The Vegetable Patch 2024/2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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

Looking good @tizwozliz

I am studiously ignoring my pain in the arse allotment neighbour, and he is ignoring me so at least that's nice and peaceful!

I am excited for the foxgloves that are literally about to flower. Otherwise, peas are doing well, potatoes are surviving, 2 out of 3 raspberry canes have survived (dunno what happened to the other one), leeks are in, some beetroot is growing. Beans are non-existant - germination has been rubbish this year! So I think I might have to buy some!

Obviously, the weeds are doing the best of all.

And we are slowly but surely getting rid of all the rotten wood and plastic. Pulled a large piece of carpet and some vinyl flooring out the other day!

Also picked first two strawberries, Ds ate them but said delicious.

spinach, salad and beetroots all ready to pick. Have plans for spinach and feta filo parcels with it this weekend.

Blueberry plants doing really well. Hundreds of green berries ready for ripening.

I have 30 low ground lemon thyme plants to plant tomorrow. Delivered a few days ago but it’s rained here since

Need to cut grass

DH is cutting the very brown grass as the garden bin goes early tomorrow and it's meant to rain overnight. I really hope so, even though it's carnival day here tomorrow. My veg and flower beds really need a good soaking.
We are off to Scotland on Monday and it's looking changeable at best

We’ve had a few strawberries and mangetout, kale and lettuce also coming along well for harvest.

carrots are sprouting, French beans and tomatoes look like they are gearing up to flower.

I have an annoying person on my allotment site too @WhoAteAllTheDinosaurs although fortunately he is several plots away from me. He latches onto newcomers, spends most of his time up there telling people what they should be doing in a loud booming voice, interferes with other people's plots (several of us have suffered this) and tried to annex an empty one next to me - I reported him to the council who warned him off. Meanwhile his plot is a complete eyesore, hardly cultivated and covered in junk. I started completely blanking him a couple of years ago which helps but still hate it when he's around.

Anyway lots of gooseberrys and redcurrants but expecting birds to get them all as they always do (bushes are too big to net properly, both came with the plot and I wouldn't have chosen them TBH. Too big to dig out too). Won't get many strawberries as I started afresh with new plants this year. Garlic, broad beans doing well, pumpkins, sunflowers and French beans planted outlast week, dwarf sunflowers, cucumbers, cucamelons, tomatoes and French marigolds still in the greenhouse. The tomatoes are still tiny, they need a proper growth spurt. I think I'll keep them in the greenhouse this year.

Biggest problems, as usual, are couch grass and bindweed. The minute I turn my back they pop up everywhere.

Doing a rain dance this morning in London. Still have some toms to plant out. Strawberries are producing, gooseberries, rhubarb, potatoes are looking good (and I inadvertently pulled up a clump and harvested marble sized potatoes).

Can I ask for advice about strawberry runners please? I want them to produce new plants but don’t quite understand how to do it - pin runner down into ground but leave the “leaf” bit exposed? Bury leaf bit? Pin down near leaf bit? Do/don’t cut off from parent plant before it’s rooted?

We had rain! Not as much as forecast but some at least. I haven't been outside yet to see what the ground is like yet.

Can I ask for advice about strawberry runners please? I want them to produce new plants but don’t quite understand how to do it - pin runner down into ground but leave the “leaf” bit exposed? Bury leaf bit? Pin down near leaf bit? Do/don’t cut off from parent plant before it’s rooted?

Yes, pin the runner down just on the surface leaving the leafy bit exposed, it will do the rest. Don't cut it off until it is well rooted. Mine have rooted on their own in the gravel path beside the bed so really they need very little help, just some guidance :)

I ended up pinning the runner ends to little plant pots by the mother plant. Then I could transplant the babies where I wanted when they were ready.

