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

Squash plants generally ripen and die off before the first frost but not always. I've taken all my winter squash off now, and put into the polytunnel. Including some Trombas that I let ripen in the sun after letting them get quite large. I've probably got 8 Spaghetti Squash, two small pumpkins and 4 Trombas. That will do me til Easter easily.

When I lived in Derbyshire I used to take the tomatoes out one by one as they stopped being reasinably able to produce fruit that would ripen. I've harvested late developers though on Christmas Eve before in an unheated greenhouse and eaten them that evening.

So I wouldn't go full throttle on pulling everything up just because, take your time about it and see what develops. I'm in a completely new country and did a late sowing to see what would grow after the potatoes were out and I've already been pleasantly surprised at the courgettes, cucumbers, beans, beets that have all grown and been harvestable and I've still got 4-6 weeks of growing time. That's the thing with frost, you cannot predict it and it often pays to hedge those bets.

I'm now planting up the polytunnel with onion sets, leeks I sowed months ago, lettuces and spinaches and I'm putting these in, where the finished tomatoes come out. I'm leaving cherry tomatoes in, to see how long they will last before the plants go mouldy. There were still courgettes and tomatoes growing when we bought the house and I harvested the last courgettes and tomatoes from the previous owners on 3rd November and that's without a polytunnel at all. Next year I think I'll sow some late courgettes and move them into the polytunnel to try and keep them going until later in the year. I try and experiment on pushing the envelope of the seasons each year in different ways.

Thanks, Alison highly informative, as always! I don’t have a poly tunnel but am wondering about creating some sort of cover for the squash. There have been flowers only, no actual veg yet. Hmm.

Yes was thinking same about just letting it all grow on a bit longer. I want to tend to some greens at some stage. My collards had a few bugs eating them, caterpillars, I think.

Will have another think about the tomatoes…

If you haven't got squash yet, it is unlikely they will fruit and mature before the frost now I'd say. i thought you had fruit on it.

Spent the morning digging up plants, deweeding and covering my beds overwinter. Can't believe I'm so organised this time (although I think it's nesting as I'm due in 8 weeks and cannot imagine doing it any heavier 😅).

I have so many tomatoes and green chillies which were still going strong.

I've started on a new area.

We have an area behind my shed/office/music room which is raised and I suspect made up of the soil they removed for the shed base and it looks like the previous owners just chucked any old plants in. But you can't see it ever because it is behind the shed! Also the soil gets baked in the heat in the summer so hardly anything grows properly.

So we've decided to clear it and use it for the compost area. Clearing it now means I can put the 2 large compost bins there, I can put the builders bag which will be full of leaves for leaf mould there, I can also move all my tumblers there and it clears the space for my actual veg beds which I now know where they are going. I've dug up some irises which didn't flower this year, and which were almost one block of root, and some geraniums, and some of the grasses and I've started on the crocosmia bulbs which again, some were strung together so hadn't been moved in years. I'll dig out persicaria which the OH likes [I can live without it but it's already there so may as well], and some daffs and tulips and then I can start moving stuff there. Which is likely to be tomorrow.

Aldi have some gardening stuff in, including protective fleece, in the middle aisle.

Finally planted out my spring cabbages, autumn fennel plants, elephant and regular garlic and have mulched over those beds with a good layer of compost. It feels good to be ahead for once! I still need to find some space for my winter salads and herbs, I may stuff these in between the garlic in the growhouse and they can crop till April when the garlic gets big and the outdoor salads are cropping. We were hit with allium leaf miner this year and lost a lot of onions and garlic plants. Has anyone got any natural preventatives apart from covering with mesh? And should I be covering the currently buried cloves?
I've been growing exploding cucumbers - a relative of the achoca- for the last 2 years but wont bother next year. The fallen seeds are surprisingly hardy and spring up like weeds in April. They are great for the novelty factor but they dont taste particularly amazing and unless you pick them small or exploded, the seeds are quite scratchy if you eat them whole once cooked!

There is no way of growing alliums without covering from the moment the foliage shows if you have allium leaf miner, sorry.

Leeks need to be covered from the moment they are planted, ditto overwintering onions and onion seedlings. They will rip them to shreds unfortunately. When I got it about 10 years ago I tried everything and just gave up as they live in the soil and compost.

After years when I redid the whole allotment I bought in fresh topsoil and could net seperate beds so restarted growing them. I didn't even take the nets off to weed, I just slid my hand under to pull what I could get hold of.

One year my neighbour pulled all his, and I pulled all mine [100% clean] and I hung mine in the polytunnel, and his were all chucked straight in the compost bin as his were unsaveable.

The very next week I was sitting in the polytunnel and looked up and noticed a disturbance in my lovely clean onions and in one week, they had got to them, laid eggs, which had hatched and were eating them from the roots up. So I had to process the whole lot, I lost half the volume of the crop as I cut out all the bad bits and cooked the rest and froze it. All the bad bits went into the municipal compost bin to try and get rid as they use hot composting and hopefully that should kill them off.

