The ups, the downs and the insides out of growing your own in 2024!

Suffolk_lass

Here it is about 45 minutes picking every day - autumn fruiting raspberries, Vic Plums, runner and French climbing beans (I am going back to purple next year - so much easier to see, to pick) and sweet peas, plus between 0 and five courgettes, tomatoes and cucumbers. Then it all needs processing. Many apples coming too. 

Honey is the immediate focus, with the last of the summer honey still coming off the hives, ready in a pile of boxes to extract.

Yes, to the sultanas - or any dried fruit @alicef - I cook mine in a fan oven on 170 for 15 minutes t ensure they don't. Lots of people dip half in chocolate too but I CBA with the mess, they are lovely with a bit less sugar too.

Some autumn seeds have arrived and I am collecting too

peewhyeff

I noticed bags of kids play sand reduced to 50p. My question is,  would this be suitable for use in the horticultural sense?

alicef

peewhyeff said:

I noticed bags of kids play sand reduced to 50p. My question is,  would this be suitable for use in the horticultural sense?

I suppose it depends on  what you mean by 'horticultural sense'.  I wouldn't use it to make up a potting mix.  If I had an old children play sandpit to dispose of, then I would happily toss the sand onto the compost heap.

peewhyeff

alicef said:

peewhyeff said:

I noticed bags of kids play sand reduced to 50p. My question is,  would this be suitable for use in the horticultural sense?

I suppose it depends on  what you mean by 'horticultural sense'.  I wouldn't use it to make up a potting mix.  If I had an old children play sandpit to dispose of, then I would happily toss the sand onto the compost heap.

Yes, I wondered about mixing it with potting compost to improve drainage for eg. lavender.

alicef

@peewhyeff I just done my lavender cuttings into a vermiculite and spent compost mix.  Having done a google the suggestion is that play sand is very fine so I don't think it would give an open structure to a cutting mix.

Suffolk_lass

Play sand is great if you want something under a wobbly paving slab or block paving though. Def worth a bag or two at that price!

alicef

I made biscuits! Thank you to @Sweetbriarrose and @Suffolk_lass for recipe and baking tips. My OH is away for a few days so I shall get out the best tea; set out my lovely art deco trio; brew a pot, with a biscuit, (pride of place), kick off my shoes and line up an old B&W movie.

I did make a start on cutting the box hedging. Then it rained. Then storm Lilian arrived. Thankfully the sunflowers are only about a third of their usual height – having been left too long in modules before planting out – so weren’t affected by the storm. Which was fortunate as I hadn’t finished tying them to canes. The sweetcorn is hopeless and some form of rodent has noshed a hole in the side of one of my Casper pumpkins; most of the rowan berries have been taken by birds. We are surrounded by grazing fields so our berries become a magnet for birds. I could forage rowan berries up on the hills, where there are plenty, but I think I will plump for quince jelly and crab-apple jelly this year. Jam option will be damson. My climbing beans aren’t looking great so I will leave them for seed rather than for drying.

The melons are swelling – I should have saved the nets from my bought lemons which would have been useful as support, (starting my collection now) – I will sacrifice a pair of tights. Collected lots of wildflower seed, (red clover; betony; foxglove; poppy). I have to rake up the grass from the end of the orchard before I collect green hay to strew next week. Picked sweetpeas, (stems are shortening now), and harvested.

alicef

Started again on the box hedge cutting. Cleared a large area of grass at the end of the orchard and piled up the arisings amongst the shelter-belt trees. We then raked green hay from donor site and spread it over our prepared area. This will lie for a couple of days to allow any seed to fall, and then the grass will be raked off, again! No need for the gym. The donor site has common spotted orchids so maybe there is seed in amongst the green hay.

I collected windfall apples, (Grenadier – early ripening cooker). Taking apples to the village honesty box is a bit coals to Newcastle at the moment so I dug out the juicer and juiced some – it was quite foamy, but as this contains insoluble fibre, (according to the web), I decided not to strain off the froth but stir back into the juice. I put the bottle in the fridge – it’ll be fine for a couple of days. Also collected up windfall pears and ripened, (fallen courtesy of storm Lilian), then poached in a saffron & spice syrup. We have started to harvest cobs/filberts now, because there are signs of squirrel activity. Unknowingly I disturbed a buzzard in the sunflowers – wish he/she had taken away the dead rat they were feasting on when they flew off. I’m hoping the buzzard will come back for it.

Finished my lavender cuttings and I’ve sorted out some packets of sweetpea that I will sow in about a month’s time. The Gertrude Jekyll roses are coming back into flower so I shall read up on rosewater recipes in the book twopenny recommended.

Watered the polytunnel, harvested, deadheaded roses, picked sweetpeas.

kimwp

alicef said:

Getting to the end of the freestone plums - helped by having neighbours round to help themselves and the foxes hoovering up fallen fruit.  The clingstone varieties are ripening now; then gages and finally damsons.

 

@Suffolk_lass I just knew those potatoes were going to be sumptuous; I also agree that the username @TomandBarbara is lovely!  Funny thing about lettuce - I think I'm longing for the time when I don't have to buy bagged lettuce and then when faced with my glut, (some starting to bolt),  I'm sort of 'meh' - but, thank you for the tip, I'll try braising some.  @kimwp let us know the variety and a picture if possible. My tomatoes are just starting to colour - Sungold up first and then it looks like it will be 'Sun Grape'.

Took me a while to find the varieties due to the chaos from the new cooker - ferline, mountain magic and nimbus. Unfortunately I managed to lose track of which variety was which, particularly annoying because one of the varieties is very tasty. 

alicef

kimwp said:

Took me a while to find the varieties due to the chaos from the new cooker - ferline, mountain magic and nimbus. Unfortunately I managed to lose track of which variety was which, particularly annoying because one of the varieties is very tasty. 

My labels always manage to get buried once I move the pots into the polytunnel.  I did grow Ferline on the allotment because of its disease resistant qualities but haven't grown the other 2.  They all look quite similar though maybe Ferline is bigger?  Hmmm - still a mystery.