The even newer good, bad and ugly of growing your own in 2021!

LessImpecunious

Pennysmakepounds said:

PS - what do people mean by 'Chit'?

Chitting is placing seed potatoes in a well-lit position so they begin to grow small compact shoots, rather than the long fragile shoots prioduced in the dark, which are likely to break off when you plant them out. It's not absolutely necessary, but is probably the best thing to do if you've bought seed potatoes and can't plant them out yet, or keep them somewhere cold enough to stop them sprouting before you can plant them.

Suffolk_lass

You are very welcome @Pennysmakepounds and good luck with your growing. Actually leaving the legumes (peas and beans) in the ground helps their roots to break down and get their nutrients into the ground.

As @LessImpecunious says, Chitting is the process of the tiny shoots starting to sprout and then grow on seed potatoes. Normally in the UK seed potatoes are more likely to be virus and blight-free (these are the things that can damage your potato crop) - blight is horrible. If you get some seed potatoes you will see "first earlies", "second earlies" and "maincrop" - it just refers to how early that variety will be ready. Potatoes are a great way to improve the soil structure and one of nature's "cleaners" - the soil looks and feels a bit like mole hills after growing them - crumbly with plenty of air through it. - I've got a couple of egg boxes on top of my extractor hood with chitting potatoes in!

Blight
We have had blight twice just as the potatoes are approaching the time to harvest. Your crop looks really healthy with the first signs of flowers forming. Then the next day, part of the top growth collapses (in the middle of the patch for us) with brown markings on leaves. This spreads quite quickly sand if left, the potatoes turn to stinky semi-liquid yuk underground. One save is to cut all the affected top growth down immediately they start to collaps - the tubers (potatoes) will still be usable but a bit smaller and sometimes with little patches of damage that mean they won't store well (they would need prepping and freezing if you wanted to keep them) worth looking on youtube for some pictures or clips so you know what to look for.

carinjo

The few potatoes i kept from last year's crop to chit went completely rotten. Not sure what went wrong, but putting them in a ziplock bag might have created an environment for gasses etc. Oops. 
Back at work next week just in time for good weather! Should be able to do a couple of mornings though on plot. 
Treated myself to a medium sized plastic greenhouse can keep at home. Should keep ms marple, our cat, from eating all the leek and sweetcorn seedlings this year! 

Suffolk_lass

carinjo said:

The few potatoes i kept from last year's crop to chit went completely rotten. Not sure what went wrong, but putting them in a ziplock bag might have created an environment for gasses etc. Oops. 
Back at work next week just in time for good weather! Should be able to do a couple of mornings though on plot. 
Treated myself to a medium sized plastic greenhouse can keep at home. Should keep ms marple, our cat, from eating all the leek and sweetcorn seedlings this year! 

I managed to get a pack of just 10 seed potato at our local "Harrods" (pound-store plus)

the_cross_rabbit

Onions and shallots sets put into trays of compost. This helps them develop some roots which in turn helps to anchor them in the ground and stops the birds and mice pinching them😡. Hoping to get 🌶 and 🍅 in the heated propagater today.
CRx

carinjo

Suffolk_lass said:
I managed to get a pack of just 10 seed potato at our local "Harrods" (pound-store plus)

Mine had some Desiree! And this afternoon, Mr R neighbour on allotment asked if i wanted some Maris Piper. He bought a huge bag and selling them on FB. Another neighbour got gifted 2 fruit trees, he think they are cherry, gave me one. A good start.
Ms C helped a bit this afternoon levellig the ground under the pallet deck and i carried on pruning and clearing under the gooseberries. 

Suffolk_lass

We finally got out in the garden yesterday - I pruned the small apple trees and have arranged for my younger, more athletic friend to come this afternoon to  go over the three enormous old apple trees that we brutally pruned last year (that was a "kill or cure" session and they all survived but we now need to remove the vertical "water spout" growth so we can move to the next stage of regaining control!)
Meanwhile DH took down all the autumn fruiting raspberry canes that we probably should have removed a fortnight ago (had it not been for floods, snow and ice!!).

I have started to plan the replanting of a large flower bed that we killed off after three years of unsuccessfully trying to remove ground elder. This year I plan to leave it bare for the early spring and start accumulating splits and root cuttings from other parts of the garden to put in when I am sure it has gone. I've also got loads of collected and bought seed I want to sprinkle to get back to its cottage garden origins. I will have to buy some things but if I can redeploy some it is obviously cheaper. The only link of this to our grow-your-own is that I plan to try some edible like salad seeds as an interim crop.

Lots of honey bees out and about yesterday, with white and yellow pollen sacks stuffed

the_cross_rabbit

Very mild today so worked on getting the new raspberry and strawberry beds finished, they just need to be planted up. Managed to get chillis, peppers and tomatoes have been sown. Hopefully next week we'll  get some flowers sown, some to make the plot look pretty, some for pollinators and some for eating. 
CRx

Suffolk_lass

We spent yesterday in the garden, DH finished the raspberries and then did the strawberry bed (leaving five runners to re-pot). The strawberries are in a double-(triple) sized butler sink a friend of ours spotted on an industrial estate, years ago. It weighs an absolute ton, sits on a few bricks but has to be moved because we are having the outside of the house painted this Spring - that and two trellises. Nightmare. 

We each weeded half an 8'x6' veg bed (lots of pink shoots of oxalis corniculata, or creeping woodsorrel, the bane of my life) removing nettles and chickweed - so we can get the onions and garlic in early.

Meanwhile I had a good sort out in the greenhouse and emptied all the pots that had tomatoes in last year, separating spent compost from roots - then I tipped the compost on to the bed that had potatoes last year (same nightshade family) and the remainder along the newly weeded raspberry bed and round the bottom of the plum tree.

My friend came round to help with pruning the old apple trees that we attacked last year. Lots of vertical "water spouts" to remove plus some shortening of old wood so hopefully as the buds burst into growth, the energy is going in the direction we want it to. One of the trees is split at the bottom where the root graft has failed and the graft had lost a huge lump of trunk at the bottom - so I made sure he was not climbing in that part of the tree about half of the 12-14" trunk has completely rotted. We will need to take it down before it falls next year I think. I might explore grafting a bit of it onto another tree as it is a very old variety

Pennysmakepounds

the_cross_rabbit said:

Very mild today so worked on getting the new raspberry and strawberry beds finished, they just need to be planted up. Managed to get chillis, peppers and tomatoes have been sown. Hopefully next week we'll  get some flowers sown, some to make the plot look pretty, some for pollinators and some for eating. 
CRx

Are you planting the Chillies, Peppers, Tomatoes outside or indoors?
I've just started planting the same selection indoors in a propagator on a heated matt. 
I failed miserably last year to get even a single chilli plant to grow so bought new seeds again this year to see if i can get some chillies/toms to grow and actually fruit.