The highs and lows of growing your own dinner 2015

zafiro1984

Scottish_Mike wrote: »

We built our greenhouse yesterday (finally - only took 4 months!). The instructions were terrible - so badly put together, missing out important points and very few diagrams. But we got there; it's glazed, just need to fix it down.

Brilliant, 4 months is not a long time, my tunnel was bought last August and it was only finished last week. However I know exactly what you mean about useless instructions - very frustrating.

Happy growing, I hope you get a lot of enjoyment from it.

Today was not as hot as yesterday so spent quite a lot of time on the plot.
Watering, potting up the last of the tomatoes, sowing sweetcorn and asparagus peas in modules. generally tidying and sweeping out the greenhouse - loads of rubbish went to the bonfire, feels much better. Planted out more lettuces in the tunnel, radishes have germinated. I have celeriac, fennel, swede, and kohl rabi in modules but they are not big enough to go in the beds yet - I'm so impatient.
Outside:- I'm still waiting for the carrots to germinate, usually I find carrots easy to grow so I don't know what's gone wrong this year, the sweetcorn is looking sad (that's why I've resown), early potatoes are doing fine, one plant gives us two meals at the moment so I can't complain. Hopefully tomorrow I can start to tidy the paths between the beds - so much to do.

tootallulah

First peas eaten straight from the pods, the broad beans are looking good , the runner beans are flowering away. My apricot tree is laden this year we need some sun to start ripening them up. I picked the second week in July last year, I am away the last two weeks in July this year which is very disastrous planning. The raspberies are racing away this cool wet weather suits them.

unrecordings

My peas, beans & potatoes still a long way off I think. Last autumn's sowings of onions & garlic looking good. Got my first tomato appearing I think. Preparing for the courgette onslaught. Slugs still fairly well behaved, i've caught about four in one evening compared to the record this time last year of just over two hundred (!). Nemaslug top up on order

unrecordings

Perfect day today to replenish my nematode army. Bit of rain, pop out to marshall my forces with the aid of a watering can, then a bit more rain. Before all that I pulled a couple of onions (because I couldn't wait) and pulled quite a few stalks of rhubarb. Also harvested my second courgette of the year

jpwhittle

hi all, can I join your thread please? I got my first allotment 2 weeks ago, luckily it is very organised and ready for turning over and planting. So far I have potatoes, garlic, rhubarb, sweetcorn, peas, onions and lettuce all out growing well, and a variety of seeds in the greenhouse waiting to go out when they are bigger, Very proud of my little plot so far just hoping things actually grow from it

Ken68

Welcome jp...exciting times, all this free food .MSE at its best.

Jazee

Cold and rainy, not inspired to get outside at all. And I know that I need to plant more lettuce and move the courgettes into bigger buckets. Ah well, maybe later.

Jazee

It stopped raining so I got out in the garden. Fixed some netting back up that got damaged in the wind last week. Cauliflowers are coming through, planted out my one remaining squash, put some of the courgettes into larger containers but then ran out of compost. Also planted some more salad stuff and one of the runners from the strawberries.

I feel so much better about it all now.

jpwhittle

spent a few more hours up at the allotment today, mostly just digging and tidying but did get the tomato plants out and some cauliflowers. Also really impressed as all my seeds I planted last Monday have started to sprout and did a few more seeds today. Unfortunatly im not sure how I will make it to the allotment these next few days after crashing my car on the way home last Monday. Hopefully I will get up there just to keep things ticking over a few days

Narc0lepsy

I've got a lot of catching up to do as I had a long weekend away visiting 2 sets of relatives and helping with their garden! Then a lovely day at Gardener's World Live so full of inspiration, and today went round some of the Open Garden Squares in London so more inspiration. However I only really have tomorrow eve and Tuesday, as I go away for several days on Wednesday leaving the garden and greenhouse in the tender care of Mr N (who's a good gardener anyway). I only had a quick look round today, but the tomatoes and several types of bean are coming on well, lettuce mixed leaves ready to start on and the soft fruit needs us to put the cage up before I go away or the birds will have it. Of my 5 newish (their 2nd year) blueberry bushes, 4 look great and one suddenly, in the last couple of days, looks as if it's dying. All the leaves look brown although it has rained most of yesterday.