Veg growing newbies 2nd year common room 2010-2011

wssla00

Evening all pull up a chair and discuss the new things we are trying this year!

I am branching out into more flowers and some interesting other bits and bobs- Have just ordered Hamburg parsley. It's Parsley but with a root like a parsnip. So you use the top like parsley and the bottom like turnips or parsnips.

It's all very exciting! How are you all doing?

katholicos

OOH shiny new thread!

Great idea to start another one for the next year of growing :-)

wssla00

Yep! Supposedly..... according to the veg magazines, september is the new march! Or something like that....

emiff6

wssla00 wrote: »

Have just ordered Hamburg parsley. It's Parsley but with a root like a parsnip. So you use the top like parsley and the bottom like turnips or parsnips.

Good evening, everyone. So this parsley - does the root taste of parsley or parsnips?

wssla00

Parsnips/turnips it is pretty good....here is the info from marshalls (although i got it somewhere else as their post for one thing is extortionate!)

GarnetLady

wssla00 wrote: »

Yep! Supposedly..... according to the veg magazines, september is the new march! Or something like that....

:rotfl:

Ooh, love the new thread.

I was sitting with the new T&M seed catalogue last night trying to decide what to spend some of my vouchers on. Still working out what I'm going to do next year. Hopefully we'll have the back garden sorted by then and the 2 new raised beds put in and I'll have a much better idea of what space I'll have. But I also have the patiogro (:D) now and I'll be using flower buckets for a things again, so making sure I have a couple more of dwarf/patio veg seeds in.

Managed to get into the greenhouse for 30 mins yesterday and got the clearing out started. (And found 3 slugs. :mad:)

I bought a diary and notebook from poundland and I'm planning on using them to try and have some sort of schedule for planting, but we'll see.

I have lots of spring bulbs to go in, need to get it done really and winter bedding needs potting on. All enough to keep me occupied for now!

wssla00

I have a never ending battle of the slugs in my greenhouse at the mo. They like it's damp and full of succulent young plants! Them and the snails are causing widespread damage!

I am loving my patiogro! It's so big it will give me loads of extra growing space! Really would like a vegtable so perhaps may ask for one for christmas!

misskool

can i play even though its my second season?

Just started some onions off in modules, brought some chillies in to overwinter, waiting for the sweet potatoes to die back so i can see what to harvest. forgot to plant out leeks and will pop them in but not expecting much from them.

2 apple trees to pick and the apples to process. phew

wssla00

Misskool- did you buy sweet potato slips or make your own? They seemed SO expensive but I know there is a way of making your own slips from a sweet potato?

My leeks were lost by what I think were leek moth, but if you are planting them out you can make a deep hole, pop in the leek and then fill up with water and it will help with the earthing up.

I just bought in some soft herbs into the house, so they can stay on for a bit longer. I have a couple of pots of coriander which I will make into carrot and coriander soup, plus a huge massive pot of basil and some italian giant parsley.

Just sowed some mimosa seeds for house plants and watered by bellis perennis and coleus seeds so they can grow on. I really like coleus. They are so bright and colourful so if they are nice sized by christmas my 24 plants will make lovely christmas decorations.

So that's about it really for me today. I must clean out the greenhouse soon. It's filled with loads of plants that have ceased to produce. The only thing I have to have a think about it my teeny tiny red chillies on the chilli plant. I'm not sure what to do with them. Might make some harissa paste or use them to make an arthritis rub for my mum for christmas.....?

Have a good day all

izzwizz_2

Thanks for the shiny, new thread wssla :T Re your chillies, I processed a lot of red chillies with a little salt & vinegar into pepper puree and froze in ice-cube trays for use over the Winter. Never tried it before, but I'm hoping it will be OK.

GarnetLady wrote: »

:rotfl:

Managed to get into the greenhouse for 30 mins yesterday and got the clearing out started. (And found 3 slugs. :mad:)

I bought a diary and notebook from poundland and I'm planning on using them to try and have some sort of schedule for planting, but we'll see.

Ditto on the greenhouse clearing - have been at it a week now and still not halfway done (can't seem to find more than an hour at a time). Had to ditch most of the aubergine & pepper plants which have major whitefly, but we still have a few tomatoes and it's October tomorrow.

Hubby got me one of those Gardening Journal thingies in a sale and I've written up all the fruit varieites we put in this year. It's made me realise just how many plants we bought :rotfl:. Hope we get some fruit next year! I plan to write out a sowing / planting plan too, but there's still too much gardening to do at the moment.

Last day of September and we're still harvesting: aubergines, chillies, courgettes (and marrows!), sweet peppers, tomatoes, salad leaves (although started on the Winter varieties in the last couple of weeks), spinach, landcress, rocket, lots of herbs (but all the basil finished this week), crab apples, and a neighbour brought me 10 lb wild damson-type plums from her garden that I turned into 23 pots of plum jam (didn't have a single plum on our trees!!). Leeks ready for thinning. The elderberries have been left to the hundreds of little birds in the garden. They did a really good job of keeping all the aphids at bay this year, so I don't begrudge them a feast :T:beer:

Still have a couple of trays of plug plants salad leaves to plant out in the greenhouse borders, but otherwise I'm guessing it's all downhill from here until February.

Oh, and a couple of weeks ago I planted out some expensive Solent Wight garlic along with the cloves from half a dozen large organic garlic bulbs bouth in Sainsburys. Just noticed today, the Sainsburys ones are all up (no sign of the Solent Wight yet). It will be interesting to see which does best.

Last is a report on an experiment I did earlier in the year. Lots of people were reporting problems with the beans from the BBC Dig in campaign, so I tried 12 each of BBC Dig in Blue Lake beans & a packet of Blue Lake beans bought from B&M Bargains. All 24 germinated, and the pots look identical all producing plenty of french beans so nothing wrong with the ones we got anyway

top_drawer_2

I'm still a newbie really.... do I post over here now?

I'm struggling as to what to do about some of my stuff ... I have a slug problem and none of the lettuce I planted in late July have taken properly, I just put them outside in the big pots thinking it would be warm enough .... but no they look pathetic now.

I've still got carrots planted and something else which I cant for the life of me recall...... pinky/purple like parsnips but smaller.

I would really like some coriander ...... its so expensive to buy fresh. Is there such a thing as cut and come again in this herb?

I have bought garlic and onions from Homebase so am hoping to plant them this weekend.