The ups, the downs and the insides out of growing your own in 2025!

Suffolk_lass

Removed the triffid (Guatemalan Blue banana squash) after harvesting 4 large fruits and also about four small, unripe ones which went in supper and soup, along with some courgettes. Now the courgettes in that bed can see the sky, their yield may yet improve. I also posted yesterday's runner beans to my Mum! I made sure they were young beans, just a handful. She's over 400 miles from me and they grow better down here. Daily pickings are taking about two hours at the moment. They inevitably involve lots of rummaging, monitoring, and removing of incidental things. I love this time of year!

greenbee

My blue banana have only just started flowering!

Suffolk_lass

greenbee said:

My blue banana have only just started flowering!

When I googled it, I have a mostly green variety, whereas @foxgloves' is the true blue-grey. Maybe they are later. I spotted I do actually have at least one butternut plant. It's sharing the same bed as the younger sister triffid (Crown Prince) but I have four more fruits there (on top of the three already taken) before I can liberate the space there to let the butternut take over.

carinjo

I have friends off to Isle of Wight in a few weeks and they said they'll bring something back for me from the garlic place. Can anyone recommend any of the garlic bulb "seed" from there? I'm in hertfordshire, for climate idea.

Suffolk_lass

Others might be far more experienced than me with garlic, but here's my experience

I have ordered my garlic from Kings Seed (they are pretty local to me). The last two years I have had two bulbs (about 12 fat pips each) that I have planted in October and had pretty good results. I am a relative novice with garlic but these are a soft neck variety (plaited and in my larder now). The variety is Maddock Wight (presumably Isle of) - This year I have also gone for a hardneck variety; Carcasonne Wight. I haven't grown these before. I can recommend Maddock Wight - I would ask your friends to get you a pot of garlic fertiliser too - I fed regularly the first year, though knowing me, only when I planted and once they started to grow come spring. This year I only fed when I planted as my husband was ill and my attention elsewhere. The results were much better the first year. Before that, my attempts had always been the single pip bulbs, where frost had not split the plants, and I'm sure I planted much later and did not feed them, with really poor results.

If you want to research some of the different options, here's a link to Kings - beware if you buy - they are a commercial seed grower and I nearly ordered a lifetime supply of garlic fertiliser - 3kg instead of 300g (though only £1.50 more so maybe your allotment cohort might want to share in some - I'm a back garden grower though...)

droopsnoot

I've got quite a few tomatoes on my plants now, most of them are very small but the largest has finally started to look as if it might turn red soon. There are some tiny chillies as well, but those are quite far behind. Lettuce is going well, I haven't had to buy any for a few weeks now.

rtandon27

This year I've had a bumper harvest of chilies - mild fresno which make me laugh as they grow upside down and a bog standard chili from the garden centre - super hot, so they are being dried to make chili oil for xmas presents.  I've picked almost 70 from two plants & there are still more on the plant staying stubbornly green!

We've also had a bumper crop of blackberries, almost 3kg which are bagged in the freezer after being laid flat on a tray and flash frozen with an ice glaze.  They were amazing in our first crumble of the year.  Raspberries sadly were decimated by the birds - I got a handful which I ate on the spot.

Our dwarf apple tree is laden and sill soon be ready for harvest - I've still got a kilo prepped in the freezer from last year so heaven knows what I'll be doing with this year's.

Potatoes are being grown in bags and first two bags are turning over so ready for harvest & I've just planted up another pot for xmas tatties.  Next week I'll plant carrots & parsnips also for xmas.  I always find it amazing how the growing season here in the UK can be 10-11 months, as across the pond where I grew up we had a short 6 month season & had to do a lot of canning & freezing for the winter months or pay through the nose for imported products!

greenbee

My veg plot has been somewhat neglected recently and looks like a jungle. Which is making it difficult to harvest raspberries, and means I've missed opportunities for succession sowing - and for transplanting the leeks. I'm hoping to get a few days to deal with it at some point over the next few weeks (although I need to scythe the grass at the front before the tree surgeons come to take the big poplar down) and at least make the most of what I do have.

Tomatoes have been disappointing this year - I think the greenhouse has been too hot, and it was a mistake to remove the gravel trays to let them root through the pots into the ground. Last year the gravel trays were waterlogged at times. I think this year they would have been helpful! So I'll go back to using them.

I've also realised I need to put more thought into setting up frames/supports as I plant. 

So by next year I want the irrigation system up and running properly, all the raspberry supports in, and planting planned so that bean supports/squash supports/pea supports etc are in place ready for their crops. 

There's masses I should be picking at the moment, but I don't have time, but again, I need to learn from it and have more variety but smaller quantities. And plans for what to do with anything there is a glut of. 

Suffolk_lass

@rtandon27 you could "can" (bottle) apples - I have been doing it in two forms - the traditional bottling in syrup but also just cooking (stewing) the apples and jarring them up like I do jam - oven warmed jars to 110c from cold and at temperature for ten minutes, then filled using the the jam funnel - the tops need to pop, then they keep for 6 months in your store-cupboard. You have ready prepared fruit tasting of summer for topping your breakfasts or having with yogurt for desserts. Just our ideas for their use.

rtandon27

@Suffolk_lass - you are such a wealth of useful information! May have to plan that into my leave next week!