faux organza bags such you find in discount stores in Australia, to net each one. Really easy to use and can be kept for next year.

It's working so far so I'm off to buy some more.

Green and flat beans are doing well, cucumbers a bit slow.

Well. The bags work well on small toms but the moment they hit the side the ratty bastards can get purchase and chow down. Gits.

I've changed up to the poo bags the council supplies.

Ok back in the veg patch this week after 3 full months of relentless rain then a fortnight of frozen ground.

I've placed most of my new raised beds, just last few to position and 4 cardboard paths to put down, and cover with woodland sources woodchip and leaves.

I have to put the irrigation system in before I have finished them all off and link it all up to the well and the polytunnel. The aim is to have it on a timer, for 8pm, so that when the summer really kicks in, it will automatically water after our summer water ban [which usually extends 8am to 8pm every day for months on end] comes into play. And it means I can go away for 6 days in the summer.

In the meantime, I've sowed peppers, beetroots, celery, celeriac, and stem lettuce/celtuce which came up in a week so I've priced that out and put into small pots.

I've also sowed my first batch of mangetout.

I've got compost everywhere, leaf mould - wormery compost - home made compost etc, which I had to abandon sorting out in October due to the relentless rain. So I'll be back on that in due course. So I need to dry it out, sieve it, stash it for potting on and put the stuff retained in the sieve in a new pile to carry on breaking down.

I'll be starting tomatoes in around 3 weeks I reckon. Just a few early bush tomatoes which can be kept indoors and put into the polytunnel in their pots for an earlier harvest. Last year, my first tomato plant to harvest was also my last - Red Alert - it just went on and on and on. So I'll be hoping to do that again this year.

Goodness! I’m nowhere near sowing! Nothing in the greenhouse is growing and outside the chard is still dormant. I might try broad beans next month, but if they flower too early they don’t get pollinated.

I think I started sowing March/April last year and things were hanging around waiting to go in the ground.

Wish I had a polytunnel.

I have aubergine seeds planted and on a warm window sill. I usually put a hot water bottle underneath them each day but disappointed that nothing is showing 2 weeks in.

Gosh that sounds like quite a war against the rats @echt!

I won't start anything off until at least March. Need to make a plan of the allotment and decide on what's going where. Hoping for some dryish weather so can get some bits cleared and get some woodchip down on the paths etc.

I have a holiday booked in the 2nd week of March so all seeds have to wait until afterwards this year - it's going to be a trial to see if they do better/worse than usual, for the waiting.

Seems quiet on here but wanted some advice regarding raspberry canes. The plot next to mine had a huge amount of raspberries last year, I’m guessing they planted them a few years ago to get such a huge yield? So I have decided to plant some canes along one side of my plot along with a couple blackberry plants. I have put the blackberries in today. I ordered 5 long canes as they state ‘will fruit this year’ rather than the short canes, but I’m now looking at next doors raspberries and they must have 100+ canes, 5 probably isn’t going to cover the space I have (at least 10ft)? How close together do I plant them? Should I be buying more? Or maybe I should plant some autumn fruiting raspberries next to the summer fruiting?

Just starting to turn over the soil on my plot and remove the dreaded couch grass and bind weed roots 😡. Bought myself a hoe/cultivator today which is helping a little. The person the had the plot before me just rotovated it each year but I feel this has just spread the weeds/grass and resulted in them popping up Raven faster? So I’ve been pulling a lot of roots out in hope I don’t get loads of weeds in spring.

The raspberries will multiply. Starting with a cane every 2 feet sounds fine.

Lovemusic. Ref weeds you could lay thick brown cardboard down, with manure or compost on if you have any. this will weaken the weeds. you can plant through the board.

Raspberries are like triffids on our site. Dont plant near anything else that is permanent as it makes it harder to weed them out (why did i put next to asparagus?). Dont put summer and autumn raspberries near each other as they will mix as they grow and you wont know how to prune them.

Raspberries spread by underground runners and make big clumps. Blackberries and their hybrids spread by sending out long branches which arch to the ground and root at their tips. But you will be training them along something and not letting the tips get to the ground. So you need to buy as many blackberries as you want, but a lot fewer raspberries than you want.

Thank you. I will stick to the 5 canes I have coming and the 2 blackberry plants (which I will be training along wire). I have a few raspberry plants on my other plot that I planted last year but I think they are autumn fruiting.

Hi fellow vegetable gardeners! I was just wondering whether anyone has any recommendations regarding compost for planting seeds? I planted my onion and leek seeds last week using some leftover compost from last year, but I’d forgotten how rubbish it was. Like dust with a load of stones and twiggy bits in it! I ended up mixing it with some multipurpose compost that actually looked like compost.

So, what do you all use? Do you bother with seed compost at all, or just use multipurpose? Is the dismal compost quality because all the companies are moving to peat-free versions and that’s just the way it is now?