The all new good, bad and ugly of growing your own in 2020

silverwhistle

Tonight I had vegetable risotto: beetroot and Tromba squash and garlic, all my own. The carnaroli and EVO was imported!

The Tromba d'Albenga squash is amazing: two plants in large pots in my sheltered back garden and they are both well over two metres tall - even with a stool I have to stretch to reach the top, and plenty of growing fruit.

Tomorrow after this rain I shall wander down the allotment and start of the zucchini glut, which will no doubt be there after missing a couple of days! I've already had a yellow Rond de Nice, and a green stripy one. Time to take the last of the broad beans, a bit of past it spinach and rainbow chard, as well as take out and drying some shallots, and have a good going over of the gooseberry bush. A few blueberries too from my new bushes.

The raspberries from my friend and a few from the back garden are in 95% alcohol which has taken on a lovely red colour and a glorious raspberry perfume when I check the bottle. The big question is how much sugar and water to add??

Suffolk_lass

I have often considered Tromba d'Albenga squash - they always look amazing in the Italian market and a quick check, I think you can let them go yellow for long-term storage, like a butternut squash. I must make sure I get seeds for next year. We also have what husband refers to as courgetteageddon imminent. Just two yesterday but six are almost ready. I made lots of frozen courgette and lime cakes last year (off to find the recipe - we make it without the frosting and just have the cake with a cup of tea!). 

I have never made fruit licquer from 95% alcohol - I have always used a cheap bottle of clear spirit (vodka, gin, not the paint thinners!) and added 12oz each of fruit and sugar to a 70cl bottle to make sure it is not too strong or lethal - does the use of raw alcohol constitute distilling and need a licence?

silverwhistle

No, bottles ready distilled and bought duty paid for 14/15 euro from my favourite Italian supermarket.:-)

When I lived there you could buy gorgeous copper stills for home use: it used to be the case you were allowed to distill 5/10? litres of alcohol for personal consumption but I'm not sure on current law - I'll ask some friends.

The advantage of using such strong alcohol is that it really extracts all the possible flavour from whatever base you're using. I've used it to make limoncello using organic, untreated lemons and genepi (artemesia umbelliformis or glacialis). Currently cherry and raspberry experiments on the go, oh yes, and a very small quantity of chinotto citrus. The latter is normally used to make a soft drink in Liguria which is very refreshing as it's not too sweet and has a balancing bitterness. That's from last year, and having just had a sniff time to filter, sugar and bottle!

Edit: and add water!

[Deleted User]

Limoncello 😍 I love that stuff!!! Intending to make some myself this year - our local sm used to have unwaxed organic lemons on ys frequently so dh checks every time he goes to there- no luck so far since lockdown started so I may have to bite the bullet and pay full price! We've ordered a couple of lemon trees for the house though so hopefully next year it will be homegrown lemons 😉 
In other news, I'd planted purple basil in the squash bed which was coming on nicely but the squash have gone mental now and swamped them! 🙈 I'll have to put some more in a different bed this weekend- life without purple basil jelly is just not okay!! 😂 
I need to sow some spring cabbages too - I will hopefully get that done on Friday as I have my grandbaby coming at the weekend  🙌

silverwhistle

A little tip on limoncello; you really must avoid getting any of the white pith in the mix when you zest the lemons, it makes it cloudy.

DiggerUK

Going good at Digger Mansions. Kestrel second earlies cropping well and slug free so far. Received final pack of nematodes for this season, will water in today whilst there is a good chance of rain to follow.

Strawberries cropped well and rhubarb still crumbling. Red gooseberries went in to Mrs.D's jam with strawberries and first year crop of raspberries from canes purloined from a place we went walking last year. Green gooseberries nearly ready for freezing.

Orchard pears, eating and cooking apples ready for final spray. As we have wild areas under the trees we use a foliar feed mixed with herbicide and Calcium Nitrate for the bitter pit.

Winter onions drying and seeded summer varieties coming on strong. Garlic crop miserable. Seeded leeks for winter looking very healthy, ready for trenches to be filled.

Calabrese heads not so large this year, but plenty of florets still to come. Caulis have a lot of leaf with no show of hearts. Cabbages  looking good. Sprouts and kale ready to go in, next years purple sprouting needs to be got going in seed trays. No space for red cabbage, will buy and pickle.

Second lettuces nearly ready for planting out, just about finished our first crop. Third crop of radishes coming on, have had some nibbling from slugs, but not enough to cry over.
Tomatoes, capsicums, cues and gherkins doing fine in glasshouse. Aubergines failed to germinate.

Broad beans failed a long time back; peas, runner beans and haricot beans not at all rampant. Ended up with 15 sweetcorn eventually after three showings.
There is now a healthy glow from our courgette and squash bed, let's hope it leads to a good crop.

Second sowing of the second sowing of parsley now sprouting. Summer savoury is a fine specimen. We have a half gallon demijohn of olive oil and herbs already in use.

The Elderflower champagne is superb, we (well, Mrs.D again) even made Elderflower cordial. 

Best of fortune to you all, don't forget to takes some time to sit in the garden with a glass or two..._

Suffolk_lass

That's a great post @DiggerUK - lots going on there. I was able to pick yesterday in between showers - I went out to pick blackcurrants from our two bushes and I have 7 punnets with possible half a punnet of unripe berries on the bush. There was some evidence of what I assume are sawfly larvae but they seem to be using the leaves to make cocoons and their silk to bind three of four berries together. They don't seem to be eating the leaves.

I also picked a punnet of raspberries - after several days of rain I was not hopeful but not too many soggy sacrifices. Lots of hedge bindweed I need to treat over there.

