The Vegetable Patch 2024/2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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

This year’s. Thank you both, that’s useful info. There are another two plants that seem fine alongside, but I’ll keep a closer eye and start earlier with them next season.

I've just been out to cut some rhubarb, bloody slugs everywhere! Must be the cool damp weather. We need some proper sun up here!

My sweetcorn and onions went out at the allotment yesterday. I've also direct sown some peas and beans but may start some off in pots too to transfer as the first lot never emerged. Potatoes coming along nicely

Need to get some more weeds cleared and then my courgettes and squash can go out too.

Things are growing here on the balcony. I've been eating salad leaves for about 3 weeks and need to think about another pot as they're bolting already.

First peas are starting the swell, 2nd lot are still climbing. Dwarf french beans look happy and climbers starting to grip canes. Biggest Tom has just crept over the 3' cane so needs a longer one, baby plants making progress. Herbs all doing well and starting to be used too. And spring onions and courgettes also poking their heads out.

The balcony forest

The green makes me happy

Every year I think I've labelled everything carefully. Every year I end up with some mystery plants. This year I've ended up with 7 very similar looking cucurbits, 2 or 3 are cucumbers (I think 3) and 4 or 5 are squash, The cucumbers are to grow in pots by the back door and the squash are to ramble away at the end of the garden and do their own thing. I really really don't want to put the wrong ones in the wrong place but I'm blowed if I can tell the difference at this stage.

Help!

I know the feeling @MontyDonsBlueScarf

Every year i manage to mix up my climbing and dwarf french beans

I love mystery plants. I ended up with a random purple sprouting broccoli in the garden last year, not sure what it got mixed up with because I didn’t intend to have broccoli growing at home.

Anyone else keep thinking they haven’t got enough stuff growing? Mainly because I can’t picture everything full grown and both my plots are looking pretty bare. I sewed some spinach last week and direct sewn some beetroot. I have squash to plant out which will take up a lot of space once grown but I still feel I have under planted. Last year I seemed to have loads growing by now but I also grew lots of things I didn’t eat (chard, kale and kohlrabi), this year I’m trying to only grow things we will eat. I’m not sure if I should plant more peas? I’m I too late to see more? I planted some a week or so ago that are just coming up, these are to replace the ones the slugs have eaten.

when I write down what I have growing it sounds like a lot but I still seem to have space. I tend to just plant a small amount of everything as it’s only really dd and I. I do give family some bits. So far I am growing…..

Potatoes (just one row)
Onions
Peas
Runner beans
french climbing beans
Sprouts (x 6)
Cabbage (x 6)
Beetroot
spinach
butternut squash x 1
Turks turban x 3
courgette x 1
cucumbers
Black currant
Red currant
Gooseberries
Raspberries
maragolds
sunflowers

I also have my melons at home and a couple tomato plants. I have sewn some lettuce seeds today to fill some space but I still feel I have missed something.

@MontyDonsBlueScarf If they were courgettes and cucumbers, then the courgettes would be on the left and the ones on the right with more pointy leaves would be the cucumbers. These are my cucumbers

@Lovemusic82 You can sow peas till at least end June.

Thank you. I will put some more in tomorrow. Dd likes eating them when we are on the allotment, not many make it to our plates.

@MereDintofPandiculation thank you, you're a genius! There are definitely some with more pointy leaves and what's more two of those are labelled cucumber. I hadn't realised that the leaf shape was a tell.

Now please pray for continued good weather. I spent the afternoon clearing the tomato jungle. Normally most of them would go in the greenhouse at this point but it's full of dahlias that aren't ready to go out yet, so I've taken a chance and put half of them outside. The other half are still lined up behind the patio doors, waiting their turn.

As you can see, I like tomatoes.

@MontyDonsBlueScarf I’ve just planted out my cucumbers, and what I’d forgotten- the whole plant smells of cucumber.

@MontyDonsBlueScarf Your tomatoes are further on than mine. I’ve got about 10 plants, but about half the height of yours.

@Lovemusic82 yes, me. I have so many tiny plants doing nothing in the mini greenhouse and not looking like they will ever be ready. Anything I do plant out gets eaten. I really don't know if anything is going to do well this year, my plot seems so empty. I always imagine having a real mixture of things growing in a beautiful jungle of biodiversity, when in reality I have some straggly veg and a lot of bindweed.

I seem to be spending a few hours a week digging up bindweed and not much time doing anything else. I am taking in another half plot next year so I need to up my game and plant more. I’m going to plant a load of marigold’s tomorrow so at least my plot will look pretty.

My rhubarb stems are still really short. Just a couple of inches above the soil but healthy leaves. They've been like that for at least a month and I'm normally harvesting rhubarb by now. Any ideas why?

I am growing a lot of squash and have lost maybe three labels, but these ones are a total mystery! They came up overnight.

They look like squash! But you won’t know more till they get their true leaves

Oh yes, they are squash I am sure. The mystery was, which one of eight I am growing?

Or they could be from the Crown Prince we had last week, our penultimate from ones I grew last year. Of course the seeds ended up in the compost.

Can I please join? We have a veg patch in the garden and picked some baby spinach from it this morning- my 5 year old was so excited by it. Lovely to see his joy. Also got onions growing and supposedly carrots but I can't see any signs of life from that bit of the patch. Maybe birds ate the seeds? I don't know! Also got a tomato plant on the window sill.

Carrots (and other things in the same family, such as parsley and parsnip) take a long time to germinate

@MontyDonsBlueScarf wow, beautiful tomatoes!! The ones I germinated myself are absolutely pathetic this year. It’s just been too cold at night. My house doesn’t have the right aspect really - east facing conservatory has never been great for germinating, even with heated propagator. Perhaps the issue is more around light. Don’t have a south facing window sadly.
hopefully the new allotment greenhouse will help a bit. Visited briefly this afternoon and pulled down some rotting wood around the raspberries and cut out lots of old wood. All totally overgrown, but if we can get a small crop from the existing fruit bushes and trees this season then I’ll be happy.
The robin at the allotment is very interested in the new invaders too. Seems very confident. I could also see a kestrel from my sitting area. Not bad!

@MereDintofPandiculation thank you. I never really fully know what I'm doing but always give it a go because it's good fun and the kids love it. My lovely late grandma was an amazing gardener with the most impressive allotment and I often imagine her looking down on me smiling (sometimes maybe laughing!)