Kitchen Garden Forum

Well i’m impressed that your ones are impressive, Burnie….

Due to the aftermath of a cancer attack (now hopefully sorted) I was unable to look after my veg as well as needed and the dry summer didn’t help. I did manage to get a few seeds in, with mixed results:

Potatoes – Arun pilate and Desiree – Quite fair return on both
Lettuce – Little Gem – no problems, except the slugs.
Sprouts – quite good, but still coming on.
Tomatoes – greenhouse, cherry and Alicante – very poor, enough for the two of us, but not for freezing for soup.
Cauliflower and Broccoli – very poor results.
Sweet Peppers – Only two plants, but OK yield
Carrots – Good yield
Leeks – Excellent, still not quite ready.
Parsnip – Good foliage, haven’t looked deeper yet
Bramley apple tree and Quince tree - absolutely laden!

Due to age and my medical problems I think this is the last year I shall grow veg, except perhaps for a few greenhouse plants. But I shall stay in the forum as I enjoy all your posts so much. Thank you!

Evening JohnN, sorry to read you have been up against it, but good to hear it is hopefully sorted….when I had my Prostate Cancer, it was the thought of carrying on growing things, that kept me really positive.

Good to see how your crops faired, with all that was going on….

To be honest I have had a poor year.Potatoes,Charlotte and Maris Piper,were small but prolific but do not cook well;boil them and they go to mush.Carrots non-existant again,Onions on the small side as were the Beetroot.Runner beans,Dwarf beans and Peas poor.Planted out four Squash plants and they have only produced two fruits between them but a self sown Squash plant has three fruits on it!!!
Parsnips,leeks doing well but,again,lettuce struggled as has the Sping Onions.
Saving grace has been the Tomatoes,Sweetcorn and Apples.Smashing crops off each.The rest of my soft fruit ,I suspect,was had by the birds and Field MIce before I could pick them.They,the mice and birds,always seem to know when the fruit is ready for picking!
Even though I watered three nights a week for an hour ortwo the ground next day was like a beach,so much sand and soft so much so that I went in ankle deep in parts where I was working.Just have to keep piling the homemade compost into it and try to get it to a better state.

Picked 40 lbs of damsons yesterday and still haven't stripped the main tree and there is a smaller one to start. Damsons are the new courgettes round here; my wife talked to a friend who had been picking yesterday and had taken some round to somebody she knew liked them only to find a neighbour had got there first. Still have a laden cooking plum to pick as well, don't think I'm going to be short of puddings this winter.

Roughly 70kg of quinces off the one tree at the weekend, some happy ladies in town took most of them and the tree is about three foot taller now.

I wish we could grow quinces. We have two trees bought at different times from different suppliers. They both have the same problem. They leaf up OK in the spring then get some kind of mould / fungus and all the foliage looks horrible for most of the year. I think it stops them growing well enough to create blossom buds so no fruit.

Lots of kale at the moment. We are so used to failure that we planted plenty and most have suvceeded.
We grew Sarpo Axona which we won't again. I blame the dry weather for the scab but the flavour is unremarkable. Quite what we will grow alongside the regular Charlotte, we haven't decided.
Still picking a few raspberries, a few courgettes, lifting leeks and some growing on, without leafminer (so far).

pulled my first carrot of the year this morning (in the dark!!) It was actually perfect. I assume the rest of the row will be knotted & odd shapes . It's now batons in DH's lunchbox.

Lifted the last of the spuds yesterday, good job too as it's rained a fair bit overnight.
Certainly not the best harvest I've had, hardly anything of size, lots of marbles, more hens eggs with a sprinkling of duck eggs.

I love the descriptions of the potato sizes, Peter…

I'm still picking berries, Black, Rasp and Straw, all good crops surprisingly given the drought.

Picked the last of the sweetcorn from inside the greenhouse, usually I eat it all raw in the greenhouse or bung it on the barbque, but this year some has actually made it into the kitchen for tea tonight.

That's the last of the tomatoes from the greenhouse picked, allplants in the compost bin, a few left on their vines hanging in the greenhouse to see if the ripen like that. One chillie plant and one pepper plant still looking good until the frosts.

Enjoying some autumnal berrie s in a crumble with custard, the Blackberries are at the end, so I bulked up the mix with a load of Raspberries, they really are good, wish I knew what variety they are.