The even bigger and better and hopefully not lower bits of growing your own in 2022!

MissRikkiC

Great idea for the fennel! I think I finally have about 5 carrots growing after previously sowing them 4 times I think so it’d just be my luck that CRF got them this time! 

I haven’t got any with blight but they’re certainly suffering with blossom drop. I’ll go out and check on them today and if they’re struggling still I might dig them out and pot them up instead. It’s super annoying as in the past I’ve literally done nothing to them when I’ve grown them, I wasn’t aware to take off the side shoots etc and we had an abundance! I’ll keep you posted! 

Fosterdog

@MissRikkiC sometimes the abandoned and abused plants do better than the well tended and cared for ones. I've found that sometimes I follow every tip to get a healthy plant and better crop but I get little to nothing from it, and other plants I forget about for a few days and end up just leaving to its own devises and it does better than anything. I'm always tempted to just leave the whole garden to do it's own thing for a year but I know I'll never actually do it.

sammy_kaye18

Well I am gutted this morning. 
I have been nursing my first few red strawberries, have tenderly transplanted them, looked after them, dried grass and put it around them to keep the fruit off the soil etc.....and was almost perfectly ripened and I came out to pick them today for my breakfast to find the biggest slug I have ever seen on my life chowing down on it. 
I am not impressed. 
Absolutely gutted but I think next year I will be using hanging baskets or tryingt o find a way to suspend them so theres no chance of that happening again. Lesson learnt 

carinjo

Just popping in to say W1lko doing 1/2price seed sale incl veg. Got some autumn broadbeans and various other bits. All had plant by 2025 dates.

Fosterdog

I had to harvest some of my garlic a bit early after one of the dogs trampled part of the bed, leaves are starting to yellow so shouldn't be too early just slightly but it's a very disappointing harvest, only 3 of the bulbs are a decent size but they haven't split into separate cloves and the ones that have split are really small, I hope the ones still in the ground have fared better because this first lot is pretty pathetic. It was a pretty mild winter here so maybe it didn't get cold enough for long enough for them. The only spinach that actually grew has bolted, none of my squash is as far ahead as they should be, and the last lot of first earlies still in the container have caught the blight that my second earlies had, still hoping my maincrops don't get affected.

On the plus side I'm still getting a glut of strawberries every day right now, raspberries are finally ready almost a full month after last years first harvest date, and even some of my autumn fruiting raspberries are ready to harvest, only 1-2 fruit a day but still way earlier than I thought I'd get anything. It's my first year growing an autumn variety so maybe it's just first year canes maturing early, or maybe I'll get an early crop every year going forward.

carinjo

@Fosterdog my autumn planted garlic also did not come to much. A fellow allotmenteer who planted his on the same day (and same supplier) also did not have much luck. Both our onions had a hit and miss with some going all soft inside (a bug/fly apparently) 
We busy painting the livingroom, so hoping @MissRikkiC my plants will survive a bit of neglect

MovingForwards

I had a mixed bag of garlic, some normal size, some look like marbles. I've got the use now batch, plaited long-term storage ones and have some cloves to replant when there's a run of dry days.

Alnat1

Last year I bought a plastic laundry basket, the type you'd use to carry washing outside. Found one that had fewer but larger holes in it (a Dunelm design). Got hubby to drill some holes in the bottom, stood it on a couple of bricks and use it for strawberries, poking some of the plants through the holes and some in the top. Works well but does use quite a lot of compost to fill it.

Suffolk_lass

droopsnoot said:

Suffolk_lass said:

I give them about two thirds to all of a 10 litre watering can to each tray (90cm square, 5cm deep), each with 5 plants in.

Can I ask please, how often do you do that? I have tomatoes in large pots in a lean-to greenhouse on the back of the house, I give them some water in the morning and, if it's been warm and they look a bit wilted, some more in the afternoon / early evening. Once a week they get tomato food. They look healthy enough and two of them are starting to have actual tomatoes on them, but I'm never sure whether I should water them more or less. The leaves on some of my pepper plants look a bit curled up, they get about the same amount of water. I am using a small watering can (less than a gallon) and on my schedule a fill of that can lasts a couple of days / four-ish watering sessions.

Too much, too little, just right?

@droopsnoot the frequency depends on how hot and dry it is. In the greenhouse this is usually every 2-3 days - I have cucumbers and chillies in there, so the tomatoes and cucumbers always get watered and fed while the chillies depend if they look dry (more water, I think, discourages fruiting but also makes the fruits slightly plumper). I generally water when all the water has gone from the trays. Outdoors, there is more moisture and less heat in the air and I water less frequently - every five days in low 20s temperature, every other day if closer to 30c.

I am adding a dash of potash rich feed once a week, and twice a week if the fruits are slowing down. Tomatoes are looking good but fewer on plants and not all have been pollinated this year. Still just one black bottom on a single tomato.

All my squashes are really slow but I find courgettes start to fly once I start picking, so I did this week. Already 4-5 double the size of the first pickings. Butternuts, outdoor cucumbers and pumpkins all still look like seedlings.

Also hardly any carrots or beets, no kale and only around 5 chard have germinated. No summer fruiting raspberries producing.

I've got lovely purple flowers on dwarf beans and Blauhilde climbers and a couple of red runner flowers. Borlottis are slower, they like more heat I think.

Plum tree might lose a limb, there are so many on there. I might need to thin out apples too. In contrast, Rhubarb is sluggish.

I am watching the blackcurrants (like a Mexican stand-off with the greedy pigeon) and eyeing up fruit cage options

Caroby

Disaster with my spinach this year. Bought a pack of Thomson & Morgan Helios for 99p, no trouble germinating in peat-free compost, pricked them out into large pots of peat-free as no room in borders and don't trust the birds to leave them alone. They've grown into perfect spinach plants ...  if you're a Borrower! About five inches tall and full of beautiful glossy miniature leaves, some now bolting so that's it. Might as well use em up as a garnish, hehe.
Six Sungold toms coming along nicely though, and two courgette plants now beginning to flower. Runner beans a bit slow in pots growing up an old iron gate propped against the wall. Last year's seeds so might not do well, only got 8 to sprout from about 20 sown.
I'd love to grow more fruit and veg though, inspired by some of you clever lot and Monty of course.