Grow your own dinner 2014

Happygreen

last lettuce harvested today but more (cheating) living salads to plant out tomorrow.

I meant to ask you all, do you also suffer from a summer dip? I always find it hard from July onwards - school holidays and weeds galore - to keep up with things and I get rather overwhelmed, let things slip...a bit depressing sometimes . But my plot is VERY big and I'm mostly doing it on my own (and everything else in the house, preserving stuff, cooking, blablabla)....:(

CAFCGirl

zafiro1984 wrote: »

CAFCgirl:- I didn't realise you were going to give up, I know life gets in the way at times. How did you manage to get a 5' high tomato plant, I must be doing something wrong? I've sweet million and sungold and they are about 3'high - help

Im not entirely sure how I managed it tbh. It just kept growing
It was grown in B&Q multipurp compost, has been fed B&Q seaweed extract feed maybe 4 times, was in a round plastic planter bag thing from ebay. It was against a wall and had the longest period of available sun in my garden. I had it attached to one cane pole along its stem and then made a 'cage' with another 4 like a teepee around it to attach branches onto to support the fruit weight.

I pinched out the growing tip when it was 3ft high (well I thought I had anyway!), and had managed to get most of the side shoots as they got to about 1-2 inches long.

And then last week we had god awful winds and the cane and its stem snapped It had 84 tomatoes on it :T

CAFCGirl

Hi All,

Been MIA for a while. Sorry. Hope everyone is growing well. Still fighting hard to contain my jealousy over allotments and epically gorgeous greenhouses (You know who you are! )

On the plus side...... Some may remember a slight issue I had with 2 of my chilli plants when young having spikes on their leaves... Turned out thats coz they were aubergines!

Anyway, both my aubergines and one chilli plants were planted in one container as I had little to no hope of them growing at all tbh.
Yesterday I harvested 3 aubergines from one plant, and 11 chillies
There are 5 aubergines still growing strong. All from one pot!

I lost my 5ft tomato plant. However my bush variety are still doing well and slowly starting to ripen. There's roughly 30 on the largest plant, and the others have around 20-25.

My trough is doing ok with the aubergines in there. I cant remember the variety but theyre long and thin, not the regular bulb shape? Ive also got some sweet peppers trying to grow but theyre very small still and have been at that stage for a few weeks now

zafiro1984

Happygreen wrote: »

I meant to ask you all, do you also suffer from a summer dip? I always find it hard from July onwards - school holidays and weeds galore - to keep up with things and I get rather overwhelmed, let things slip...a bit depressing sometimes . But my plot is VERY big and I'm mostly doing it on my own (and everything else in the house, preserving stuff, cooking, blablabla)....:(

Happygreen:- Yes I know what you mean. Before the children flew the nest many years ago there was just too much to do over this period. I used to bash myself up over not keeping everything pristine and things used to slip big time. I think the trick is to do what is important first. I don't know how old your offsprings are but if they are young they should come first, especially over the holidays.

Jam making etc can be done from frozen fruit, so stick it in the freezer for the time being, just add 10% more fruit when making the jam.

I still don't blanch my vegs before freezing them. Beans don't seem to suffer, neither does sweetcorn, I reckon that because I use them quite quickly they don't need it, not like the commercial vegs where the can be 1yr old before we eat them. Don't forget you can always add carrots, celery etc to casseroles later if they don't defrost well.

Make twice as much for a meal and keep one lot for later.

Hoovering can wait, no need to do it every day.

One trick I found useful was to keep one room children and dog free so if anyone called there was somewhere fairly decent to go.

Don't bash yourself up over feeling like you do, I think most of us have periods like this, just look forward to when the school holidays end and you can get back to the lottie.:)

zafiro1984

Just sorting out how much space I need to supply us with potatoes next year. I'm going to get started on it now, weed kill first as it's a new area currently down to grass and nettles.

DH thinks I've bitten off more than I can do as this is the first year I've been able to walk unaided for the last 3 yrs - little does he know I'm going to use the digger (JCB) he's forgotten I can drive it.

pinkparrott

Happygreen wrote: »

last lettuce harvested today but more (cheating) living salads to plant out tomorrow.