So you have to be diligent I am afraid. I bought a job lot of fine mesh on amazon when I redid my allotment and I cut it to fit each of my pallet collar beds and bought blue pipe to keep it up. It is the only way to get clean onions, and you must make sure you don't grow ornamental onions where they can overwinter, and you must move the crop around the plot and leave each area after alluims without alliums for about 3-4 years to allow time for them to either die or go elsewhere. They are really destructive.

London here & hanging on to the growing season! A couple if courgettes still growing, & am taking the tomatoes off the plants when they show a bit of colour to allow the green ones to ripen a bit more on the plants- hoping to keep those going another couple of weeks/move some of the plants into my porch

Aubergines have been my surprise success this year : 2 really productive plants. Have been told they can be overwintered so planning to bring them inside (maybe in a week or two as still seems quite mild) and try to keep alive in my unheated porch

@AlisonDonut oh bollocks! I'll be on it then. I've got mesh ready. I've just taken over a new patch too so will plant next years alliums there and cover. Its a pity they get rust otherwise I could grow them in my garden between other ornamentals. They're a bit ugly once they flop and go orange arent they.

Hi All - probably last weekend but 1 in the garden this year! Planted out a few more seedlings (cauliflower & kale), and planted spinach seeds in pots which had previously had lettuce/bok choi in them so 🤞🏼 that will come up

I also moved my pepper & cherry tomato plants inside so they can finish ripening, & need to find a spot for 2 aubergine plants too - I’d like to keep the aubergines plants alive over winter if I can

Some of the tomatoes outside still have fruit: I’m picking them as they get a tiny bit of colour & ripen indoors. I think weekend after next I will declare it the end for tomato plants & pick anything left/compost the plants . will then replant the pots with kale (large pots) & spring bulbs (small) so I can switch the same pots over to tomatoes again next year

Its not yet cold in London so garden has definitely put on an end of summer surge (including a couple of strawberry flowers/berries, doubt these will ripen though). My enthusiasm is definitely reducing as the temperatures drop :)

Weather has been glorious here, tomatoes still ripening on the vine. Courgette plants came out yesterday, plenty of set fruit but they were rotting (and reeking). I thought I'd done well this year and not missed any and then found a monster that I don't know how I'd not seen!

Yesterday I planted out some herbs and spinach for salads inside the growhouse in between the garlic. I've got some fennel seedlings growing to fill any gaps the slugs create. If I plant them undercover apparently they bulb up late winter so we'll see...
Still picking the last few tomatoes and keeping a close eye on squashes for slug damage. This year I have harvested bunches of herbs and hung them from vintage nails from the ceiling in the kitchen. Its also a good place to hang trusses of ripening tomatoes. It looks like something from the middle ages 😄

Love the courgette monster @tizwozliz. Mine were so poor this year. Self pollinating ones for sure next year!

That looks amazing @TerfranosaurusVagina. My son would be in awe (he's very into Peter rabbit right now and Mrs rabbit always had some hanging herbs and garlic!)

@greenerfingers haha I do have chamomile tea but its in a glass jar, not hanging from the ceiling. 🐰one tablespoon to be taken at bedtime

Managed enough half decent apples off the tree to make a crumble. Only the second year since we planted it so it's still getting established.

@tizwozliz What sort are they?

It's a paradice gold. They're dessert apples but not really in good enough shape for eating/storing this year.

I don’t know that one, I see it’s a new variety. It’s a pretty thing

It's been a good year for chillis

Those look lovely @tizwozliz! Here are some of my pepper babies - this is chorbadzhiyski, a Bulgarian variety, delicious roasted. I also grew sweet banana, ring of fire, and ribki (little fish in Bulgarian). My friends bring me seed packets from their holidays, I love growing new things! Padrón had a terrible germination rate and the remaining survivors died - the packet was a few years old.
I'm going to experiment and see if they'll overwinter outside.

The tomatillos waited until mid September to get fertilised and the fruits are finally reaching adult ish size - they better hurry up!

I had lots of male flowers at first on my BNS. Finally fruit appeared and they are currently about the size of a large pear and time has ran out, the leaves are all brown and the plants are dying.

My red kuri right next to the BNS did fine. Anyone else see an abundance of male flowers only?

I went to the allotment today to pick the last trusses of tomatoes before the 1st frosts. I can't believe how well the beefsteaks have done. The yellow brandywine variety is amazingly sweet.
All of my squash and courgette plants have died off, apart from the patty pan squash which after a very slow start has just gone bonkers. The plant is green and healthy and is still flowering and setting young fruit. I was considering yanking it out in July because it hadn't done anything!
@PoseyFlump BNS is notorious for not ripening in our British summers. They need much longer than we can give them mostly. Is it male flowers only or have the female ones just rotted away? They do this if they haven't been fertilised or the plant decides they wont ripen in time.

@CuriousEats the BNS plants only had male flowers while my red kuri were setting fruit. By the time the BNS set fruit we were already at the end of summer. Such a shame because the young fruit looks viable, just ran out of time! I might try sowing seeds much earlier next year indoors to give them a real head start. Another thing to find room for 🙈

Butternut is incredibly hard in the UK just because the growing season doesn't really suit it. It's like melons, so many nearly ripen but they just don't make it.

I gave up on them years ago. I might restart now I'm in France as I got melons this year so am revising my cucurbit strategy.