I have not been posting but only because I have been working so hard in the garden that when I get to MN of an evening I just melt and read. I'll try to make up for that a bit:

Autumn planted onions are looking great, pak choi and various lettuces ready, some sweet corn planted out others still in the greenhouse (poor germination originally, had to buy more seeds), beets and dwarf french beans out, runner beans, two types of courgette planted out today, leeks out and being rolled on by my silly cats, while celeriac is still bulking up in the greenhouse. Also in the greenhouse are tomatoes, cucumber, aubergine, red and yellow peppers, chillies, and a loofah. They will be potted up but stay in the greenhouse. I have started several types of squash, all still to be planted out. None of my uchiki kuri seeds germinated :( but I have several "mystery squash" that survived being composted and then spread on beds. They were coming up everywhere! Many sunflowers this year, some I sowed and some that came up from dropped seed from last year.

Many flowers to go out too to be dotted about on the edges of the veg beds.
Much mowing (home and allotment).
Much bindweed.
And watering, so much watering.

Ahhh! your'e the person with all the lovely pumpkins last year!

I have Burgess Buttercup, my favourite,waiting to go out. Feeling some misgiving about planting them out now with the expected rain and likely arrival of the slugs which massacred them last year.

Yes Maggiethecat I did grow many pumpkins and squash last year. And they were lovely-- we have been eating them all winter and just have some Thelmas left. I would have almost as many this year but my germination has been very spotty. Most of my varieties I seeded five each. To plant out now I have five huge and happy Crown Prince, three Sweet Dumplings, two Jack Be Little (one of them is not thriving), one Marina de Chioggia, no Victor and no Uchiki Kuri. Oh and I also started five loofah, and I have one great specimen and another that looks like it has been through the spin cycle.

I love the Burgess Buttercup too and planted it last year. Although it is hard to tell a lot of my mystery squash look like Crown Prince. I have dug up and potted about five of those. So it will still be a heavy squash year. .

My sweetcorn is a completely bust. Chillies coming along nicely and so was the chard till something decided all the red chard was very lovely to eat. Raspberries look like they will be a bumper crop this year, strawberries ripening. All the fruit trees are looking pretty full this year. Got a wasabi plant from the local garden centre we have planted out so that will be interesting.

Allotment drama is as always one particular chap banging his chest like King Kong so far his getting nowhere god help if he gets the reps position as he alway thinks his the big dick of site.

Hello, can I join in this year? I have an allotment in south London. No greenhouse and just a backyard at home. Coming in well are autumn planted broad beans( once I have jet washed the aphids off), spring planted onions, tomatoes ( all planted out 3 weeks ago) . Charlotte potatoes starting to flower. Courgettes are being very slow but gradually putting on growth. Beetroot, turnips also quite slow but getting there. Most disappointing is the sweetcorn. The plantlets get to a certain point, about 5cm then seem to rot. I don’t overwater so not sure why. I’m chitting another lot.

Good to hear you’re mostly having success.
I don’t know what it is but I get unusually excited about growing pumpkins. I’m super protective of the seedlings.

Just catching up on posts.

I feel like I’ve spent the last few months mainly up my allotment, trying to make it more manageable for the future but not sure if I have been successful. Trying to plant more perennial veg. Created an asparagus bed (8 out of 10 crowns have come up), a strawberry bed and adding to my fruit bushes.

I have 2 plots which is proving harder than I thought this year, I still have a small section covered that I haven’t dug over yet, I may just plant this with squash.

I love growing squash too but I’m not as keen on eating them. I have struggled to germinate squash and beans this year but I do now have 2 butternut squash, 2 zombie pumpkin and 3 courgette plants, my butternut squash are still tiny.

Potatoes and onions are doing well and will be ready in a few weeks, I’m going to replace them with purple sprouting broccoli and leeks.

Fails so far seem to be mangetout (just not thriving) and Chinese cabbage and pac Choi which have been attacked by leaf beetles.

Runner beans and French beans are in and doing ok.

Cabbages, sprouts and Romanesco planted and doing really well.

Weeds also doing well 😬

Lovemusic82 I love growing squash too but I’m not as keen on eating them. I have struggled to germinate squash and beans this year but I do now have 2 butternut squash, 2 zombie pumpkin and 3 courgette plants, my butternut squash are still tiny.