I meant to ask you all, do you also suffer from a summer dip? I always find it hard from July onwards - school holidays and weeds galore - to keep up with things and I get rather overwhelmed, let things slip...a bit depressing sometimes . But my plot is VERY big and I'm mostly doing it on my own (and everything else in the house, preserving stuff, cooking, blablabla)....:(

My kids are 8 (D's) and 6 (dd) and my D's hates the allotment , butdscan sometimes e convinced to come, especially as she's now got a mini bed of her own with mainly annual flowers , nasturtiums - which she likes to eat and a courgette, but its really hard in school hold , I,'be taken a week off work and it's been a hard balance between days out , cleaning etc and itching to get down the allotment ,so we',he only managed 2 very quick visits mainly to pick some beans, peas and courgettes , then they start asking to go home

Dizzy_Ditzy

Wow. It's been a bit of a mad weekend at the allotment!

A long overdue week off work this week, most of which was going to revolve around the plot.

I was always planning on pulling up the strawberries and then digging it over, which I'd expected to do over two days. I got the whole lot done in a morning! The boards for the three new beds have all been put together, and today's task was to get rid of the wooden composter which was already there. Sounds easy enough until you find that it had been built with painted doors and the paint had all chipped off into the compost :mad:

So an unexpected trip to the tip with the painty compost ended with me leaving with a complete gazebo frame that will be the basis of my fruit cage

Another allotmenter gave me some leeks to plant up, which was sorted today, and a 5lb squash :j I've never tried one so I'm looking forward to it

I've got some broccoli and kale plants to go in this week, then next weekend I'm picking up a lean to greenhouse

sparrer

Had home-grown runners and cauli from a friend's allotment, potato from mine, and parsnip from the freezer. A neighbour has given me some plums which are in the freezer until I have time to prep my apples, then lots of crumbles will be made.
Does anyone else have a lot of windfalls this year? I don't usually have more than a couple but almost half have fallen in the past week or so. Wondering if it's because I've been away quuite a bit recently, although neighbour's DD has been watering perhaps she doesn't give the trees as much as I do?
Sage, mint and lemon thyme are growing fast, have frozen and crushed a bag of each but think I'll be giving plenty to neighbours in the coming days.

zafiro1984

Warm and very wet here, at least I wont have to water the veg, but no doubt will get drenched doing the chickens and turkeys.

Queen of Cheap What a brilliant idea using a gazebo frame as a fruit cage. What are you going to plant once you've got it up.
I'm thinking of lining out part of my fruit cage with plastic to try and make a poly-tunnel later this autumn. I've nothing in it at the moment so I've just let the hens into it to clear it of weeds and bugs.

Tried to weed kill yesterday what will be my potato patch for next year. Don't know how successful it will be. Nearly fell over a couple of times as the ground is so uneven and I'm not 100% on my legs yet.

Off to venture outside to do what is needed

Dizzy_Ditzy

zafiro1984 wrote: »

Warm and very wet here, at least I wont have to water the veg, but no doubt will get drenched doing the chickens and turkeys.

Queen of Cheap What a brilliant idea using a gazebo frame as a fruit cage. What are you going to plant once you've got it up.
I'm thinking of lining out part of my fruit cage with plastic to try and make a poly-tunnel later this autumn. I've nothing in it at the moment so I've just let the hens into it to clear it of weeds and bugs.

Tried to weed kill yesterday what will be my potato patch for next year. Don't know how successful it will be. Nearly fell over a couple of times as the ground is so uneven and I'm not 100% on my legs yet.

Off to venture outside to do what is needed

Ive got raspberries and redcurrants in pots in the garden waiting to go in. I've also got a single blackcurrants plant but want a few more. I'm about to order a cranberry to go in a basket too :j

I've decided that I want Christmas potatoes so I've just been to the garden centre and will plant them tomorrow :j nothing ventured and all that :cool: