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

carinjo

It seems the theme of this year is: A bit of growing, but a bit slowly! Sorry to hear about your whoes @Caroby, you should try and have another go at your spinach, early enough i think. 
@sammy_kaye18, 2 of my allotment neighbours have had great success growing strawberries in gutter pipes on stilts. I have seen people using the pipes hanging from chains/similar from pergola to grow strawberries and lettuce. Have a look at places like fre@cycle or even 0lio to get some offcuts. 
...still painting, we had a nice shower last night, fingers crossed everything still growing on allotment and not been killed by slugs/bugs/weeds

Suffolk_lass

Ooh! How much do I love that idea @carinjo - gutters on chains

carinjo

Here are some pics of the strawberry planters i mentioned. Not guttering, but wider. 

carinjo

A quick stop at allotment this afternoon. Everything ticking over slowly. There some nasty, spikey leaved weeds everywhere. I know they have a tap root, so going to do spot treatment when i get a chance. The first early potatoes foliage died down, so will need to lift that asap. First yellow courgette and some very big radishes harvested. The plan is now to weed a bed or two each visit.
The one surprise was no aphids on the dwarf french beans or dwarf italian beans! I sprayed some about 10days ago, but left the ones with ladybirds on. No aphids anywhere!
The brassicca tunnel have quite a few bolted plants (calabrese) think it was not enough water. I'll see what i can rescue.
The red gooseberries and pear tree both looking lovely, think they could use a good shower of rain.

Suffolk_lass

They look great @carinjo - thanks for sharing! I picked our maraschino cherries the night before last, and cooked and sieved them. Of course they are completely lacking in sweetness, s when my friend and I encountered ripe cherries yesterday, we emptied the dog biscuits I was carrying into my pocket and used the bag for cherries. Lovely and sweet but quite small and perfectly rip. They are now cooked in syrup and stoned, added to the pureed maraschinos. Just need cream and I will be making HM cherry ice-cream!

I picked half a dozen Sungold cherry tomatoes, a couple of mini-munch cucumbers and about 3 Cayenne chilli peppers too. Oh, and a self-seeded lettuce. I can see the dwarf French beans starting to set fruit and bean-a-geddon will arrive soon. Courgettes are still fat-finger sized so also won't be long!

Caroby

Thanks @carinjo, I'll have another go at the spinach then. Maybe I didn't water and/or feed it enough, forgot to add some homemade compost to the peat-free.

Glittering_M

Looks like I'll be having courgettes for dinner tomorrow!
Unfortunately, I've come to realise I don't  like them that much and in the short term I'm living on my own. 
Some I'll give away to friends and family but I'll make myself eat some. I like it spiralised but it's such a faff to clean the spiraliser!

My sweet corn is getting quite leafy but it is short (similar height to my courgettes) so I don't think it will actually come to anything but we will see. Aubergine got battered by slugs I think, I should have kept it inside but the pot did say it could go out. I'll know for next year, I go through phases of really liking aubergine so that's disappointing.

I've now got 2 spring onions growing but I planted the seeds over a month ago. Nothing from the kale that was planted a similar time. 

Running out of room for my chives. I didn't realise they would come up every year so I've put some in planters so I can work out what I want to do. The rest I'll need to find space for over the weekend. 

Looked through a rose catalogue the other day and I've now decided I'd like to run some roses along a fence but we'll see! It would be costly!

MovingForwards

Chop small and add to curries / stew / soups @Glittering_M

carinjo

@Glittering_M courgette makes a lovely loaf and since you on your own at the moment, the slices freezes well too. 
With the chives, you can leave some in the planter and let them flower! The bees will love them. 
The wooden wine box i turned into a planter for the cucumber is working overtime! Since only 1 cucumber survived (after my fall) i stuck a couple of sweetpeas and leftover chard seedlngs in the box. Having baby chard every few days and the rest looking lovely growing up the trellis by backdoor. 

Suffolk_lass

MovingForwards said:

Chop small and add to curries / stew / soups @Glittering_Mand pre chopped, they freeze will in ziplock bags

I make this Courgette & Lime loafcake (I have modified the recipe from the original M&S version, which was too sweet for me) I line a loaf tin with a paper liner

4 eggs

250g caster sugar

100ml sunflower oil or light olive oil

6 tbsp Greek-style yogurt

0.5 tsp vanilla extract

1 lime

250g small courgettes

300g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

100g pistachio nuts - get chopped if you can!

For the lime frosting

150g cream cheese (philly or own brand version)

75g butter

300g icing sugar

1 lime

2 tablespoons of the chopped pistachios to sprinkle on top

PREPARATION

Zest and juice the lime. Coarsely grate the small courgettes. Soften the butter. Sift the icing sugar. Chop the nuts

METHOD

1 Heat the oven to 170°C/150°C fan/gas 4.

2 Line a 900ml loaf tin with greaseproof paper. (and a 450ml if you have one (or paper cases for individual patty tin ones, if you don't))

3 In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, oil, yogurt and vanilla extract.

4 Stir in the lime zest and juice, from 1 lime and the grated courgette.

5 Then sift in the flour, salt and baking powder.

6 Reserve 2 tbsp pistachios, and fold through the remainder until well combined. I chopped mine first

7 Spoon into the loaf tin(s).

8 Bake for 45-50 minutes or until well risen, golden brown and springy to the touch.

9 Cool slightly in the tin, then turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely. (can freeze it at this point)

10 For the frosting, beat together the cream cheese and butter with the lime zest - I added juice of half a lime (bit wet).

11 Beat in the icing sugar to form a smooth frosting, but take care not to over-beat, otherwise the mixture will become runny.

12 When the loaf has cooled completely, spread over the frosting.

13 Coarsely chop the reserved nuts and sprinkle over, to decorate.