The Vegetable Patch 2024/2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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

Clipped brambles, made an asparagus bed and planted some spring cabbage today. Also picked leeks, beetroot, a gourd, pears and a lot of apples.

Going to sort through the apples and store any unblemished and then see how much jam/cake/compote I need to make with the rest!

We have lived in this house for more than 20 years and this is the first time we can eat our pears off the tree.

Usually they are still hard to the bitter end, and have to be taken inside to sit for ten (or so) days before using them. Usually in cooking.

Today I realised I have just enjoyed that very MNtty thing, the cutted up pear. And it was lovely.

That little loofa seedling that I showed posters back in the end of May grew these:

I tried to grow loofahs a couple of years ago but they got ravaged by greenfly

I grew supermarket potatoes in growbags, they were really easy and I've had a big enough crop to make it worth the effort. The only disappointment has been they have scab.

@DougAndTheSlugs your loofahs are very impressive may try next year

we are using some of our turk's head squash to look pretty in the fireplace

Mine are decorating the local pub. I'll have them back after October for eats :)

Question for those who know about pumpkins/squashes:

These three - a New England heritage squash and 2 Baby bear pumpkins - have been sitting on the top shelf in my greenhouse for the last few weeks. All 3 were harvested when the plants died back.

The 2 on the left were initially green with some orange and went fully orange, the one on the right as stayed half green. Has it ripened enough to use (cook) or will it be only useful as a Hallowe'en decoration?

They can all be eaten now, I don't know the variety so don't know if they will store for long. Something called a heritage squash should though. Put them in a coolish room of your house so they are not at risk of frost.

In my experience pumpkins are more for soup or pie or decoration, it is the squash that have the flavour. .

That's great, thanks - I just wasn't sure if the one that had stayed a bit green was ripe enough to eat.

Thanks for the eating tips too.

I had to buy courgettes today, first time in months. Must be winter!
Those are impressive @bluegreygreen

They're just little but I'm very pleased with them!

Also harvested the last of the tomatoes this week - have been trying to ripen them but I think green tomato chutney is on the menu (there's an entire layer of very green ones on the bottom of the bowl).

@bluegreygreen
Put them into a brown paper bag, greenest on the bottom, ripest on the top
you will have fresh tomatoes for Christmas Day
need to check eash week to use any that ripen at the top

Think that's my last harvest for the year now. Few more apples, a small butternut squash and golden beetroot.

I picked golden beets today too. DH is going to curry them (!) so I will let you know how that goes.

Some low level frost is expected here possibly by Wednesday. Lots to do.

Planning the allotment for 2026, after I've already bought loads of seeds!

French beans, peas and squashes are the ones I'm expanding this year, decided to not to grow corn this year. Takes up a lot of space and I've never had a great crop.

I've had a couple of years of poor sweetcorn too, maybe time to give up on them. I went through my seed collection in Oct (my association does Kings Seeds then) and decided I had plenty to be going on with but I do need to start planning soon. Need to clear out my greenhouse, it seems to have been used as a bit of a dumping ground over winter. SO looking forward to lighter evenings and being able to get into the garden after work.

We had a slightly better year for sweetcorn last year, but we only had plants as I picked them up cheaply and had a bit of space.

We actually ate our uchiki kuri squash last week. It was good, although I'm not sure if be able to tell it apart from butternut squash in a blind taste test. I didn't realise how big the gap inside was going to be so it didn't stretch as far as I'd planned.

I'm not planning on buying any more seeds this year, although probably need to do a stock take.

I keep seeing people posting about chitting potatoes and I need to resist the urge to get started as our last frost date isn't until mid may.

I do think uchiki kuri is better tasting than butternut, and in my garden it matures more reliably. I try to keep three to a plant. They are not a large squash so not a challenge to eat up once you have cut into one.

My huge squashes have inspired me into making squash bread to help use them up. So a candy roaster will be broached and a quarter of it made into soup. Then the next day I might make bread or buns and use some more of it smushed up (after roasting) as part of the liquid instead of just water in the dough. The bread comes out pleasingly yellow.

Then I'll still have the end bit left! I am sitting here beside three crates of squashes that need eating as well. Ah, the difficulties of gardening.

We only had the one uchiki kuri set, it did go in late though and was another bargain shelf buy. None of my winter squashes ever seem very prolific. A shame as they store so well

I get that Tiz, it can be hard to resist the bargain shelf!

The squash seeds are so reliable and grow on so quickly that I wouldn't bother buying as seedlings. I sow in early April generally, but then do spend quite a bit of time making sure they thrive, so yes there is a downside.

Hand pollinating can be a way to get more fruit (does not always work).

The most prolific squash I ever grew was the Thelma Sanders, summer of 2024. I kept about a dozen squash from three plants, but picked off at least double that in baby fruit from August because I did not think they had time to mature. My last Thelma from two years ago is on my hall chest of drawers right now, in pristine condition! Obviously I did not have to grow them last year.

Damn, I'm going to have to grow some more Thelmas this year, aren't I?

I got the "unusual veg" set of seeds from She Sells Veg for Christmas so and working out where to grow my loofahs and strombolini among the usual stuff.

I've still got plenty of cavolo nero and celeriac in the veg beds, and a couple of radicchio in the poly tunnel.

I like to grow potatoes of a few different varieties, but now that there's just me, the bags they sell in garden centres are just too big. Does anyone have a reliable source of small packs of seed potatoes? In the past I've picked some up at potato days but this year I can't see any within reasonable travelling distance/

Dug up the rest of my Jerusalem artichokes, now I have to decide what to make with them.

Got my potatoes chatting now too, I am only doing one lot of potatoes this year, as I want to focus on other veg.

I put insect netting over four beds of onions to combat the new allium pest (for March to May). Still have the garlic to do. It's exhausting.

Put off cleaning out the greenhouse. Again.