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

carinjo

Managed to stick the christmas potatoes into the ground today. Decided on the back plot since it was less work. Done the bare minimum, just a very long, narrow trench. Will worry about the earthing up/mulching later. 
Ms C prepped the old onion bed ready for planting tomorrow. Will put some chard, chinese leaves etc in, ready for autumn harvest.
She also managed to pick a few punnets of golden plum, helps that she has quite a reach. She also dug out one of the nicola potato plants. Got a nice selection of fist size potatoes. Will leave the rest in for a bit.
Harvested a couple of handfuls runnerbeans and broadbeans.

carinjo

A quick stop this morning turned into couple of hours! Wanted to extend the autumn bed last minute, ended up hard work since the extention was previously a path. Once again, had a few choice words against old carpet    
Done a quick tidy, have a friend and her girls coming to visit tomorrow. They don't have a garden and she wants to show them where some of their food comes from. Hoping they will enjoy digging up some potatoes and picking berries.

Kantankrus_Mare

Has anyone got any recommendations for buying garlic from Isle of Wight? I usually just buy whatever is available in Wilko but thought I might try something different. Not keen on the elephant garlic but open to anything else.

-taff

I've bought from the isle of wight before. well worth it.

DiggerUK

After a poor crop of Dutch garlic supplied bulbs....never again. I'm sick to the back teeth of anything Dutch.
Barnsley Lavaterias that  grow up pink, tulip bulbs that not only fail to match the description, but also vary when taken from the same packet, onion sets that crop poorly, hyacinths that aren't to die for but make you want to kill anybody associated with a windmill.

Is it just me? Am I alone on this one? I need a large Snowball with an umbrella and a cherry on a stick. Love to everyone..._ 

Suffolk_lass

Van Meuren are the only Dutch Company I would use for similar reasons @DiggerUK

bluesooz

It's 33 degrees here at the moment and 47 degrees in the greenhouse.  
I've target watered the veg patch/greenhouse and pots this morning. Most of  the veg patch is still bone dry and no point in planting anything unless I'm willing to water everything everyday as no consistant rain is forecast,  Cucumbers and beans need waterng twice a day in this weather.  Not sure how the rest of the garden will survive. 

Have had a constant supply of courgettes, aubergines, peppers, french bean, runner beans, cucumbers and tomatoes.  Most of the beans have been frozen while I'm eating lots of ratatouille and roast mixed veg (which is basically roast ratatouille ingredients).  Only 2 of the courgette plants are cropping which means the supply is manageable as I'm quite happy to eat them several days a week!

MysteryMe

Loads of cheery toms are ripe and I can see the salad toms starting to ripen so will be enjoying them for the coming weeks. Gave the garden a good water this evening, everything is in containers so have to keep on top of it during the heatwave we are having at the moment.

Suffolk_lass

Been out and picked raspberries, a few plums (we have coddling moth damage this year) and a couple of big fat cucumbers. I need to pick chillies for my friend who is staying (I have frozen masses already!). My new freezer is arriving today (a fourth) that will sit in the pig shed. I plan to fill it with home produce with a degree of organisation so we can use it this winter. Lovely fresh veg and berries. Yum! I want to go blackberrying and gage-scrumping today if time but we must also do a bee inspection this morning and move stuff so we can get it in the pig-shed. Busy busy!

Bluegreen143

Harvested some chard, carrots and a handful of yellow French beans yesterday. Need to do more bean plants next year as you never seem to get enough for a meal at once 😂

I have two baby courgettes on my courgette plant!! Yay!