The ups and downs of growing your own dinner 2016...

Dizzy_Ditzy

zafiro1984 wrote: »

Thanks Queen of Cheap but is there any chance you could post when these fruits have appeared in your Aldi. I'd be very interested in getting some more raspberries but our nearest Aldi is a round trip of almost 40 miles. Anyone know if Lidl do things like this, that's only 6 miles away.

Fruit trees and raspberries in aldi from 4th feb. £3.49

Jazee

The weather is putting me off doing anything too, all sorts today, rain, hail, wind, sunshine. Maybe tomorrow. Indoor tomatoes and onions still doing ok.

savingpennies

I went into £land today and bought two black currant bushes and some potato growing bags as I'd used up all my old compost bags. There were some raspberry bushes in there as well. It's so cold and windy though here there's no chance of doing any gardening outside.

Dizzy_Ditzy

Well whatever I'm having for dinner tonight wasn't grown by me but I will be having a homegrown drink tonight :beer:

I bottled up the first of the gooseberry wine, and it taste just like champagne without the bubbles, so I'll pop it in the soda stream later to see if that gives me nice bubbles

Dizzy_Ditzy

First lot of first early potatoes chitting away

First wave of chillies, sweet peppers and tomatoes were seen yesterday. Feels like things are starting to get underway a bit now

Jazee

I've taken the lids off the propagators indoors over the onions and tomatoes as the plants are getting a bit tall. Have been in the greenhouse today and repotted peas, broad beans and loads of rocket. Other seeds planted in Jan all germinating apart from leeks.

That's it for today. Unfortunately there are jobs to be done inside the house as well.

Ken68

Just finished pruning the apple trees. Going this pm to buy main crop seed taters. Then next week, weather permitting start digging over soggy ground for seed beds etc.
Otherwise things are looking good and congrats to those with stuff coming up.

mrsscattercushion

Visited the allotment this week in between the stormy winds and showers. Harvested another bumper crop of leeks, some tiny sprouts, kale and the first purple sprouting broccoli of the season. White sprouting broccoli starting to bud up, so looks like I'll still be getting veg over the next few weeks.

The spinach beet plants are probably 9 months old now and still keep chucking out new growth...has been a good start to this plot (got it Oct 2014). Just about to finish the last of last year's potatoes.

Ground extremely soggy, with more rain forecast. Got a bit of manure on the patches not done the end of last year, but probably won't be until March until can get on it to dig over. Season starts late here, with the chilly winds, heavy clay and regular snow in April :-). Overwintering garlic and some of the onions look ago, but will get some more sets, along with the shallots and Pentland Javelin potatoes in next couple of weeks, to start chitting.

B and M had some fruit bushes in for 2 for £3, so picked up couple of raspberry canes, a blackcurrant and a red gooseberry. Still need to decide layout of allotment for the more permanent crops, so probably water and plant in pot for time-being, once adjusted to being out of the shop.

Will keep an eye out for other fruiting bargains over next couple of months. Had really luck with B and M's veg in the past so fingers crossed.

Fruittea

Hi Everyone
And thanks to Queen of Cheap for the thread. I hope to follow you this year and share all the growing hints and tips.


I've made a start and am chitting potatoes. Also started some toms on a window sill yesterday. I still have a few potatoes from last year and some leeks and greens down at the allotment and for the first time I'm trying autumn grown onions so they've been in since November. I'll see how they go.
All the best

smallholding_antics

Hi All

We're new to this forum and wanted somewhere to share our ups and downs of 2016, so this thread seems great for that. We've recently moved into a smallholding and are trying to go as self sufficient as possible.

So we've already planted some seeds, some of which are probably too early but we're trying anyway. We're preparing the vegetable beds that were already in situ and have put some onion sets in to the ground. We are staggering everything that can go in from now, over a few weeks, but I was too excited to wait. The tomatoes have germintaed well but may get too tall putting them in this early but we shall see. They're in the house on a south facing window at the moment, getting rotated daily!

Anyway, just wanted to say hi and get the first post done