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

unrecordings

stoozie1 wrote: »

Would it be possible to have the recipe for this please?

Well I've given up - I don't think I wrote it down, but probably followed my Woodruff Schnapps recipe to some extent:

Peppermint Vodka:
Get a handful of peppermint leaves
Steep in vodka for about two weeks days then strain out
I'd say a large handful for 400ml of vodka
I think I added some sugar as well (after straining)

stoozie1

Fab, thankyou

Dizzy_Ditzy

How are we all doing winding down for winter? Do we have anything planted in or about to go in?

Now that I have officially given up my original plot, my new plot is a blank canvas. My fruit cage is up and just needs the wire stapling to the sides. I've manured in there so just need to get some plants to go in there

Garlic and winter onion bed is ready to go. We have to wait until 1st November to have bonfires so once that is out of the way I can concentrate on getting the rest of the plot ready for next years potatoes. I plan on putting it all to spuds mainly for soil improvement but also to give the other plot space to grow something else. I have cabbages in at the moment which are doing well but wont be ready for a good couple of months yet.

New plot has been covered with thick black plastic and bark chips for the past three years so some of it is like concrete to dig :mad:

It is already so much easier having both plots on the same site. I just have to remember that all MY tools are in MY shed :rotfl:

Pulling carrots up as and when we need them, and last weekend I pulled one that was twelve inches long :j I have had a few mutant ones but have never had to use three hands to pull one up before :rotfl:

unrecordings

My onions/garlic/shallots should show up any day now. Still got some potatoes in. Got some kale/sprouts coming along nicely and a few carrots and beetroot doing their own thing in one of the beds. I've a bed of tatsoi that something keeps attacking - and they're managing to defeat my usual measures (both trellis and lots of canes). Badgers are loving the mulch I put down around the old flowerbeds

unrecordings

Pretty much caught up with things now after a bad summer in terms of getting things done. Beans still flowering so I'm leaving those for the bees and I'm going to leave my poles up this year as they were so solid they survived next door's gazebo landing on them last weekend. Shallots, onions & garlic are now planted. Tomatoes are still going strong in the greenhouse but there's going to be little pollination going on

Suffolk_lass

Our canes were blown down in the wind and the runners have finished but I have left some borlotti pods outside for the moment, in the hope that the last of the sun fattens them up a bit. Other than that, there are some very small squashes (only patty-pan and butternut) and some leeks, none of which are big enough to see us through. If this were medieval times it would be a year of famine. Except for weeds. There we have an abundance!

unrecordings

Some weeds like bittercress are not only edible but very tasty. Very nice in a salad or ramen. I tend to nurture and/or repot good ones that pop up (but don't allow them to go to seed obviously)

Living_proof

I went to my plot at lunchtime to try and tidy it up a bit - it is knee-high in weeds because I've had a bad back and the heavy rain we had recently brought on every weed seed at express speed. The last time I went I brought back as many of the tomato plants as I could and hung them in the greenhouse to ripen, and most of them have.

What amazed me today was that the three plants I abandoned due to lack of space were still growing strongly and there were literally hundreds of ripe yellow plum tomatoes and I have picked several pounds which I'll have to dehydrate due to lack of freezer space. Some suggestions for their use are to grind into a powder to add to soups, etc. or I could slice, dry and subsequently re-hydrate but am unsure what I could use them for.

Do any of you have any good ideas please?

Suffolk_lass

Living_proof wrote: »

I went to my plot at lunchtime to try and tidy it up a bit - it is knee-high in weeds because I've had a bad back and the heavy rain we had recently brought on every weed seed at express speed. The last time I went I brought back as many of the tomato plants as I could and hung them in the greenhouse to ripen, and most of them have.

What amazed me today was that the three plants I abandoned due to lack of space were still growing strongly and there were literally hundreds of ripe yellow plum tomatoes and I have picked several pounds which I'll have to dehydrate due to lack of freezer space. Some suggestions for their use are to grind into a powder to add to soups, etc. or I could slice, dry and subsequently re-hydrate but am unsure what I could use them for.

Do any of you have any good ideas please?

You could bottle some to preserve them - they keep for several months. Check out UK old-style bottling or American Canning recipes. Last year I used olive oil and herbs and gently simmered the tomatoes and sterilised clip top jars but I think the screw-top kilner jars keep a bit longer. You can mash the tomatoes while cooking and treat them just like a tin of chopped tomatoes for cooking and the oil is deliciously infused with tomato flavour if you preserve in this (and I used it up for roast veg afterwards)

Dizzy_Ditzy

I managed to get enough digging done on the new plot to get some winter onions in :j

I was a bit late with the garlic by shop standards (ie everywhere was sold out!) so I ordered some online and started planting them this evening. I need to get a bit more digging/raking done so I can get more in but we are planning on having a bonfire in the middle of the plot in the next week or so, so I'm waiting until I can dig all the way before getting more in. But I've made a start!

The light changes pretty much mean now that I'm not going to get to the plots after work so all my efforts will be at the weekends or random days off, and then that's weather permitting :eek: but it will happen

I'm already seeing the benefits of having both plots on the same site so come next year, it'll make my life so much easier and save me loads of time not having to go between the two different sites

I need to get some summer raspberries sorted and planted. I don't want autumn ones because I get lost with which is which and what to prune when. That's me not being very organised though :rotfl:

I was going through the freezers a couple of weeks ago and found some strawberries so I thawed them out and got 3 jars and a yogurt pot of jam

Most of my plot next year is going for potatoes, onions and garlic, with the exception of the fruit cage which for now, will only be raspberries. Once the potatoes come up I'll be able to get some other stuff in but I'll think about that closer to the time. I want to do strawberries vertically next year so I can get cracking on preparing the pallet

Hope everyone else is doing ok