Show Us Your Veg Patch - You Know You Want To!! (Merged Thread)

connacher

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

I just had to share this with you! :rotfl:

OMG i Love it i want one to lol

polomint_2

LOL...carrots in love :rotfl: what ever next :rotfl:

~Chameleon~

I can't bring myself to eat them!!!! :eek:

Doom_and_Gloom

Those are some wicked carrots ~Chameleon~ I love them :rotfl: . I can not wait for my carrots to be big enough to pull up.

Money saving Diva that is an amazing front garden set up you have. I would love to do that but I can not see it going as well around here. I mean my fiancé had his bike stolen from the front drive a while ago and a house up the road on Thursday got set on fire :eek: . I just do not think it would last which is a shame

So over the last few days I have got the following from my garden:
strawberries
courgette (gave to next door and in return recived plum jam and blackberry jam :j )
marrow
peas
cabbage
beetroot
lettuce
crab apples (tree has been here for at least 15 years and produces ALOT of crab apples each year which usually go to waste . NOT this year though! I'm not missing out on free food while food prices are so high . I plan on making apple puree and/or sauce with them :T )

So I'm happy to say the least as I started late as it was late May when I planted into the patch .

I've moved my biggest pumpkin plant outside to where my lettuce were when they were in my patch. The pumpkin is still in its pot mind, I'm just giving it more soil to plant itself into . I still have 2 pumpkin plants inside in the 'greenhouse' as well as the golden courgette I have is still in there (there is one outside in the ground also :T ). I have another marrow growing on my plant now the other one has been picked so my dad and I will eat the one we picked soon and wait for the new one to grow big enough . For some reason though it's only producing one at a time which is strange and I'm not sure why .

Will be soon getting tomatoes, cucumber, more courgettes, more strawberries, more cabbages as well as more bettroot :beer: .
Next door are rather impressed with it all and love the rewards as we can't eat all of what I grow :rotfl:(they also have strawberries and tomatoes growing mind but also have plums, raspberries and blackberries which we do not:rolleyes: . However they have said they are going to give me a cutting of the raspberry bush later in the year . The courgette I gave next door was nearly as big as the last one I picked :cool: which is a good thing as there are 5 of them! I swear I don't feed them anything that would cause them to grow so much, only organic fruit, veg and flower feed :A . The plants seem to like it to put it mildly :beer: .

Hope other people are having just as much luck with growing produce!
D&G

Larumbelle

Wow I love those carrots. Always secretly hope mine will do something like that, although I did have one once that looked like the bottom half of a male, if you catch my drift. Just as well I don't have a picture, else we'd graduate from garden erotica to full blown garden !!!!!!!

Doom_and_gloom, if you like a tipple you can make crab apple wine and crab apple cider. I'll try and sort you out with the recipes if you fancy it.

Our eating apple tree is so loaded some of the branches are almost touching the floor! We have millions of them, we had to help the june drop by giving the whole tree a shake in july, but there's still loads of them! I can't eat apples, but will be making a LOT of wine, cider, sauces and preserves with them. The brambles are doing their thing as well, we have over 2lb of them in the freezer already! Tragically I can't eat them either. And the strawbs are doing great, but I can't eat them (anyone notice a theme emerging here?!)

Rummer

Those carrots are fantastic, you should sell them!

I have planted loads this year and have hardly had anything back in return. What little we have had has tasted amazing but there has not been much of it. Not sure what to do differently next year to improve the yield???

Doom_and_Gloom

silvercharming wrote: »

Doom_and_gloom, if you like a tipple you can make crab apple wine and crab apple cider. I'll try and sort you out with the recipes if you fancy it.

Oo yes I do like the odd drink :beer: :rotfl: . I don't usually get to drink wine or cider (as I'm vegan and really have to pay out usually :mad: ) so it would be nice. Vertually free drinks are not to be sniffed at at the moment I'm sure you will agree :T . PLEASE *begs like a doggie after food* could you share the recipies. I'm sure I'm not the only one wanting to know .

~Chameleon~

silvercharming wrote: »

Wow I love those carrots. Always secretly hope mine will do something like that, although I did have one once that looked like the bottom half of a male, if you catch my drift. Just as well I don't have a picture, else we'd graduate from garden erotica to full blown garden !!!!!!!

Oh I had one like that in the last lot I pulled up but wasn't sure whether I'd be allowed to post a photo of it on here :rotfl:

Larumbelle

Apple Wine:

4.5 lb apples (eating, cooking or crab) chopped in small pieces
8oz raisins or sultanas (chopped)
2.5lb sugar
rind and juice of 1 lemon
1tsp pectolase* or similar
1 sachet wine yeast
1tsp yeast nutrient
2 campden tablets

*enzyme that destroys pectin

Put apples and raisins in fermentation bin (big bucket with lid) and cover with 4 pints cold water.
Dissolve sugar in 3 pints boiling water then pour over apples.
Leave to cool until lukewarm then add lemon, pectolase, yeast, yeast nutrient and 2 campden tablet.
Cover tightly. Stir and mash about a bit every day for 8-9 days, replacing lid securely each time.
Strain through muslin into a demijohn (try freecycle), top up with cold water if there's any room at the top. Fit a fermentation lock (freecycle or wilkos) containing milton fluid or similar. Put somewhere warm and leave well alone until it stops bubbling, and starts to clear. A hydrometer is handy here (freecycle or wilkos) to measure specific gravity - if all is going well it should be as close to 1.0 as possible.
Use a siphon tube to transfer from one demijohn to another, disturbing the sediment as little as possible. This is called 'racking'. Add the other campden tablet.
'Rack' once every three weeks or so until completely clear and definitely not fermenting. Transfer to bottles (guess where from?!) and store for at least six agonising months. Quaff carefully - homebrew always seems stronger than 'proper' wine :beer:

Cleverly you can replace the apples with blackberries, weight for weight, to get blackberry wine. Never tried a mixture, though. The basic wine recipe will work for most fruits, grains and root veggies, let me know what you've got a glut of and I'll try to find the right quantities, it's not always a 1 for 1 swap.

Larumbelle

Apple cider:

1/4 gallon apple juice from crab apples
3/4 gallon cheap unsweetened apple juice
2oz sugar
1tsp pectolase or similar
1 sachet wine yeast
1/2tsp yeast nutrient

Bung all the apple juice in a fermentation bin or lidded bucket. Dissolve the sugar in a little lukewarm water - less than 1/2 pint if possible - then add the pectolase, yeast, yeast nutrient. Put that in with the apple juice. leave for 3-4 days then rack into a demijohn. Add water to make up to one gallon and seal with a fermentation lock containing milton fluid or similar. Put somewhere cool and dark for a fortnight then bottle. Use plastic pop bottles (rinsed in milton fluid or similar) for safety - things can get a little, um, explosive :rotfl: - adding 1tsp sugar per 1/2 litre of bottle. Leave a gap in the bottle when filling it. Store somewhere cool, dark and preferably immune to the odd 'accident' for a month. Get hammered on about 1 glassful. :beer: