The Vegetable Patch 2024/2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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

Am I too late to plant crown Prince seeds?

Charles Dowding had the last date for sowing winter squash as June 3rd on my 2024 calendar. Give it a go! Every year is different and you might have a chance.

It looks as if there are some Queens of Squash on here, maybe some of you can help me. After a few years of growing loads of squashes but losing most of them in storage, I've pretty much given up. But I'd love to have another go if someone could give me idiot proof instructions for keeping them.

I now live alone so have plenty of space for storage. On the other hand it now takes me twice as long to get through each one so ideas on suitable varieties would be great. Also suggestions on what to do with the other half other than just shove it in the fridge and hope I can eat it all before I get bored with it or it goes off.

I know it's late to start this year but I'm ready to raid the garden centres for forlorn specimens that are begging for a home.

I have had issues in the past with storage too. My biggest mistake was storing them in a room I rarely entered, so if one did go off it could spread to another before I noticed. But the storage plan should start before the squash is harvested.

Winter squash should be cut off the vine with plenty of vine kept on both sides of the stem. This means all of the squash on that vine should be ready to harvest, obviously. The extra on both sides of the stem will dry up and drop off eventually but gives the stem time to dry and seal pretty thoroughly without contagions getting in. Added a photo of some of my squash from last year to show the amount of vine that protects the stem as it seals. The Queensland Blue has no extended stem but most of the rest do.

Do not cut the stem, do not pick them up by the stem, because that will weaken the stem and possibly allow it to go off more quickly. Also check the skin of the squash for cuts, damage where rot can enter. If a squash has stem/skin issues, eat it first because it won't last as long as it's healthy winter squash siblings.

Once harvested I put them in the sun or the greenhouse for a bit for their skin to harden. Then store in any place that has good ventilation and will not freeze. I use those cheap wooden slatted boxes for fruit and veg, stacked. No squash touching another. One year I stored them in an unused bedroom. That didn't work out so well so last year they went on the chest of drawers in the front hall. Saw them every day, several times!

Sweet Dumplings are small and lovely, one person could have a whole one in a meal. They grow about 8? on each plant so that is a good amount of meals.

Uchiki kuri is a middle sized squash that you can finish on your own more easily if you freeze half in a curry, for example.

Both of these have only 'fair' storage ability, so I would say look to eat them by February, they are not going to keep longer. Others store months longer; we finished our last Crown Prince in May and it was perfect and delicious. We still have Thelma Saunders squash that I grew last year! Had one last week. Still perfect. I only grew two Thelmas and harvested 26 squash from them. They are a medium sized squash. Adding a photo of them taken just now

Thanks @DougAndTheSlugs , I think I expected them to be bulletproof when dried off instead of continuing to treat them gently. My biggest failures were in a spare bedroom too. I'll see what I can get my hands on.

Without any doubt, you are the queen of squash! 🤴 @DougAndTheSlugs

Aw...shucks... <embarrassed but elated squirm>

I planted out the last of my corn today, 36 of them. They are called 'picnic' and look unimpressive as they grow and have smallish cobs, but they have the most surprisingly sweet and delicious flavour. They are utterly amazing.

ohh - just come across this - can I join as happy owner of an allotment that I got 2 years ago.

picked strawberries ( already made into a few pots of jam) and my first peas this weekend! also planted out my pumpkins and runner beans.

and I have sent DH to live in the shed! he knows he is not to touch my plants but he saw greenfly on the chilli plants and having once read about washing up liquid being good he sprayed them with a near neat concoction and killed them all! I now have chilli stems with no leaves!

I’m not a very active member on here but welcome fellow allotmenteer! This is such a great time of year for us in the veg patch. DS 22 after years of saying the allotment is so booooring actually asked to come today and we had a nice time picking strawberries, removing fox poo and generally appreciating the place 🥰

I hear you, Gander. My DS has just finished (almost, still has some flooring to do) putting a greenhouse up on the allotment and constructed his own staging, from offcuts. Minus his time and trouble, it cost £15. I am a proud gardener Mum.

Welcome @toooldforbrat I also don’t post as often as I intend to but I have been on the threads off and on for a few years so they are always in my threads I’m on.

I also have a young adult DS who is useful at the plot, he is just home from uni and has been planting out, weeding and is going to help me make a little pond.

This was a day spent potting up and planting out. Potted up more tomatoes and aubergine for the greenhouse. Ran out of big pots.

Planted out 38 peas (it is a 40 cell module and two failed to germinate). Netted them from pigeons.

And I planted out the last of the flowers I started (asters) at the edge of a veg bed.

Feeling done. Tomorrow it's DMIL's garden!

Oooh righty proud @DougAndTheSlugs

If I was feeling done yesterday I am well chewed and spat out today. DMIL asked me and my DD to dig out a very large clump of day lily that was not needed. Sadly it was just about to bloom but hey ho, it's her garden. DD dug all around the base and most of the underneath of the root ball, no easy task, but there was no lifting it. I discovered mature tree roots going straight through the root ball, tethering it to place. It ended up a hands and knees job with secateurs to snip the roots and my mini mattock, hacking it out in pieces. No exaggeration-- sweat running down our faces. It didn't all fit in the green bin it was so big.

I came home and mowed the allotment (rain tomorrow I'm told) and then walked amongst the veg beds with a glass of wine. Bliss.

I'm trying spuds in grow bags for the first time this year, I normally put them in the ground but my plot has scab. The forecast is for thunderstorms tomorrow, and I'm a bit worried they'll get waterlogged.

Drainage holes at the bottom? Not an expert.

How full are the bags? If you haven't topped them right up yet you can fold the tops inwards so that most of the open area is covered. This works better than you might think.

Thanks - thats what I managed to do in the end, we had an absolute downpour like a monsoon and I pegged the bags closed. It seems to have worked.

Everything seems a bit out of sync this year. Picked a load of redcurrants yesterday which I'm sure aren't usually this early. Peas and beans are on a go slow and I've had really poor germination. Courgettes coming along, all flowering and fruiting but plants still relatively small.

Fruit seems to be doing amazingly this year whilst other things are struggling a little. I haven’t harvest much at all yet. I pulled my onions up on Monday and replaced them with mini corn. Kohl rabi are doing well (a couple almost ready),my first courgette is growing and I spotted a French bean.

Things that have failed so far are mainly things that have been eaten my beetles, so…radish, pak Choi and Chinese cabbage (all destroyed) and the pigeons have eaten my swede ☹️. Potatoes will be ready soon and my runner beans are starting to flower whilst still climbing.

Blackcurrents have gone crazy this year, my red currants have been eaten by birds and I’ve only managed to save one gooseberry bush from the birds. Birds are my biggest problem this year which makes a change, usually it’s slugs.

Fruit growing well here too, I have had a bumper crop of redcurrants even though they're not netted, strawberries are doing well and raspberries have jist started with lots of fruit.

Everything else apart from onions and potatoes seems to be on a go slow.

I was hoping for a bumper apple crop but the water company have just asked us to stop using hosepipes.

@Thelnebriati - is that also for food?
Most hosepipe bans actually exclude watering of fruit and vegetables.
I mean not wasting water, but watering careful at the base of each tree is usually ok

I didnt know that, thank you!