I wasn't keen on eating squash in the past, probably because I grew butternut ! and pumpkins for carving. What I tended to get was under ripe squash, and even when ripe (although much heralded as the best flavoured squash) were not all that impressive. When I started helping on the allotment I had many beds to fill so began reading up on squash varieties and the first year grew sweet dumplings and uchiki kuri. Eye Opening. The former are small enough to sit in your hand and can easily be cooked up as a dish for one or for two as a side dish (ie cut in half and baked with cheese or other toppings). The latter is perfect in curries, whether it is a veggie curry or not. Also very good baked with stuff. The uchiki is mid sized so you wouldn't have to plan carefully next week's meals before broaching one.

The crown prince IS the prince of squash but grows larger than the uchiki so plans must be made, or have a family nearby to share with.

I am quite sad that I will have no uchiki this year after multiple sowings, but I do have sweet dumplings. I grew zombie squash last year and used them for decoration, did not try to eat, so if you try them report back.

Maggiethecat I don’t know what it is but I get unusually excited about growing pumpkins. I’m super protective of the seedlings.

Me too. That meant last year with the miserable cold and wet I was very carefully taking my seedlings into the house every night and back out to the greenhouse in the morning, for ages. Until I could barely lift them!

That might have been my downfall this year. The warm nigh unto hot days tricked me. The seedlings stayed in the greenhouse, just with lids over top. I think it was just too cold.

I dehydrated a load of winter squash last year, I grate it, steam it then dry it. Its lovely in soup, hash browns and cheese muffins. The best varieties for drying were Hubbard and Crown Prince. Uchiki was OK dried but it lost its nutty flavour its better fresh imo.

The blackbirds and the cats have been digging over my beds after planting. I get big holes where the blackbirds have been rooting and big hills where the cats have been (unsuccessfully) burying poo. Ugh. So I have taken to netting the beds as soon as they are planted. They can't be netted forever of course but the little veg plants and the seeds sown need some protection from those beasts!

This has almost doubled the time it takes. And I will run out of netting soon. Nine beds in my garden, fourteen in the allotment! Not all need netting of course, three have over wintered onions, one is a flower bed, but sometimes the scale is fairly overwhelming.

Bit odd but - I had a huge quantity of sprouted onions from work. Planted them for lack of what to do with them. I assume I’ll get flowers at least, all being well? Good for the bees?

You can cook with onion seeds, and you can save some to grow on.

I picked up a uchiki kuri in the reduced section at the garden centre today. I also picked up some random gourds.

Plenty of currants on the bushes, I'm not sure whether I'll bother netting them or not. Also got some tiny courgettes set, I expect these first ones won't be fertilized and so won't develop.

Planted out two candy roasters, three crown prince, two sweet dumplings and a Jack Be Little.

Potted up my cucumbers and a luffa.

Saying that makes it sound like not a lot. But in order, for instance, to pot up my cucumbers I had to empty a large pot of perennials (so I could use the pot) but before that I had to clear some part of a bed so there was a home for the perennials so I could empty the pot...it is all starting to sound like The House That Jack Built. These jobs are not just the jobs, they are many jobs that have to be done in order to do the next job and then the next.

I had also allowed them to get quite large before potting up and balancing a pot and a cucumber vine that you are attempting to empty from the pot to put in another pot hoping the hole is the right size and not breaking the vine or spilling the compost-- well, luckily they were all well rooted in the pots so held onto their compost. But it was stressful.

Gardening is stressful. Which is good, because if we didn't care that would be bad. There is a Chinese saying: when you have finished your garden you die. I have plans so I'm good.

My plot looks so bare even though I have a lot planted. I keep thinking I should plant more but I think I’m just being impatient, things will grow and fill in the gaps.

The courgettes and squash I planted out are not looking that great (a bit yellow and not very strong). I have 4 butternut squash waiting to be planted, I am still clearing the last bit of my plot, but I worried as the but I am clearing hasn’t had manure on it this year….and possibly not last year. The manure pile on the allotment only has fresh manure which is full of straw so I don’t really want to use that. I have some chicken poo pellets, would these help prepare the soil for squash? 🤔

last question…..

Am I too late to plant crown Prince seeds?

Squash plants love chicken manure, also blood fish and bone. As for Crown Prince, time from sowing to harvest is supposed to be 100 days - but when I've sown pumpkins late, they often catch up and have smaller fruits, which suits me just fine.