The Vegetable Patch 2024/2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Come and share your triumphs and failures in your vegetable plot or allotment.

@Brieandbeetroot thanks for nematode tip. I've just ordered some to try in autumn as my apples have been getting worse and worse each year.

Very very bad day in the veg garden.

I was titivating the squash in the bed that is beside an arch, with the squash happily growing all around the bed and up and over the arch.

But it is getting later in the season and there are a lot of off shoots that need cutting back. Also one trying to get up the arch but not being very healthy unlike the leader that is right up and over the arch, with big beautiful squashes growing at the top.

So I followed the weedy bit back to the main stem and cut it and yes, I cut the wrong one. Gak.

I cannot describe how I feel, people.

@DougAndTheSlugs i feel your pain. My squash too has taken over the allotment. I was putting slabs under the squashes so they didnt rot and for the second year running (why dont i learn?) i put my nail through one. That is going to rot isnt it?

Oh, I’ve done that so often when pruning. I’ve a pretty good idea how you’re feeling

The sad event did lead to a exchange of messages with DDs that did allow me to smile, though

'He has his full parties support' 🤣🤣 Love it.
@DougAndTheSlugs Dare I ask of the chicken is topiary or a real one? (Hoping it's the former)

@Brieandbeetroot I’m managing both fine. DH has little input or interest just haul him for heavy lifting. I habe done much what you said and keep the salad and strawberry type crops at home and easy care are at the allotment. I did plant potatoes at home just weeks before been given the allotment so they are taking much needed space this year but they will be at the allotment next year.

The chicken is real. Doing fine, apparently, hardly skipped a beat. We have a saying in our family about chickens-- they are either happy or dead.

This one is happy!

Decided that I'm going to sort out the herb area, it's mostly all in pots, but also mostly dead! So I'm going to make a proper herb bed.

I picked up a Belfast sink free off fb marketplace and its currently got one half dead rosemary plant in it, so that's coming out and mint will go in its place. I'm getting a few pallet collars to make the bed, the rosemary will go in there, along with the chives and sage. Those 3 are currently not dead, and I'll have to buy a few new plants to replace the rest.

I though herbs would be easy, but even the mint is half dead!

Rosemary and sage are Mediterranean herbs, used to sunny well drained hillsides. So plenty of water, but not sitting in it. Mint prefers moister soil, so a more water retentive soil. Don’t know about chives, but they’re not from Mediterranean hillsides. Mine are at the base of a stone wall.

Rosemary makes a big bush, so will appreciate the deeper soil of the herb bec.

Still no courgettes!!

I have some set, but rather than do that thing of turning into marrows as soon as you turn your back they're on a go slow.

Still picking mange tout and sugar snap peas almost daily. Potatoes are being dug as and when, summer raspberries just about done, plenty of flowers on the autumn varieties. Warm weather has ripened up the blackberries this week.

Hoping to get some perpetual spinach sown and maybe some more beetroot in the spot that was occupied by potatoes.

An herb bed sounds lovely. Would you consider putting a lavender in there too for colour and fragrance?

I'm in Melbourne and mostly grow all year-round herbs in flower beds in both back and front garden rather than in the veggie patch: thyme, marjoram, sage, rosemary. The exception to this is the flat-leaf parsley which seeds freely all over the back yard so I only pull it out if it's a nuisance or creeping back into the veggie beds. Oh, and the mints - definitely in a container.

Basil and coriander, which need an eye kept on them for scorching sun- not that we've had that for a few years - are in the veggie bed.

Just checking back in again. My herbs are all in pots, as the only sunny part of the garden is a small spot next to the patio. I have 6 pots which usually have chives, rosemary, mint, marjoram, sage and thyme plus one other. The rosemary and chives just do their thing year after year. I have to replace mint and sage every year and thyme and marjoram every now and then. Then I have a bay tree in a pot on the back door step which is handy for picking and shelters it more from frost in winter. In summer I grow coriander, basil, flat leaf parsley from seed in the greenhouse and move them to the patio table for full sunlight. I have also grown marjoram this year as I acquired some seeds from a magazine, they are on the patio table at the moment for easy picking but will get moved to the permanent pots at some point.

I do have a half dead lavender,but that one is my fault! I forgot about it and covered it over with the loosely placed weed suppressant, thankfully not for long but it's slowly recovering. I intend to get more lavender as they're great for the bees.

I have some set, but rather than do that thing of turning into marrows as soon as you turn your back they're on a go slow. My courgettes are in an annoying phase of no male flowers, therefore no pollination.

At my last house I had a herb parterre in the front garden, with a central low rose and a couple of climbing roses up the house. I used to love weeding it - so many different scents. People we sold to put it all back to grass (and kept their tumble dryer - and nothing else - in the greenhouse)

Here my herbs are in the wall surrounding the terrace outside the kitchen, or in pots in the porch. One thing I’ve learned, herbs need to be near the kitchen door or they don’t get used, especially on rainy winter nights.

that's the courgette dilemma.
either you have a glut because you need 2 or more plants so that you always have male&female flowers or you have just the one...

I have courgettes but they are very slow. I have picked 4 small ones (because I didn't buy any expecting to be overrun).

I have lots of tiny pale hairy cucumbers and one mini dark green one.

I only have 3 raised beds and no greenhouse, but it's been very disappointing generally. My sweetcorn, beetroot, and mangetout didn't germinate. My salad leaves drowned while I was on holiday apart from the chard.

The fruit all did well apart from my blueberries. I'm still picking a few raspberries, lots of strawberries, and I'm still freezing and giving away rhubarb. It's a demon

Mines the opposite, blueberries have done well, but not a single raspberry or black currant this year.

The birds got all my blackcurrants i need a fruit cage. Everything is getting there but I'm still not at the point of harvesting anything. Think peas and beans will be starting next week though.

Last sunday I picked dwarf beans for lunch.
Much searching and accepting down to 5 inch beans and we had a meal.
OMG
Tonight I was watering the tower beans and there are nearly a hundred 8 inch ones
Amazing what a week of heat does.
Ditto the courgettes and tomatoes

Any good breakfast courgette recipes for next week !

I have 3 (because they’re in pots). All just producing females at the moment

I potted up more lettuce seedlings two days ago. They looked very miserable crowded in a seed tray, even more miserable after the disturbance of repotting. But now they’re all sitting up perkily and I have no doubt about them being ready to take over when the current lot have finished

I had a lettuce seedling revival this week as well, @MereDintofPandiculation - when you first pot them on and water them, their leaves lie flat against the compost and look really transparent and well, weedy! But in only 12 hours they are back in business and recover really quickly.

Currently producing tomato fell over about 6' up, so draped that over thyme bamboo cane structure supporting the beans as there are a lot of toms yet to ripen there. I used a handful tonight in dinner (salmon and tomato pasta in a white wine/cream sauce) and also have 2 jars of semi-dried ones preserved.

I have 4 more tomato plants that all have baby tomatoes coming but are still a couple of weeks away from ripening. Hopefully that will let me do some sauce or more semi-dried ones.

French beans are still coming on the dwarf plants but the climbers are not productive yet, although there are a few flowers now.

And my courgettes need hand pollinating but I've had 2 grow and I think I caught a 3rd today (the 2 flowers open at the right time), possibly another one tomorrow and lots of small ones starting. So fingers crossed.