2023 - the good, the not so good but hopefully not ugly of growing your own!

carinjo

Harvested loads of tomatoes, a pumpkin and checked on harvesting potatoes.
But, it with great sadness, decided to give up the allotment. Not only for the cost in getting compost etc, but ms C's health is not the greatest and she unable to help anymore. 
And life is too short to fight marestail.

Farway

carinjo said:

Harvested loads of tomatoes, a pumpkin and checked on harvesting potatoes.
But, it with great sadness, decided to give up the allotment. Not only for the cost in getting compost etc, but ms C's health is not the greatest and she unable to help anymore. 
And life is too short to fight marestail.

Sorry to hear about Mrs C, and the allotment. I can sympathise with the allotment, but I was fighting constant vandalism, and it just was not worth my wasted time

carinjo

I've already contacted the local community allotment to donate tools and seeds. Olio and fb marketplace will be the next stop. Ms C said we shall have a go at square foot growing at home. Our garden is 3.5m x 5m. Partly taken up by shed and concrete slabs. She quite keen on raised boxes and hanging baskets, so will have a look at what will do best in our limited space. I would like to focus on unusual produce, not potatoes and onions etc. 
Where we live in hertfordshire we also have the opportunity to forage, so that is in the diary of things to do. 

kiss_me_now9

Sorry to hear you'll give up your allotment @carinjo. We've had a terrible year this year in the garden, partly due to the arrival of our little boy but equally just terrible for produce that normally does fairly well. We've had about 4 cucumbers from 3 plants, a handful of Cape Gooseberries and grown about 30 tomatoes on four plants, only one has changed from green and it's got blossom end rot so no eating that one. It looks like we might have a squash coming but two out of the four squash/courgette plants I put in didn't produce anything. 

Oh and one tiny strawberry, we got one tiny strawberry too. 

leftatthetrafficlights

Sorry to hear that Ms C's health isn't great @carinjo - giving up the allotment is going to be hard but as you said, there are more important things on life - sending my best wishes that Ms C's health improves and you enjoy your new projects of adapting your garden and foraging 😁 

The garden is definitely slowing down now - the sweetcorn is finished and the final courgettes are about to be cut, we'll be harvesting the runner beans that remain on the plants to store for the winter, the remaining spaghetti squash will be harvested and we'll be getting some more winter salad crops started.  Next weekend we'll be constructing the 'cold frame/polytunnel' on the raised bed and sowing more crops (carrots, beetroot, chinese cabbage etc) along with planting out the cauliflowers that we sowed a few weeks ago. The potatoes we planted out a few weeks ago are doing well and the chillis in the greenhouse are almost ready to pick.

We bought the garlic today to plant out in the next week or two (still more to buy but wanted to get some in case we can't find what we really want) and we also bought one of those plastic covered 'greenhouse' things as they were reduced - I'm planning on using it as additional staging for the greenhouse over the winter then using it for it's intended purpose next spring! 

This year has been a real mix in our garden too - the weather has been so unpredictable generally and the summer was poor but despite that we've still had some decent crops from some things and have enjoyed the process regardless!!