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

Caitykinss

Tomatoes appearing left right and centre now. All the hard work seems to have paid off - fingers crossed they ripen. Potatoes are flowering nicely too, although had to have a stern word with next door's children for throwing a spacehopper over the fence and snapping a few of the stems yesterday! Luckily landed on the huge foliage cushioning of the potatoes, and not on the tomatoes.

Aubergines are also looking really good, no flowers yet, but big buds on all of them. My peppers still aren't doing much. They've definitely grown as I've had to put them on the floor of the zippy as they're too tall for the shelves (will remove some shelves once I've planted beans and sunflowers out), but barely any sign of flowering. There's one flower on one of my padron peppers, and a couple of very small buds on one of my sweet peppers that have been there for about a week with no sign of getting bigger. 

In the raised beds, pak choi has also started to bolt. It's quite big, but not ready yet, so I'll have to quickly harvest it for salad leaves and sow some more. Chard is ready to thin for salad leaves too and is looking great - salad for tea tonight it is! Beetroot has finally germinated after weeks and weeks. I think the bit of rain over the weekend must have pushed it along. Second sowing of lettuce has started coming through too, but no sign of the rocket. Just harvested my second sowing of radish, and the next sowing has only just popped up. 

Leeks are looking really good now after a couple of weeks of looking a bit floppy and sad. No idea what's perked them up, but not complaining. Runner beans are climbing the greenhouse. I need OH to hammer my support wigwam into place as appears I'm not strong enough. He's promised to do it during his dinner hour today, so hopefully I can plant the beans out tonight, as well as my sunflowers. Dwarf French Beans are a bit small (dwarf though so maybe this is obvious!). I want to get them out but worried about slugs. The same with my only lot of bedding plants that survived from seed - they've been such an effort to grow, I really don't want to lose them. I'm going to stick to veg next year and get my bedding plants from Morrisons!

carinjo

Yeah for first tomatoes @Caitykinss. My aubergine is still being munched at, don't think it will get anywhere. 
@Suffolk_lass i am looking forward to using the borage in ice cubes and in salads, only 1 flower at moment, so fingers crossed.

-taff

Well, the celtuce is growing into a stick/shoot now and the leaves ranging off it are bitter so good for salads..

Suffolk_lass

I keep picking lettuce that resembles your celtuce @-taff! Add slugs and that is my salad bed at the moment. I am mixing it with a bit of shop bought iceberg lettuce for a bit more crunch but hoping the pick to plat of less than en minutes is ensuring I get the nutrients! (from the leaves, not the slugs or their eggs... )

carinjo

Harvested first leaves of chard and leaf beet, more lettuce and broadbeans.
Attempting to weed, but just too wet to get anywhere.
My photo app showed me allotment from a year ago, everything so much slower this year! 

LessImpecunious

On the topic of bolting lettuce we've experimented (against OH's better judgement) with cooking bolted stems and leaves, chopped up, in butter/oil and a little water, and results were surprisingly good (even OH enjoyed them!). Preferred to the bolted lettuce soup we tried last year (which I liked but OH did not!). Look forward to your report on the celtuce stems @-taff !

Ganga

Suffolk_lass said:

I keep picking lettuce that resembles your celtuce @-taff! Add slugs and that is my salad bed at the moment. I am mixing it with a bit of shop bought iceberg lettuce for a bit more crunch but hoping the pick to plat of less than en minutes is ensuring I get the nutrients! (from the leaves, not the slugs or their eggs... )

Thats a bit Norman Collierish there Suffolk Lass , dam them keyboards 

Suffolk_lass

Ganga said:

Suffolk_lass said:

I keep picking lettuce that resembles your celtuce @-taff! Add slugs and that is my salad bed at the moment. I am mixing it with a bit of shop bought iceberg lettuce for a bit more crunch but hoping the pick to plat of less than en minutes is ensuring I get the nutrients! (from the leaves, not the slugs or their eggs... )

Thats a bit Norman Collierish there Suffolk Lass , dam them keyboards 

ha! Keyboard batteries - pick-to-plate of less than ten minutes... poor old thing 🤣🤣🤣

Fosterdog

@carinjo I'm finding everything well behind last year too.

I'm currently harvesting strawberries and lettuce daily, raspberries are looking good and I should have a glut of them next week, the first few peas should also be ready soon, also hoping for my first early potatoes soon. Everything else is way behind and struggling. My spinach bolted so that's been pulled up with fresh seeds planted, runner beans are tiny compared to normal, my peas are taller than them, sweetcorn has little bursts of growth of an inch or two then does nothing for a couple of weeks. First lot of parsnips only had 4 germinate out of two rows, I've put a second lot in so hoping they do better, early carrots are doing okay but far smaller than they should be, put in my lates last week too.

I'm definitely feeling a bit deflated with it all this year.

Suffolk_lass

Fosterdog said:

@carinjo I'm finding everything well behind last year too.

I'm currently harvesting strawberries and lettuce daily, raspberries are looking good and I should have a glut of them next week, the first few peas should also be ready soon, also hoping for my first early potatoes soon. Everything else is way behind and struggling. My spinach bolted so that's been pulled up with fresh seeds planted, runner beans are tiny compared to normal, my peas are taller than them, sweetcorn has little bursts of growth of an inch or two then does nothing for a couple of weeks. First lot of parsnips only had 4 germinate out of two rows, I've put a second lot in so hoping they do better, early carrots are doing okay but far smaller than they should be, put in my lates last week too.

I'm definitely feeling a bit deflated with it all this year.

Me too @Fosterdog - I do have onions, potatoes and broad beans but beans and peas are a disaster, the gooseberries are not ripe yet, all the redcurrants have been eaten by the birds and there are no summer raspberries. Rhubarb is good though - I will freeze some. Some of my tomatoes are still less than 2ft high! No chance of repeating last year's crop.