I discovered my dwarf beans are producing and there is some evidence that I am sharing this crop with mice. I think I saw one scuttling away - the plants are far too close but we had three different types and nothing seemed to be growing on from seedlings or even germinating so DH put loads of seeds direct in the ground and of course they have all exploded into growth now(!) - purple and green ones are both easily missed and I am a bit stiff after bending over so much yesterday.

We are still getting 5-6 strawberries a day (12 plants, bought new from Ken Muir and not really expecting much this year so this is nice and I need to pot some runners (I use a ground staple to attach them to a small pot so they root). My remaining salad crops are bolting - I have a plan to make lettuce soup this weekend and clear the bed for a second sowing (just lettuce, pac choi, French radishes and spinach I think.

Tomatoes we are getting half a dozen sungold cherry tomatoes from the outdoor plants - the main crop is in the greenhouse and intended to be frozen so I can make passata in the Autumn.

Only one green courgette yesterday but more are coming. All my squashes are going mad at the moment and the big bed with four (two autumn and two butternut squash) is about to invade the neighbouring beds. The cucumbers are producing lots of flowers and competing with the underplanted dwarf beans that have normally almost finished by now (so late!). I am growing two butternuts in compost heaps too and they seem happy. Oh and one crown prince that is greedy for space and crowding my leeks. 

Shallots are lifted and drying - a real mix with some producing 14 small onions and others 4-5 big ones.

Beans are all over the place. Runners have finally woken up but have a way to go to catch the Italian purple climbing beans. Borlottis are all a foot tall and very disappointing (putting it down to the late frosts - they are notoriously unreliable in UK as they are really a mediterranean crop) - all the beans are on the ground!. Peas are poor - I harvested two portions and froze the pods - they will go in with the lettuce for soup.

Cherries are looking good but still a very small tree (Morello, so really for cooking but DH eats them anyway). Our other apples are patchy, with some good sized bramleys and one of the small trees doing well (only 9 apples but only 2 years old on a dwarf stock, neither of the other small trees have set fruit this year. The crab-apple is rampant though, and the three old trees (one is a russet, the other two are ancient and really there for pollination) are also OK. I am a bit worried that I have a leaf curl thing going on so will be diligent about removing from the small trees but the plum is less accessible. We had to remove a branch or two and I just hope we have not let disease in. After fruiting I will attend to it and make up my own bordeaux mix.

I removed all the top growth from our potatoes and just hope I did so in time - one had the tell-tale pustules of blight in its' early stages when I dug a couple to check. I have dug out all the second earlies to be sure (Charlottes). Our rhubarb was so late to get going and I have been spare in harvesting it so as not to weaken the plants. 

Does anyone else feel that it is a strange year?

DiggerUK

" Does anyone else feel that it is a strange year?".........I feel that every year, I've come to the conclusion that garden years are like folk......they're all queer.

We haven't got any black currants, but our granddaughter has. She came in to the kitchen just after the jam had been potted up, they would have gone in if we had remembered. She went home with a "nanna jam" and has been telling everybody that her black currants are in it, so we're still loved.  We made our own Cassis one year, never again, talk about faffing about.

Got another job to do now that I have been reminded, will need to get the French Beans in toilet rolls in glasshouse. Better late than never, one of my favourite veg..._

bluesooz

I definitely struggled early in the year, with variable germination/growth rates, but most things seem to be better behaved now.  The veg patch is still struggling with lack of rain.  I'm watering plants every day, but the soil that isn't watered can be handled like dry sand and even if i dig to 6 inches it is still dry (thats what I get from being on chalk, even with all the compost/leaf mould i keep adding to it)

strawberries were ok this year (although not the bumper crop of last year) - picking 2 - 3 punnets at a time - but they are all finished now.  These are so weather dependant and we just didn't get enough rain at the right time.
French beans and runner beans are at the top of their frame and cropping well (although still lots of blackfly)
Summer raspberries also cropped well  (better than last year - there are still gaps in the row where some of the bushes are struggling but the new canes i planted seem to have died) Autumn raspberries looking very healthy and raspberries forming
Courgettes - have harvested 2 so far.  2 healthy plants, 1 ok plant, 1 really struggling and 1 died.
Lettuces here also bolting but have planted more seedlings and another tray of smaller seedlings will be planted out later
Butternut squash growing very slowly - with only a couple of flowers so far.  Not alot of difference between the 2 in the compost bin and the 2 in veg patch
Red cabage and spinach beet growing ok now
Cavello nero looking rather sad
Toms in greenhouse doing well - have harvested a couple of gardeners delight and the moneymaker and plum cropping well but still green.  I have a single 'first in field' plant from some odd seeds which is growing slowly so, in this case, will be last!
Cues in greenhouse now showing 2 small cucumbers, but i think the outdoor cucumbers will be ready to harvest first.  I'm not sure whether the greenhouse ones are actually worth doing . (temp in there is regularly high 30s and over 40 is not unusual, even with shading, and all vents open - perhaps too hot for them?)
greenhouse aubergine plants have several aubergines on them - can't believe how quick they grow, although currently they are growing in length rather than width so have very long thin aubergines
peppers nearly ready for harvest and lots of chilis avaialable

As an aside, we are trying to establish a large wildflower patch at the bottom of the garden and have really struggled to get vipers bugloss growing - just small plants with short flower spikes  I've let a weed grow in the veg patch as I wasn't sure what it was and turns out its an amazingly healthy and good looking vipers bugloss!  

bluesooz

has everyone seen this about bitter courgettes from Mr Fothergills;  

PRODUCT RECALL: Courgette Zucchini BATCH I - https://www.mr-fothergills.co.uk/Product-Recall-MRF/#.XwmJ7ihKgdU

unfortunatley Mr Foth ergills as part of MSE banned links