The Vegetable Patch 2024/2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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

@DougAndTheSlugs - glad you’re here talking about squash 😂
we have an Anna Swartz pumpkin that’s looking quite big and good. Not sure when it’s ready though, do we wait for the vine to start dying back or just for that stem to look dry and wrinkly? The plant is very much still romping on and we may have to start cutting fruit off once a few more have developed.

Wait until the stem begins to dry and the skin becomes too hard to pierce with a fingernail. For winter squash I usually wait for the foliage to die back too. When the plants continue very vigorous past the stage where they can grow new babies to maturity be willing to pop off the new ones and cut back the romping leaders.

I do love watching the squash get huge! DGS says he wants to grow a giant pumpkin next year, and make it into a boat:

I've had to cut down my nasturtiums as they were absolutely besieged by dozens of cabbage white caterpillars and the blackfly then joined in to annhilate the plants. Couldn't possibly face using Nasturtium flowers in salads after seeing the infestation plus my green beans were affected. Bloody dry weather! I envy people on the telly like Monty Don who appear to have mostly pest free fruit and veg.

(Pic was from yesterday, today was totally unsalvageable)

Thought the whole idea of nasturtiums was to be sacrificial plants?

Yes, that was my reason for planting them and have done for 30 years. This dry weather must have caused it I think.

Really excited as last year was rubbish for our pumpkins. Think this pumpkin has another month or so to go and scope to be humongous!

With granny’s help I’m sure your DGS can do it 😂

Back to daily watering. Beans coming along steadily now, beetroot (golden) and sweetcorn ready too. Still no butternut squash set but all the other squash are doing well.

Can't keep up with the raspberries and blackberries.

Lovely pics. Masses of blackberries here too, raspberries just starting (autumn fruiting variety). My tomatoes are not setting fruit much, they are tumbling cherry varieties, in a greenhouse, loads of water and feed hundreds of flowers but I think not enough sun, the greenhouse is mainly in shade. This is the first time I've kept them in because we normally go away in Aug and always come back to blight if I plant them out but this is not any better really.

Indeed google confirms my fears re sun

So, our garden is mostly shady so I have had to sacrifice the patio table for my tomatoes. Luckily there's still a bit of room at the other end and another small table as we eat outdoors all
the time in summer.

Anyone got good marrow recipes. I came home from 12 days away to these bad boys! I picked everything that was a usable size the morning I went away (normal courgette for scale)

@tizwozliz is that an uchi kuri pumpkin in your pic?
@EventuallyDecluttered the main thing is to protect from blight. They will ripen eventually. For some reason my cherry tomatoes have been less than stellar this year, whereas the Costolutto Fiorentino are going great guns ( outside, on my London allotment).

@gingercat02 personally I’d grate them, freeze them ( divided up into portions) and use in soup in winter. I can’t think of any recipe that would justify the effort to turn them into something tasty, but happy to be proved wrong!

@TheGander - yes it's an uchi kuri. I've not grown them before, I picked up the plant from the reduced shelf at the garden centre after seeing them mentioned on here.

If you grate then freeze they work fine for making cakes and pakora/fritters as well as soup.

Yes, that's why I kept them in the greenhouse but hopefully they are safe on the patio there's no other tomatoes or potatoes anywhere near (neither side neighbours grow fruit or veg and the rest of mine are at the allotment).

I am growing them too for the first time and was gong to ask how do you know when they are ready, as mine are already deep orange like yours. I guess I will wait for the plant to start withering, it’s still pretty green and lively.

A bit of cooked and blended marrow makes soup smooth and creamy, they also make nice battered fritters.

This marrow soup is lovely

Afternoon! I have a question about Courgettes and Squashes. This is the first year I have managed to grow plants from seed. I’m getting flowers but only a couple of tiny courgettes and no squash so far. Is there anything I can do to boost the yield apart from watering.

You could hand pollinate to speed things up

https://www.ruralsprout.com/how-to-hand-pollinate-squash/

I made one into a curried soup, most of which went in the bin, the second one went in the compost bin

This is perhaps for next year, dig in well rotted manure into the planting hole to give a really good start.

For now, the plants are very hungry so feed with seaweed or tomato feed once a week and water lots.

I have loads of courgettes from seed, they are rampant at this time. I usually have to offload them to friends and people at work. I do nothing with them except water and they haven't even had that as we were on holiday

I have some measly new potatoes and one cherry tomato. All my curcubits died before they reached the two leaf stage.