The great, good and not so good bits about growing your own dinner 2017

maisymoo5

Afternoon all. I've got all my tomatoes potted into their grow bags now.. Nine inside the greenhouse and nine outside as well as a large pot of tumbling tomatoes. My salad/herbs is doing very well - lots of lettuce, spinach, chard, rocket, basil, thyme & coriander. So enjoyable to pick my own salad each evening. I've got some cabbage, sprouts, green beans and french beans in pots outside but think my butternut squash is going to fail because I just don't have the space for them. Carrots & onions are doing well too. Plant wise, I've now got lupins growing well in the greenhouse but the rock cress I planted out is suffering with slugs despite the slug pellets. It is muggy here in Devon and we've just have a huge downpour so the water buts should be nice and full. Happy growing everyone.

tootallulah

Hi Maisy Moo, my lupins are all outside now and this must be a good year they are all going great guns - I had the dreaded American lupin bugs last year so can't plant any into the ground they will be in pots for the for-seeable future.

Muggy here in the north too I am hoping for rain!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Suffolk Lass, I get that from Goosegrass as well. Didn't realise it was a common thing.

Done absolutely nowt today - the plants are all very well soaked and I'm just going to leave them to get on with it for a day. If the molluscs trash stuff, it'll just have to be resown - that's why I'm struggling to remember where everything is, as I've spread things out to try and minimise complete losses.


It's been too muggy to do much, anyhow - managed to get slight sunburn on my shoulders from an hour outside on Friday, had a horrible, full blown migraine Saturday night after only a short time dealing with plants outside - when the weather is so harsh, you end up throwing up (which never happens to me), it's definitely time to leave it be and trust to luck/nature for a bit. As it is, despite all my grumbling yesterday about thunder and rain, the eventual deluge meant I didn't need to do any watering, so nature sorted that bit out.

CAFCGirl

Whilst I haven't had any sunburn (despite spending the day down at the beach), I suffer from allergic reactions to sunscreens (I've spent a small fortune on them!) so been making my own but the SPF isnt all that high (which I need being fair/pale skinned). If that wasn't hell enough I also now suffer from sun allergy itself, which I think it called photosensitive dermatitis ... so I am currently battling that reaction. Basically my shoulder and back of neck look like I'm covered in scales and itch like crazy!

Hopefully it should go down in the next couple of days.

Anyway........
Yesterday we went up the plot. My cabbages are looking ok, a few more strawberries have cropped up, onion sets are doing well, fruit is all coming in and the beans are surviving.

I planted in some squashes, climbing french beans, and some kale and then sowed some spinach beet directly. Husband came and he built my growhouse/polytunnel and i'm hopeful its weight down enough with breeze blocks on the frame and the guy ropes that tie to the cover (as well as inside ties and pegs. That'll take my tomatoes hopefully so need to buy some growbags for that, and hopefully my remaining pepper seedling will last too to go in there.

At home, I've potted up some brussel sprouts from their seed tray so they should strengthen nicely before going up the plot. More sweetcorn sown as my others had completely bitten the dust. More nasturtiums and melons (which it may be too late for).

Today will be more in the garden, potting on - particularly the cucumbers.

maisymoo5

lupin bugs don't sound like fun tootalullah
This is my first year growing them. They are not ready to go outside yet - need to grow a bit more first I think as the wet weather is bringing the slugs and snails out in force and I don't want to feed them my little lupins :eek:

Suffolk_lass

Fantastic news! We collected a swarm of honey bees yesterday morning and they give every appearance of liking their new accommodation and settling in. We just need to check whether the queen is laying brood because if she's not, we will need to replace her.

They were in a neighbour's cherry tree. She helpfully suggested we could cut some of the tree to liberate the swarm. Several thousand of them.

We also have the bumble-bee nest in the pea bed - at least six entrances/exits now and the rain did not put them off. Plenty of comings and goings

Jazee

Good luck with the bees Suffolk Lass.

Nothing done here for a couple of days as it's been wet. The flowers are doing well, but so are the weeds.

Have just ordered myself a small fruit cage to try out.

tootallulah

maisymoo5 wrote: »

lupin bugs don't sound like fun tootalullah
This is my first year growing them. They are not ready to go outside yet - need to grow a bit more first I think as the wet weather is bringing the slugs and snails out in force and I don't want to feed them my little lupins :eek:

The lupin bugs are terrible, huge grey bugs with no predators and they just eat the plants, apparently they survive underground and hatch out to eat the lupins the following year so you need to keep the lupins out for a couple of years to break the cycle. All of my lupins were lost and I had some magnificent ones - hey ho that's gardening for you.

Lovely to grow them from seed if you get them planted out in September they will be well established next year.

smeeinnit

Hi all

Just bits an bobs going on here lately, second sowing of carrots are up, cucumber has at least 4 tiny fruits on it and its only about 6 inches tall :j have been harvesting lettuces almost daily and gave one to my parents.

All the flowers I sowed have now germinated, really just need to crack on with a bit more successional sowing, may have a bash at some peas and dwarf beans, I don't think its quite too late for them. Everything else seems to be growing well and not too much slug damage so far.

Weather tomorrow is looking good, so hopefully will be able to get a good amount done

MissPop

Couple of things I wonder if you guys could help me with...

I planted out three seemingly healthy dwarf French bean plants, last week I think, but they look very poorly - the leaves have gone very pale, and feel almost like tissue paper :S Any idea what that might be about?

Also, my spinach - I've got a couple of seedlings which have erupted and are well past the baby spinach stage, leaves as big as my hands! Is it still good to eat/cook/freeze?