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

Fruittea

The spray seems to work on most things. I use it whenever I see any creepy crawlies or something I don't like. It's good with blackfly to. I don't spray until I see something and it only effects bugs that live off the plants. So it's good around bees etc. Any liquid soap will work and yes it helps to make it sticky. It's the oxalic acid in the rhubarb leaves that does the trick and it's a great use of the leaves - I make up a batch whenever I cut the rhubarb - it seems to keep quite well - doesn't smell that nice though. The bugs need to ingest some of it - so they won't die straight away. Hope it helps.

moneyistooshorttomention

Ah...I see....

so if it's oxalic acid that is the thing that helps when spraying bugs - then logic tells me that my common sorrel I have in the garden as well should also do the trick....hmm...

Kantankrus_Mare

Does anybody grow pea shoots? I work in a restaurant and the meals often get garnished with pea shoots.

The chef have me the pot with the seedlings in when he had finished with them and I dont know whether to just water them as they are......in the little plastic pot or to plant them out?

zafiro1984

Kantankrus_Mare wrote: »

Does anybody grow pea shoots? I work in a restaurant and the meals often get garnished with pea shoots.

The chef have me the pot with the seedlings in when he had finished with them and I dont know whether to just water them as they are......in the little plastic pot or to plant them out?

Kantankrus Mare:- Yes I sow pea shoots. If you have been given a pot I'd have a go at planting them out and see what happens.
I love them as part of a salad, I use a variety called Serge I think it has been purpose bred. I just sow them as you would any other variety and cut when the are about 10cms high. I get about three/four cuttings from each sowing. They have been very healthy no caterpillars. I've just looked at the packet:- Kings Seeds £1.30p for 400 seeds. I've still got enough left to take me through to the end of this year. Waitrose are selling pea shoots for £1.39 so in my books it's a no-brainer but to grow your own.

Fruittea:- Shame about your main crop potatoes having to come out early.
Thanks for sharing the rhubarb tip, I'm going to give that a try. I've been netting everything this year but its a nuisance when I have to take it down to weed so this may work better.
Impressive savings, I'm now finding I'm going less to the supermarkets so not tempted by other things - also a sort of saving.

Final sowing of beans, peas to try and get a late harvest before the weather turns. Took a chance and sowed more carrots to take me over the winter, I leave them in the ground and pull as required

Jazee

Morning all.

Finally I have a day when I can get out in the garden. So my list (won't all be done today):

Cut grass back and front
Deadhead flowers
Dig up kale
Put netting over the chard
Get rid of old strawberry plants and anything else that's been eaten by insects/etc
Harvest potatoes and green beans
Maybe have the first tomato of the year
Plant some seeds in the greenhouse
Do edging in the garden and weeding
Paint shed and fence

Have a great day everyone.

Fruittea

Hi Everyone
Hope you did all those chores Jazee - good day for it. It's not been to hot here.
Thanks Zafiro - I still have 2 rows of main crop potatoes in but I tried out several different blight resistant types. So I should be ok. The Chicago made quite good mash after all - so that's how I'll use them. I cooked up all the damaged ones in one go and mashed them - so that will make a topper for some veggie cottage pies.
Sold some beans for £3 at the gate today. There's hardly anyone goes by but even so a little profit.
Spent the afternoon making ravioli with the beetroot tops (as a spinach substitute) and the halloumi left over from the fritters. They look pretty good - so that's diner for tonight and some for the freezer. Pretty thrifty stuff - three eggs and 300grms of flour, a little olive oil. Beet tops, garlic, basil and eggs home grown. So just the flour, halloumi and olive oil from the shop - cost about £1.50 for around 50 ravioli.
The coming week will be full of courgettes I guess but I'm picking them very small and they are lovely.
And now for a glass of wine in the garden. Have a lovely evening everyone.

moneyistooshorttomention

Quite a few apples coming up on my apple trees this year.

Only thing is a couple of them aren't "what I bought" basically.

I was there in person choosing my apple trees back along with the owner of the plant nursery and specifying that I was going to be buying only "eating apple" trees and not "cooking apple" ones.

I was NOT specifying anything other than standard upright type apple trees (not those espalier type - as too much hassle for me).

You guessed it - what do I know about apple trees? and, despite my clear specifications, I've landed up with one of mine having distinctly sharp apples (a cooking apple tree then:cool:).

With another one of mine - it's turned out to be an espalier type one and its branches are steadily going out sideways. Last year I thought "Ach...it's a young tree...it'll change" and just took some apples off and decided to wait for it to grow upwards as per "tree I'd actually bought (I thought)" this year. You guessed it - I've left all the apples on that tree basically and laden branches are now touching the ground. I havent changed my mind about the type of tree I bought....and I won't be putting in extra stakes/wires/etc to cater for it having turned out to be an espalier/step-over type. Foot put down and the branches either start growing upwards at some point or they all break off and I get the tree dug up and replaced with what I specified in the first place (sigh....more money spent on the garden then...:mad:). Do branches on trees like that ever "change their mind" and start growing upwards - or am I just going to be sitting here waiting for all the branches to break and then buying another tree (from somewhere else this time:cool:)?

Fruittea

Oh dear Money - you do sound in a bit of a temper. Sorry to hear about the apple trees. I don't know too much about them myself but a neighbour has an orchard - I'll ask around and try to come back to you. I would have thought you could prune a young tree into almost anything it could just be that the tree branches are a bit young and springy to bear the fruit and are bending over. It might be an idea to take of some of the fruit off until the branches get a bit stronger and go upright.
All the best for now.

determined_new_ms

Gosh it's taken me agggggggessssssssss to catch up with the thread from over the last couple of weeks! Have been reading on and off all day!

Money I watched a gardeners world (oooooo the excitement!) where there was a piece on pruning fruit trees so the branches grow upwards. Definitely recommend googling a YouTube tutorial.

Re the question asked a couple of pages ago (sorry can't remember the user name!) I have just bought rapid maturing turnips, beetroot and calabresse to plant up. Sowing guide says last chance to sow is August. Going to cross my fingers! They should arrive tomorrow or weds so when they do I'll post the variety.

Fruittea & Safire very impressive do with your growing totals! Very pleased my current total is £140 ish, haven't added up the last couple of days. Pleased as punch with this as its my first year really. Still loads to come through, have 2 courgette plants growing nicely at the allotment which is good as ones at home are slowing down a lot, 3 squash plants have survived the transplanting at a late stage and now all 3 are producing again, runner beans planted mid July growing well, as are French beans. Lots of tomatoes still to ripen.

I've also been foraging a lot of blackberries - have made a must for wine, picked a load which I will freeze for another batch later on and going to use some in a black current and apple loaf to take to a picnic tomorrow. The amount of berries I picked for the wine would have cost £34 in a sm! Can you actually believe people buy these?!

All in all my hobby has now cost me £27 for the year (as the rest has been offset by produce) but am guessing by the end of the summer I'll be in profit :T

moneyistooshorttomention

Thanks. Useful comments would be welcome re this apple tree. My others are shape I envisaged - it's just this one.

I guess that's the best way to look at it - ie to prune the tree - as in VERY hard.

Maybe that's my best bet - ie to wait until I've got this year's apples off it and then, come the winter, prune it extremely hard and new branches should grow back and (this time) go in the standard upwards direction. That makes sense to me and more logical than letting the tree "take its chances - and, if the branches break, then they break" attitude I was taking.

But - I'd be interested to hear what take an experienced gardener would have on how to deal with this tree.