What have you done on the plot today?

[Tail End Charlie]

Pulled some beetroot, took them home, sliced and roasted them in olive oil, garlic and balsamic vinegar. Delicious, not had beetroot like that before.

[Wobbly John]

how do you know when Garlic is ready to lift, WJ?  Mine looks perky from above but I've been fooled before...

Apparently "when a third of the leaves die back" When the bulb is firm and the cloves are not separating.

BTW, it's 'Elephant garlic' that I grow.

I must take the camera down there sometime and get pictures of my crops.

Picked carrots, spring onions, mange tout, french beans, courgette, a red onion, last few sparrowgrass and parsley to make tea tonight.  

[Flying_Monkey]

Our cut and come again Bronze Arrowhead lettuce continues to produce more than we need. Amazing - best lettuce we have ever grown. We also have turnips, courgettes, beets, spring onions, Pattypan summer squash and carrots. All the herbs are fantastic - so it was courgette, carrot and sage fritters tonight, and a salad with lemon balm and chives, plus rice cooked with our own kimchi we made with the bok choi explosion a few weeks back. Yum!

[spindrift]

I got three wheelie bin loads of wet leaves and chucked tons of coffee grounds over it, left it for eight months then dug it into a border to rejuvenate it a bit:

Picasa Web Albums - solomonsky - garden

[clarion]

Long overdue weeding, and clearing some stuff like the peas, which are over.  I pinched out the growing tips on as many bits of runner bean as I could see...

[Palinurus]

Yesterday evening got a final bag full of broad beans and started harvesting some potatoes- same plants that'd gone all brown and floppy due to a late frost, so that didn't harm them too much. I'll go along later today to pick the last of our cherries. Also- for the first time ever- got a cauliflower, I'll cook that later. Didn't plant them firmly enough- heads aren't nice and dense. Courgettes, squash and pumpkins getting started nicely. Borlotti beans slow getting going but should have some in a few weeks.

Could do with some rain. The remaining grassy bits of the plot are nicely browned- it'd be a good time to dig some of them up, stuff is really weak at the moment.

[Wobbly John]

Garlic now lifted, and last of the early broad beans harvested for next years seed. The area from these has been cleared and late salads (lettuce, radish & rocket) planted also turnips & pak choi.

French & runner beans are cropping well, but because of the dry weather, they are intent on producing seed and so are going tough early. 

Because I didn't pick any crops at the weekend, I have marrows instead of courgettes. 

Need to catch up with some weeding this evening.

[Tail End Charlie]

Gathered what felt like a full harvest (I only started late in the year as this is my first). Loads of broad beans, potatoes, mangetout, beetroot , one french bean and a deformed carrot and some strawberries.

[Flying_Monkey]

Loads of (cosmic purple) carrots, most of which I have pickled in an Indian style; chard (made into a test version of kimchi); endless courgettes and summer squash, third lot of lettuce and radishes (including daikon); (yellow Kentucky Wonder) beans are just coming; tomatoes are reddening (or blackening depending on the variety!); the first aubergines and peppers are ripening; autumn squashes are already getting big, and we also have berries! Life is good... 

[Wobbly John]

Picked my first ripe tomato yesterday, as well as picking a large carrier bag full of french beans for freezing, and a trailer full of courgettes marrows.

I was dissappointed with my strawberrys again this year. I think I need to establish a new bed of them. Can anybody recommend a variety?

[hellymedic]

Picked my first ripe tomato yesterday, as well as picking a large carrier bag full of french beans for freezing, and a trailer full of courgettes marrows.

I was dissappointed with my strawberrys again this year. I think I need to establish a new bed of them. Can anybody recommend a variety?

My strawerries were very disappointing this year, having cropped heavily in most of the ten years since I bought them from Woolworth's.
I put it down to the harsh winter just past.
they've been moved twice.
They are El Santa, which is a little bland but I'm not really complaining.

[Mike J]

A bit of digging and watering and burning of the bay tree that has been cut down on our plot.

[clarion]

A trip to the garden centre brought lots of stuff to do in the garden.

I dug over the 'failed' potato bed, and was surprised to find that there were quite a few atractive spuds down there (artfully arranged in a bowl):



I then planted out some carrots (Hush!  Don't tell the carrot flies ) and some lettuce seedlings, and spread around some organic plant food.

Butterfly repotted a whole load of stuff, including our tomato plants.  Then sprayed the naughty blackflies on the runner beans with organic spray stuff.

Oh - and we got a longer hosepipe to end the long walk to & fro with buckets & watering cans.  Expect a hosepipe ban imminently.

[Mike J]

I then planted out some carrots (Hush!  Don't tell the carrot flies )

A tip I've been given for this is not to thin them out too much.

[Tail End Charlie]

Thinned out some lettuces I'd sown a little while ago, picked two more deformed carrots (although they were tasty) and am generally getting things ready before I go on holiday at the weekend.

[RJ]

Harvested salad, peas and beans.

[Flying_Monkey]

Picked pounds and pounds of beans.

[Chris S]

Uh oh. We have a rather large wasps nest right in the middle of the lawn.

Now we could just dust off and nuke the site from orbit (it's the only way to be sure). #1 son suggested some CN20, or perhaps half a gallon of petrol and a match  .

I don't want to leave it because sure as eggs is eggs, they'll attack the next poor f*cker who mows the lawn or goes weeding the border in that area; and that may well be me - I don't react very well to wasp stings in that I react a lot to them.

Is it worth getting Rentakil out for £80, or will a dusting of Ant killer and a large paving slab over the hole do the job?

[matthew]

What ever you choose, if you react to the stings, make sure someone else does it. You should be safely inside behind closed doors and windows for the 12 or so hours when the wasps are going to be very upset but not yet dead.

[clarion]

Over the weekend, the plot has had no attention, but, last night, we had spuds & runner beans from the garden and some lovely aromatic parsley to flavour.  It's really good to eat your own produce.  I don't think I've ever had more than one item from the garden on the plate at any time.  I look forward to the day when I can do a whole meal from the plot.

[clarion]

Couldn't do an awful lot today because of a bad back, but I got 1.5kg of spuds off three plants, which is pretty good.  With French beans, parsley and celery from the garden, it was a real treat. 

[Flying_Monkey]

Tomatoes is what I am going. Loads of them: red ones, yellow ones, black ones, big ones, small ones, round ones, pear-shaped ones, oval ones, crinkly weird ones... but mainly just loads of them!

[Si]

Tomatoes, lots of.  Beans even more of. Courgettes, marrows - out numbering the beans and toms.

Oh, and not even halfway through the first early pots.


This years seems to have been a bit different for pests:

Very little sign of carrot root fly or onion fly yet (touch wood), whereas last year there was loads.
Hardly seen any slugs either - normally a slug fest.
Not too much mosaic virus.
No caterpillars yet.
White fly going mad again (esp on kale).
But lots of pea moth

Lorra lorra lady birds, and a number of leather jackets.

Andfox holes in my muck heap.

[Flying_Monkey]

Our courgettes are now having a second wind, but the other autumn squash are looking good: we have a gigantic French one, some Guatemalan blue squash, butternut and acorn. The sweetcorn is also just about ready. Lots more tomatoes to go, and the aubergines and peppers are still producing. I've just been making some very concentrated tomato sauce to freeze for winter...

[SteveC]

Lots of winter salad sowed in pots and in the ground.
Harvested out first beetroot (it's been a busy summer  ) which is now cooking in the oven.

S