Help MBE grow his dinner 2011

mrbadexample

wheels28 wrote: »

Hi New to Site,
this is my first post and my first year of growing veg as we moved into a new home with a very large garden, we moved as i suffered an injury and am now in a wheelchair, my DH made 2 raised beds and this year we have been amazed by our success with our plot, we are growing Broad beans, French beans, Peas, Beetroot, Radish Leeks Cauliflowers, Cabbage, Sprouts, Kahl rabbi, Corn. The people before us left us the greenhouse, so have Toms, Chillies and peppers. There have been many mistakes and many things that i will do differently next year, But this place and many other places have given me lots of help.

Welcome to MSE.

Sounds like you are enjoying some success. Pictures are good. You'll need to build up your post count first though, but not sure how many. Is it 20?

mrbadexample

alixandrea wrote: »

I have a world of courgettes, although the plants seem to be getting a mould all over the leaves so not sure how long they'll keep producing. My carrots and leeks seem to have forgiven me for transplanting them

My courgette is the same, and I lost a few fruit, but it appears to be producing normally again now.

Carrots don't normally survive transplantation, but the leeks should be fine.

alixandrea wrote: »

I do have a question though; I have runner beans that are producing, but the beans I'm getting from the plant all seem to have quite tough skins which make them very difficult to eat. To add to this, every time we eat them, my OH complains of feeling ill afterwards. What am I doing wrong? The beans we're eating look identical to the ones you can buy in the shops at this time of year...

I'm planning on stripping the plant of the big beans and making them into chutney with some of the courgettes. Will the skins soften up if I cook them for the 1 1/2 hours the recipe suggests?

Cheers all! :beer:

Alixandrea

:think: Either pick the beans when they are smaller, or try a different variety next year. If they've gone fibrous, no amount of cooking will break them down - I know this from experience, having ruined some perfectly good vegetable soup in a previous year. :mad:

alixandrea

mrbadexample wrote: »

My courgette is the same, and I lost a few fruit, but it appears to be producing normally again now.

Carrots don't normally survive transplantation, but the leeks should be fine.



:think: Either pick the beans when they are smaller, or try a different variety next year. If they've gone fibrous, no amount of cooking will break them down - I know this from experience, having ruined some perfectly good vegetable soup in a previous year. :mad:

Hehe, the carrots are actually doing quite well, although a few of them did die along the way. Thanks for the info on the courgettes - I'm not sure whether to be relieved or not as my fridge is half full of the damned things!! :eek:

Annoying to hear about the beans; I wonder why they've gone fibrous? The seeds were given to me by my Mum from a store she had so I'll have to find out from her how hers have done. Guess I'll just have to chuck the big ones then.

Thanks for your help MBE!

Alixandrea

annie123

alixandrea wrote: »

I have runner beans that are producing, but the beans I'm getting from the plant all seem to have quite tough skins which make them very difficult to eat. To add to this, every time we eat them, my OH complains of feeling ill afterwards. What am I doing wrong?

You're picking them too late and possibly not watering them enough, they like their water!
The older they are the more stringy they get. Try picking some when they're 4" long, if they still aren't right then it's not enough water.
Or as Me BE said try a different one next year.

alixandrea

annie123 wrote: »

You're picking them too late and possibly not watering them enough, they like their water!
The older they are the more stringy they get. Try picking some when they're 4" long, if they still aren't right then it's not enough water.
Or as Me BE said try a different one next year.

Thank-you for your advice Annie; I hadn't been watering them much recently (they're in the ground rather than in pots and I thought the rain would be enough) so that could be it. I will try a different variety next year too, just to be sure. And this year I'll try picking them younger, although like the courgettes they do seem to suddenly arrive large in the middle of the night! :eek:

Alixandrea

Lavandula

After watching Jack Hargreaves on You Tube, I managed to string my onions (grown from one packet of Poundland sets). I have 3 strings now.

mrbadexample

Lavandula wrote: »

After watching Jack Hargreaves on You Tube, I managed to string my onions (grown from one packet of Poundland sets). I have 3 strings now.

I'm impressed. I don't think that I'll have enough to warrant stringing together, but I might get a few.

lizzyb1812

This is not helping MBE grow his dinner - but thanks to him I'm going to have a bumper squash crop this year. :j

MBE, last year quite a few of us liked your Pretty in Purple chilis and you said they came from Real Seed Co. Well I put in an order and one of the things I wanted was a really good butternut squash. One squash had "one of the best eating squashes ever" and "keeps well" and "easy to peel" and "sweeter than normal" in the description. I placed an order from the catalogue, not online, and this year, rather late, planted the squash.

Now the catalogue has no pictures but I know what a butternut squash looks like - I grew a few last year.......... so imagine my alarm when the baby fruits were green and stripey and not beige. There are, however, lots and lots of them. After a bit of research on the online catalogue today I realised what I'd done - I'd bought not butternut squash but buttercup squash :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: It must be me age!

So, bought by accident, planted late and to provide ground cover and keep weeds down rather than in hope of a crop, left to fend for themselves and, to give you an idea of the results so far - THEY ARE GROWING FASTER THAN COURGETTES :T

So, MBE, if you are ever in Suffolk, pop round in about November and share the spoils with my grateful thanks

Lizzyb

mrbadexample

lizzyb1812 wrote: »

THEY ARE GROWING FASTER THAN COURGETTES :T

So, MBE, if you are ever in Suffolk, pop round in about November and share the spoils with my grateful thanks

Lizzyb

Nah, you're fibbing! Nothing grows faster than courgettes!

Sadly, I don't seem to ever get near Suffolk, but thanks very much for the offer!

adelight

Evening everyone, I got home a few hours ago to a minor disaster. One of my tomato plants has snapped just a few inches up the stem, 99% certain it's a goner as it's held together by the tiniest stringiest fiber. Oddly it was my biggest plant but only has 7 pale green toms on it that I shall attempt to ripen in a paper bag. I did just eat a few yummy ripe ones off my coiled plant though.
I wish I'd put a bit more effort into my tomato plants, y'know, bigger pots... better supports... but at least I know for next year and I shall definitely buy some bush variety seeds rather than squeezing my lunch into a cottage cheese pot filled with soil

Squash and pumpkin are growing like crazy, hopefully they'll appreciate being moved into mahoooosive pots and i'll get a bumper squash crop like lizzyb.

"Broccoletto" (not quite sprouting broccoli like i thought), my little experiment to find a green I could grow quickly during winter seems to be quite a success with the first few almost ready to eat just 5 weeks after I planted the seeds :T