The ups and downs and ins and outs of growing your own, 2018

stoozie1

the main leaves look fine. Maybe I am panicking unduly.... I'll give it time.

stoozie1

As the OP asks about what we are managing to eat to feed ourselves from our gardens/allotments, I am proud to say that today all of our (6 of us) 5 a day plus herbs to flavour have come from the garden.

And redcurrant jelly in sarnies for tea.

An artisanal coffee man on a bike lives near us, and we've struck a deal to use all his waste grounds at the end of his day. I wanted to reward him with courgettes, but he looked a bit dubious so I'll maybe wait for apple harvest :rotfl:

Kantankrus_Mare

stoozie1 wrote: »

As the OP asks about what we are managing to eat to feed ourselves from our gardens/allotments, I am proud to say that today all of our (6 of us) 5 a day plus herbs to flavour have come from the garden.

And redcurrant jelly in sarnies for tea.

An artisanal coffee man on a bike lives near us, and we've struck a deal to use all his waste grounds at the end of his day. I wanted to reward him with courgettes, but he looked a bit dubious so I'll maybe wait for apple harvest :rotfl:

:rotfl: I think cougettes are either loved or hated. Loved here and cant wait to be picking my own.

Has anyone made elderflower champagne? I picked some elderflowers the other evening and left in the kitchen to da later but everyone including myself thought they smelt of cat pee which is impossible as they from high up on th tree.

Kind of put me off so they went in the bin!

unrecordings

One of my courgettes started going yellow and fell off today - I ate it anyway with some sort of lamb meatball/kofka type things that I rustled up with fresh thyme, rosemary, hyssop, marjoram and fennel leaf. Lovely, but the kitchen is a state as the things insisted on firing bits of shallot all over the kitchen (homegrown shallots too)

Earlier picked blackcurrants. This is the first year I've bothered to net them and we got a bumper crop. I've put some in the dryer to see what happens

unrecordings

stoozie1 wrote: »

An artisanal coffee man on a bike lives near us, and we've struck a deal to use all his waste grounds at the end of his day. I wanted to reward him with courgettes, but he looked a bit dubious so I'll maybe wait for apple harvest :rotfl:

Maybe it's like the cats/cucumber thing. Hipsters could easily mistake them as dangerous predators

unrecordings

Think it's time to pick some onions & shallots today. Dry them in the garage for a couple of days, then out to cure in the sun for a week or so.

That's the plan anyway...

f0xh0les

unrecordings wrote: »

Maybe it's like the cats/cucumber thing. Hipsters could easily mistake them as dangerous predators

Ah, they think it is a perverse fake avocado trap? How to catch a hipster - first dig a hole, then cover with an IKEA rug, lay a courgette in the middle of the rug. Voila!


We are now eating rocket - blows your head off! and lovely lettuces, the basil is up and ready, tomatoes are finally getting the idea of what they are supposed to be doing (ie growing) and I have two whole courgette flowers!! :rotfl:

DH has bizarrely planted multi coloured corn in 3 containers. (we have a small yard):rotfl:

Dizzy_Ditzy

Morning growers!

Progress on Plot 3 is coming along nicely - a lot of weeds have been pulled up and you can actually see space on the plot now. The location for my fruit cage has been settled and marked out. I won the bid for the big shed and there was a little mini shed that nobody else had bid for so I have two sheds now :rotfl: We are going to use the little shed for things like weedkiller, ant powder/traps, the blue pipe I use for brassicas and all my nets and cloches so that the main shed is free to house tools and such like and not look like a bomb site :rotfl:

Next to come is to start moving the bark chippings and pull the plastic up from underneath. For some stupid reason the previous tenant decided to use thick black plastic so no absolutely no water has been able to get through, for about TWO YEARS so I need to do a very rough dig, water it and let the elements do their thing.

Hope everyone is doing well and staying sun-safe with all this sun/heat around

unrecordings

Picked my Longor shallots at the weekend, think I only lost 10% (6 or 7 out of 70 planted) which for me is pretty good. Autumn Champion onions came up too - again didn't lose that many. I'm also looking at pulling one of my garlic crops (Edenrose I think), they've died off so I'm going to pull and dry the bulbs, keeping the scapes for whatever fiendish use I can find for them. Also got my first handful of raspberries today

Watering is a real chore though, because
a) my water butts, all four of them are nearly empty
b) my outside tap is currently unusable (thanks B from the E)

Plumber is due on Thursday though...

unrecordings

Wore a yellow t shirt in the garden today without thinking and wondered why I kept getting covered in little black flies. I was King Of The Nasturtiums