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

carinjo

Another piece of advice i can add to my list, thanks @Suffolk_lass.
Came across a small allotment in Lisbon next to an estuary. They still have climbing beans coming up in september. I love the bamboo fences. 

Suffolk_lass

I always find myself looking at the domestic veg growing when I'm on holiday too! And the allotments and smallholdings...

Makingabobor2

carinjo said:

@Makingabobor2, i leave the healthy leaves and stalks on the rhubarb, since that feeds it for next season. Remove dead ones throughout the year. I've never removed the end of year's, just because i tend to not go to the allotment in winter, except for pruning. If you have some food like blood, fish & bone/ well rotted manure, can feed the rhubarb autumn time, but feed around the crown, don't cover it. All of this advice is what i learned on this group, just paying it forward.

Thanks for that. x

Suffolk_lass

Back from 3 nights away in the camper, and one full day at home before we go away for two weeks. I now have rather a lot of tomatoes and courgettes to process and a week's late runner beans (post rain), to take with us, after picking before yesterday's rain!

-taff

droopsnoot said:

We used to grow strawberries, and in fact I've got plants that look like them all over the place, but they only produce very tiny fruit. 

They're probably alpine strawberries?

droopsnoot

-taff said:

droopsnoot said:

We used to grow strawberries, and in fact I've got plants that look like them all over the place, but they only produce very tiny fruit. 

They're probably alpine strawberries?

Oh, maybe. They started out in the area where the strawberries used to be, but they're spreading really quickly, throwing shoots out all over the place. I can see how they've got to the vegetable patch because it's just a short hop across a narrow path and they've run along the edge, but I can't see how they've turned up at the far side of the garden, with none in between, getting past two lawns and another concrete path.

Farway

droopsnoot said:

-taff said:

droopsnoot said:

We used to grow strawberries, and in fact I've got plants that look like them all over the place, but they only produce very tiny fruit. 

They're probably alpine strawberries?

Oh, maybe. They started out in the area where the strawberries used to be, but they're spreading really quickly, throwing shoots out all over the place. I can see how they've got to the vegetable patch because it's just a short hop across a narrow path and they've run along the edge, but I can't see how they've turned up at the far side of the garden, with none in between, getting past two lawns and another concrete path.

May be sown via a bird's bottom, having eaten some of your fruit?

droopsnoot

Yes, perhaps. They're popping up all over the place, yesterday I noticed they're coming up in another part of the garden, between a couple of paving stones. If it ever stops raining I'll do a bit of weeding. In only a short few weeks I've gone from "I'd do that but it's too hot" to "I'd do that, but it's raining".

carinjo

Got my garlic from friends who went to garlic farm on Isle of Wight. Both softneck, got visions of braided garlic hanging from the kitchen shelves, come harvest time. 

greenbee

Temperatures are due to drop to around 4C tonight, so I'm trying to decide whether to harvest my not-quite-ripe blue banana squash and the very green musquee de provence...