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

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Niv wrote: »

Tomato's mainly failed this year. I haven't had as much time to spend outside as I would like.


I have green fruits going brown and the leaves are also dying off. Any ideas what caused this? I keep them in growbags and feed them weekly - my suspicion is they have got waterlogged at some point.


On the positive note I have tonnes of courgette and summer squash, they have loved all this rain one day sun the next!

Blight. It's carried in the air and happens with warm and damp conditions.

Niv

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Blight. It's carried in the air and happens with warm and damp conditions.

Ahh right, thanks. Never got that when I lived in town.

zafiro1984

Morning all. Weather looks as if it may have cheered up a bit so I'm feeling enthused.
Going to spend as much time on the plot today as I can plus I need to go to the garden centre for a few bits and pieces. They should have their seeds reduced by now so I may have a look for some of next years seeds.:)

Wishing all a happy and dry gardening day

Jazee

Hello all. I have been harvesting courgettes,chard,spinach,chillies, peppers and tomatoes this morning. Have also had a tidy in the greenhouse and planted some pots of herbs to grow in there over the winter and some winter lettuces in my new raised planter in the garden. Still lots of tidying and weeding to do. It's pouring with rain now and I have to go out so hope I can carry on tomorrow.

zafiro1984

'Dry gardening day' well that was a hollow laugh. I was busy weeding where the onions had been when the heavens opened and I had to make a dash into the tunnel. thunder and lightening but at least I managed to get one of the tunnel beds sorted.
Took out all the spent sweetcorn, 2 cucumbers but laid the one left down and covered over the stems with soil so they will root and possibly give me some more cucs.
Some of the peppers/chillies have become top heavy and fallen over so I rescued what I could and tied them back onto the supports, the branches that had fallen off I put over a wire frame so they will ripen.
Decided to collect more tomatoes from the other tunnel but when I opened the door horror of horrors they had blight, the foliage was black and dying - they were fine a couple of days before, so I collected the ripe toms and tomorrow I shall take out all the affected toms and put them to burn.
I'm a bit upset at losing them but I'll have a clear bed to plant some sprouting broccoli, cabbages and kale before the weather gets too cold, and the nice thing is because they will all be in the same bed I can cover it to keep the butterflies out.

I'm now on the hunt for autumn planting garlic, shallots and onions, Oh and by the way my Autumn raspberries have just started to fruit, I picked about 300gms today.

Hope the weather is better tomorrow

Niv

Been making space for my bee hives this weekend in readiness for moving them to my garden so not so much gardening, more lugging compost and rubble (kindly left by the last owner) from the bottom of the garden. Now I have to decide how to get rid of the rubble now its out the way, about 10 tonnes of it

CAFCGirl

Grow tunnel was dismantled this weekend, and the chillies were bought home in the hopes of overwintering. I need to get them into bigger pots first off.
Cut my pumpkins off their vines and have put them up off ground to encourage ripening and keep the rain off - not entirely sure if thats the right thing to do or not LOL

The summer squashes are STILL going, 13 picked yesterday. Next job will be dismantling the pea trellis and digging those plants out, and thinning out my pak choi and choy sum.

My lovely plot neighbour donated me a pond, and I was in the process of digging the hole. I hadnt been up for about 10 or so days, he's done it for me! So I need to get him a little thankyou gift

Niv

CAFCGirl - what do you do with all those squash? I have had a similar haul but feel a little inundated!

MissPop

Another 3kg of tomatoes picked today - that takes my edible crop to 9.2kg :eek: I reckon at least 2-3kg has been lost to blight though Any tips on how to avoid it in the future? Is it just a case of not planting in the same soil again next year...?

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

CAFCGirl wrote: »

Grow tunnel was dismantled this weekend, and the chillies were bought home in the hopes of overwintering. I need to get them into bigger pots first off.
Cut my pumpkins off their vines and have put them up off ground to encourage ripening and keep the rain off - not entirely sure if thats the right thing to do or not LOL

The summer squashes are STILL going, 13 picked yesterday. Next job will be dismantling the pea trellis and digging those plants out, and thinning out my pak choi and choy sum.

My lovely plot neighbour donated me a pond, and I was in the process of digging the hole. I hadnt been up for about 10 or so days, he's done it for me! So I need to get him a little thankyou gift

A basket of Summer Squashes?





When I had a load of chillies to deal with, I dried them by running a triple thread of cotton through the tops and then stringing them up from the pan rack, which is over the radiator and near the boiler, as I rarely have that radiator on. there was plenty of air circulation from the Idiot Cat's frequent expeditions into the garden to check nothing had changed over the last twenty minutes/whether his tabby & white little female friend was visiting him (no working bits on either of them, so no danger of kittens appearing in the shed )

They went a dark red and wrinkly, but were perfectly dry within a short time - I could then use them for cooking by crumbling them, soaking them before chopping or by chucking whole into the pot - and crumbling them gave me nicely dried seeds for reuse. I think they looked quite attractive as well.


The Chard is all beginning to look like something we could get a few meals out of now. It's just got to stop tipping down for long enough to get me outside and sowing the winter crops, as whilst I don't mind a bit of rain, getting drenched within 3 minutes isn't really my idea of fun.