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

Suffolk_lass

Oh goodness. Just back from hols and got masses that the people picking while we were away, missed. I hoped to still have raspberries but the over-ripe under leaf ones have gone over on the canes and no new flowers so I think that is it.

I am dealing with Bramley apples at the moment (a good traditional self-fertile cooking apple that is excellent for sauces but goes too mushy for tarts, when cooked). I am heating jars to sterilise them (20 minutes at 110c) then filling them with stewed apple with about a tablespoon of sugar and juice of half a lemon to stop it oxidising to brown. Instant apple dessert through winter. They keep until you open them (providing the top pops) and then use within two days. A more reliable way to keep apples than wrapping them in paper to find the mice have eaten them all. A cheaper way to store them than freezing...

We need a replacement apple tree for one whose trunk snapped due to wind and too heavy crop. Wrong rootstock. I should have gone semi-dwarfing for the size of our garden. Not sheltered or supported enough for the dwarfing rootstock we bought. There is a second tree that is also too close to the greenhouse, again on the wrong rootstock. I might just get one. 

Just a mention of pink fir apples - once grown, impossible to find all. It has taken three years to exhaust the hidden ones and completely played havoc with our crop rotation.

Right, I need to get back to autumn pruning (buddleja and honeysuckle, berberis and flowering shrubs)

alicef

@Silvertabby, I’ve always dried our chillies but a number of people have said that they freeze theirs - I’ll give it a whirl this year. @Sweetbriarrose, sometimes I just like being outdoors – here the produce can be a bit overwhelming; a magic wand would be handy . I do love dahlias though, (must get my flower beds sorted). There is a dahlia grower close to us where you can visit, (and sample their sparkling wine!). I must get over there before the frosts come. @Suffolk_lass I hope you had a fab holiday; you’re quite right about pink fir – I stopped growing potatoes before lockdown, and I still find small outcrops of them.

We’ve been away over the last week, so not much has been done outside. On our return I did make a batch of passata from the tomatoes that had reddened. I picked the quinces and, hopefully, will move onto membrillo in the next couple of days, after I’ve made a few batches of chutney. I did check the sweet chestnuts to see if we may get some nuts worth collecting.

Huge list of things to do, but I’m going to try to get a bit of seed sowing done tomorrow.

edited as lost part of post.

KajiKita

I have replanted the greenhouse with hardy lettuces and some baby kale 😊
Picked some parsley for the curry salad this evening. 

KK

KajiKita

I got out in the veggie patch for an hour and half this morning - cleared a bed and found a few spuds. A feeble yield for an entire bed for a season, but limited slug damage (no idea why) and no scab - absolutely demonstrates to me that regular watering will make a huge difference to my spuds if this is what a wet summer does 😊



KK

Sweetbriarrose

alicef I love being outside in my garden.
pulled up my tomato plants, now to get them ripened, I don’t know which variety as this was saved seed from a tomato bought from Dorchester farmers market last year.

alicef

@KajiKita - I'm impressed on your plantings - I've got to clear the polytunnel before I can think about winter crops.  I'd love to know what is your dark spud variety? (I'm vicariously living my potato growing life thru' posters' plantings).  

@Sweetbriarrose I think having access to green space is worth its weight in gold - and if it is outside your back door, then it is priceless.  I've been reading Miles Richardson's blog https://findingnature.org.uk/  which has some interesting perspectives/observations.

KajiKita

alicef said:

@KajiKita - I'm impressed on your plantings - I've got to clear the polytunnel before I can think about winter crops.  I'd love to know what is your dark spud variety? (I'm vicariously living my potato growing life thru' posters' plantings).  

I genuinely have no idea what that blue-black potato is 🤷‍♀️ It was a ‘volunteer’ from when I first started gardening here. It doesn’t grow well - these are the biggest tubers I have had from it in four years of being here 😊 If anybody knows, I would appreciate being told; they cut open to a cream colour rather than being blue-black all the way through. 

KK

FreeBear

KajiKita said: I genuinely have no idea what that blue-black potato is

Possibly shetland black, but they tend to be more rounded than yours. An outside shot that it could be a cross with pink fir apple.

KajiKita

FreeBear said:

KajiKita said: I genuinely have no idea what that blue-black potato is

Possibly shetland black, but they tend to be more rounded than yours. An outside shot that it could be a cross with pink fir apple.

Hmmm … did a further google and these look quite close:



I appear to be accidentally growing something rare ….! 😊🤷‍♀️

KK

FreeBear

KajiKita said: I appear to be accidentally growing something rare ….! 😊🤷‍♀️

A heritage variety. Not particularly rare, just unusual.

I've been growing some purple varieties (blue/black skins, purple flesh) that certainly fall in to the unusual category.