Grow your own dinner 2014

Dizzy_Ditzy

Today I've picked over a pound of blackberries, lettuces and radishes, in addition to the rhubarb and beetroot at the weekend. And cucumbers from the greenhouse, and pepper/garlic that was mighty fine in my spaghetti bol

fairynuff27

My squash are going crazy, but I have a lot more male flowers than female. I doubt pollination will be a problem as the neighbouring borage and sacrificial marigolds are all a-buzz with various bees!


Planted out my back-up dwarf beans, and these I've protected with cut-off plastic bottles (tops & bottoms removed), finished with my pinking shears to create a sort of slug barbed wire! Fingers crossed these ones last long enough to produce for me!

Fruittea

Hi Everyone
Looks like another bright and sunny day here in Gloucestershire. Everyone sounds as though they're doing really well. I'm chuffed to. I thought I'd mention that I went shopping yesterday and because of the lotty I had a very strange weekly shop consisting of 2 loaves, bottles of wine, mascara, a pound of cheese, yoghurt and a celery.


What I brought home from the lotty - onions, potatoes, garlic, courgettes, peppers, chilli, lettuce, spinach, runner and French beans, tomatoes, carrots and 3 cucumbers. My last three meals have been almost all lotty food. Lasagna, spinach and feta pie and curry. It's saving me a fortune and feels so good to pick what's just right.


Also sales at the gates are a massive £54.50 so far. And that's mainly from spare bean and tomato plants and extra runner beans.


So I think I'm saving a fortune. How are others finding their shopping bills?

zafiro1984

Fruittea wrote: »

Hi Everyone
Looks like another bright and sunny day here in Gloucestershire. Everyone sounds as though they're doing really well. I'm chuffed to. I thought I'd mention that I went shopping yesterday and because of the lotty I had a very strange weekly shop consisting of 2 loaves, bottles of wine, mascara, a pound of cheese, yoghurt and a celery.


What I brought home from the lotty - onions, potatoes, garlic, courgettes, peppers, chilli, lettuce, spinach, runner and French beans, tomatoes, carrots and 3 cucumbers. My last three meals have been almost all lotty food. Lasagna, spinach and feta pie and curry. It's saving me a fortune and feels so good to pick what's just right.


Also sales at the gates are a massive £54.50 so far. And that's mainly from spare bean and tomato plants and extra runner beans.


So I think I'm saving a fortune. How are others finding their shopping bills?

Fruittea:- Brilliant, in saving so much. Just been down the village market and spent £16.40 on fruit and veg - horrendous.

I was very late starting this year (5/6/14) so not really up to speed yet. Just been on the veg plot and counted 14 french beans which look almost ready - that will be my first crop of the year - I'm so far behind

Fruittea

I was very late starting this year (5/6/14) so not really up to speed yet. Just been on the veg plot and counted 14 french beans which look almost ready - that will be my first crop of the year - I'm so far behind [/QUOTE]



Never mind zafiro - better late than never and when the beans start to come they usually keep coming and overwhelm you. It's not too late for quite a bit of stuff and it's worth looking in the garden centres for bargains.


Yesterday I got two packs of late strawberries for a £ each - so twelve plants. I'm going to build a palette A frame and plant them for next year. Mice got all my strawberries this year.

fairynuff27

Picked up some great gardening bargains at Poundland yesterday, including nets. With the squirrels and rabbits around here (not to mention the muntjac and roe deer, badgers, foxes and reports of wild boar!) everything needs netting!

fairynuff27

Fruittea wrote: »

Yesterday I got two packs of late strawberries for a £ each - so twelve plants. I'm going to build a palette A frame and plant them for next year. Mice got all my strawberries this year.

Sounds a good idea! Mice and squirrels have been nibbling on mine. I caught a squirrel red-pawed on a couple of occasions!

Happygreen

Coming with another question today - my pepper plants have little green peppers on them :j:j! That was a very good buy from Lidl as I'd never managed to grow them from seed...
Now - does any of you greenfingered people know if they stay green or if these peppers turn red or orange? A couple of years ago I had some aubergines and was told they don't turn black as they stay the colour they start off as - and I had kept waiting :rotfl:

zafiro1984

Happygreen:- I would imagine they will turn colour, I had the same thought a few years ago but they eventually did go orange through to red.

Transplanted 30 leeks into a new bed yesterday, they were the size of a biro in under 8 weeks I have more to follow but they are only 4wks old.

Went into the 'muck' field yesterday OH has been re-stacking it and the 3 mounds were about 12' high. Found some really good black friable compost at the base of one of the mounds - no pesticides etc. I've staked my claim to some for the autumn.

Happygreen

If the weather keeps, moving muck is on the agenda here, too. Hopefully I'll manage before it rains!
Anfd I want ot harvest the parsnip seeds before the wild birdies eat them all
My sweetcorn in the greenhouse has grown so tall it it bending over to the other side" if it doesn't want to push out my grass. Cobs are just coming up so I'll have to help with the pollen as it's nowhere near the cobs now. Should take a picture of them really, it's all looking quite funny . Never had it so tall!