Grow your own dinner 2014

Fruittea

Happygreen wrote: »

How small, roughly?

Morning Happygreen - hope your courgette is a good replacement - 10 days is a long time on an allotment at this time of year!


About the patty pans - they are a fruit that should be served very small. If they get too big you'll find they go kinda fluffy inside and don't taste of anything. So you need to pick them very small and keep them coming.


I've been away for a couple of days - so will pop down to the allotment later today. I seem to have everything I need except tomatoes this. Plenty of onions, garlic and potatoes and lots of salad and greens. So it's saving me a fortune. Baked a really nice vegetable lasagne last night which was very good and only cost me a packet of feta cheese and a few pasta slices. It will serve 8 portions for about £1.30! Very MSE

CAFCGirl

Good Morning to all.

Hope you've all got the weather needed wherever you are.

My trough has now been replanted with 4 aubergine plants and 5 sweet peppers/chilli plants - cant tell which they are and they're not labelled I need to sow some lettuce seeds to keep DH in salad for the summer.
My tomatoes seem to be doing well though, and pretty much every plant has got toms on it now.

zafiro1984

Going to give a bit of the plot a good soak today, mainly beans, need to sow some more beet and lettuce as well.

fairynuff27

My beans are netted and mulched with natural slug repellent wool pellets, yet something is decimating them! Every day a few more leaves are gone - yet I can't find evidence of whatever's eating them.


Has anyone got any suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong when trying to grow chard? I've sown direct from April until June, AND indoors in 9cm pots, but neither have taken at all. I get 2 inch seedlings, then they just keel over and die. Everything else is doing fine, and every book I read seems to suggest that chard is one of the easiest crops!

WantAnOrange

Courgettes are only a couple of inches at the moment and patty pans about the size of a 50p, so really small!

xhosa9

WantAnOrange wrote: »

Courgettes are only a couple of inches at the moment and patty pans about the size of a 50p, so really small!

I have been cutting about 50% of the leaves off my courgettes and patty pans. I figure if the energy isn't going into the leaves it will go into the veg. Seems to have worked so far...

Happygreen

xhosa9 wrote: »

I have been cutting about 50% of the leaves off my courgettes and patty pans. I figure if the energy isn't going into the leaves it will go into the veg. Seems to have worked so far...

I'm not sure if that's a great idea as the cucurbit plant does not work like tomato plants where you don't want much foliage (energy producing growth) once fruit have set. Courgettes keep growing and producing new flowers on the same growth stem. Let us know how you are getting on.
WantAnOrange, I think the reason why your courgettes are not growing is that they may not have been pollinated. We talked about it on here before but I could not find the number of the post yesterday. I do a round each day and tickle first a male flower inside with my little finger then all the open females. Areas can be short of insects so I'm playing bee Hope this helps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldQCaruiYss

Lifes_Grand_Plan

I'm [STRIKE]kind of[/STRIKE] sorry to say that I have resorted to drastic measures with slugs and snails.... they now meet a sticky end via my secaturs..... The neighbour hood [STRIKE]vermin[/STRIKE] cats better be careful of they might meet the same sticky end (thats a joke btw - would never physically harm them in that way).

Anyway my yellow courgettes are going great guns, so too are my tomatoes and cucumbers, *touches wood* this is about the best year I can remember for produce so far, just hope the tomatoes redden up before blight hits.

On that subject, what's the care requirements to tomatoes, especially to redden them up? Should I be cutting the leaves off to let more light get to them or something? I have been pinching out and feed them once a week but thats about all I know....

Happygreen

I only cut of yellowing bottom tomato leaves as they are a waste of space anyway. You don't need them once plenty of fruit have set. To ripen just wait in patience , don't water too much or they might split. If you have blight issues, I take it you grow them in a tunnel or greenhouse in the ground? Good ventilation may help. I've heard to put a ripe banana near them can help with ripening

CAFCGirl

Some odd looking brown insect is eating through holes through the leaves on my aubergines, my chillies, my peppers yet leaving alone my tomatoes, beans and basil.

Theyre slightly smaller than a 5p in length, and almost shield shaped. I keep trying to get a picture of one but they leap, like a flea.
Any ideas what they could be?