The Vegetable Patch 2024/2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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

@daisychain01
Hi, I don’t have a greenhouse. My pots are all on the patio.
I’ve already removed most of the leaves but it’s the main stem which is affected.

Enjoying picking bits for dinner from the allotment!
Carrots have gone a bit off-piste.
There were raspberries too but friends kids have just eaten them

Mildew is often the result of being too dry at the roots. So difficult to prevent in pots. That said, different things have different susceptibilities. My courgettes in pots always get mildew eventually, whereas cucumbers are usually free. And in the soil perennial cornflowers always end up with mildew.

I harvested some squash because the slugs were chewing through the stems. Some stems were not chewed, but the squash were further along the same vine as ones that were so had to be harvested as well (but I could give them longer tops so they might keep longer). Burgess Buttercup, Red Kuri, and Victor.

Our most precious harvest of the year today! Not enough to start our own vineyard and winery but almost half a dinner plate!! We are south coast, south facing - so the vine does fine outside.

Picked the last of the eaters from the tree today as well...any not big enough or good enough to have as straight eaters will be dried into apple rings or made into compote with other fruits.

That's a lovely collection of squash @DougAndTheSlugs . I have managed to grow my first and only pumpkin after many tries this year... so I am disproportionately both proud and over protective of it!😂

Beautiful pumpkin, Pebble

My lamb's lettuce (in a trough) has gone all mildewy 😥

This is peak squash season! Lovely pumpkin there @Pebble21uk and your beautiful array of squashes 👍 @DougAndTheSlugs

I noticed that a small field local to me hasn't had pumpkins growing in there like they normally do. They are normally out there selling them in time for Halloween but no sign of them this year. I wonder if the growing conditions were just too challenging for them.

Love Burgess Buttercup! We’ve got a couple which are slow growing and now I wonder if stems have been cut through!!

daisy I noticed that a small field local to me hasn't had pumpkins growing in there like they normally do. They are normally out there selling them in time for Halloween but no sign of them this year. I wonder if the growing conditions were just too challenging for them.

It was a very challenging spring and I was running flats of seedlings from the greenhouse and back to the house each day for weeks. Very tiresome. I think I am not going to start them quite so early next year 😅

Maggiethecat we had Burgess Buttercup curry last night-- very, very good. I haven't grown them or tasted them before but they were everything I had hoped.

I have 25 Thelma Sanders squash coming along on two plants. If they all ripen... well, I'd better like the taste!

My North Georgia Candy Roasters have started climbing trees!

nice

reminds me of the time when neighbours 2 doors down asked up to pick our large (american yellow) pumpkin which ended up at 2m height in their hedge.

The rain has softened the ground nicely so the weeding was easy today. Lots of raspberries, a single strawberry (although quite a few unripe and in flower in the bed!), courgettes, apples and leeks. A lot of the raspberries are going to waste/the birds as the window for picking these ones isn't very long, they seem to go from not ready to over ripe in a few days.

BB is excellent for flavour and texture. We also have Anna Swartz which is similar to BB but possibly even nicer. Really hope we’ll get something of a decent size before the end of season!

Fingers crossed for your Thelmas and that you’ll like them!

I let my runner beans climb a tree one year. Good crop, but I needed a ladder to pick it.

Is anyone an expert in Perpetual Spinach? I have been growing it since the spring and it has been giving us a good crop. I just use as needed. A lot of the plants are starting to go to seed now though and I have chopped off their heads and they have re-sprouted, but the stems are getting very thick and woody now. Not sure if I should start again or let them keep on growing? Thanks!

Chop out flowering stems low down and others will take their place.

Not Perpetual Spinach, but Chard and Tree Spinach - once they get to the woody stage, I remove all the big leaves for cooking and all the tiny leaves for salad, and add the rest to the compost heap. I sow replacements in late summer, so they’re not big enough to crop yet, so I do have a gap.

9 degrees this morning. Debating whether to pick the remaining tomatoes and try and ripen them inside or to leave them on the vines for a bit longer.

I have definitely left my tomatoes down to frost temperatures in previous years and they have been fine and gave an extra few weeks ripening. But also from green they generally ripen indoors also if needed

Just checked the forecast and it looks like 19 and sunny most of next week so I'll leave them for now

9 degrees has been happening regularly since May here! (Yorkshire).

1 degree overnight, had to scrape the car this morning