Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi Primrose,
I couldn't resist saving some seeds from a very over ripe Galardia Melon bought from a supermarket. It too was an F1 variety nad the progeny were actually better than the parent. I had 5 melons from each plant and they were picked when ripe which may account for the difference.
Some of the older F1 cabbages seem to breed true but not sure that the seeds have the vibrancy on the parent. Like you with your Parsnips I only grew the cabbage on to flowering by mistake. I think it was called Stonehouse or something like that name at any rate kept me in cabbages for about 4 years. That was in the years when I had seven mouths to feed so anything goes!
JB.

I was looking at my remaining green tomatoes on my outdoor plants today and wondering just how much longer I dare leave them before picking the remainder to let them ripen indoors. i always feel their quality goes downhill rapidly at this point as the skins start to wrinkle and lose their freshness and the flavour deteriorates. It's always tempting to try and wring the last bit of sunshine ripening out of them and to hope that the tiny fruits might grow a little bigger.

I cleared the KG1 tomatoes today, but managed another 3 bowls full from what was left, which are all firm & fine but the branches were literally sticks. Looked nice and clear with the dropped toms swept up, but it feels like the closure of the season. I've still got some new seedlings that have popped up recently, some in flower or with small fruit and as they have found a spot to grow under mesh might still get some more, but whatever, they served me well. I'm thinking they may well pop up in more places next year with the number I trod on & got into the tread of my trainers.

I'll be taking the pumpkins soon as they are spent, with minimal green on the vine, but the patty pans & courgettes still green and in flower. Outdoor chillies fully ripe, they are yellow ones from plants I bought with little information especially the name - somehow I don't think 'Yellow Chilli' was the variety! And the outdoor aubergines still swelling & I've taken 4 already from the 2 plants and have 3 more to come if lucky.

Westi

Reading the current KG. Particularly interested on saving runner bean seeds, page 6. Reminded me of my late father who when planting runner beans, the first couple or three plants were never picked for eating, his thoughts being the plant puts all its best in the first crop, these plants were pinched out at about five foot and left to run to seed. Seed was never removed from the husk, this was left to planting time the following season, his thoughts were any damp over winter would be absorbed by the husk. I wish as a boy I had listened more to him.

Weati. I wonder if your yellow chillies are in fact lemon chillies. i have only ever grown one variety of chilli whixh turned yellow when ripe and it did have a distinctly lemony flavour.

I grow those too, Primrose, they're called Lemon drop and are an Aji variety from Mexico I think. Very hot and a lemony flavour.

I've saved bean seeds for years and reserve the best of the first pods to form and leave them on the plant until the pod is brown and dry. In a wet year I bring them in and hang them up to dry so they don't go rotten. A few weeks ago I found a stray bean plant that had grown near last year's row. It must have fallen from the plant, over wintered and grown all on its own. I didn't clear the row until late with having my cataract operations so there were some beans left on. When seeds are so resilient when left to their own devices it makes you wonder why we have any problems when we give them extra care.

Hi Primrose,
We had the same thing with fallen seed and you may as well hoe them in because when you leave then they count the year they germinate as one year 2016 and go directly to seed the next year being 2017 and put on no significant growth rootwise.
Sincerely,
JB.

Afterdays yesterday's rain I was going to harvest my remaining outdoor tomatoes today but when I saw the sun rise this morning I gave them a reprieve and swear some of them have rewarded me by showing a faint orange tone by the end of this afternoon! So with two more nice days forecast I will let them soldier on

But I did dismantle my earliest sown runner bean haulms. It was a manky job as dead greenfly were everywhere. No ladybirds in sight apart fron one completely yellow one which I don't recall ever spotting before, A few brave young beans are still trying to develop on my later sown plants but I fear the cooler nightime temperatures may finish them off.

I have a few tiny hollyhocks seedlings germinating from this summer's fallen seeds. This is my first year growing them. Can anybody tell me if they're likely to be hardy enough to survive through the winter?

Busy day down at lottie but things are looking neat & tidy finally. Normally at this point I'd have a sit down but instead finding myself making my winter to do list! So Far:

The 2 bird delivered thorny blackberries have to be dug out - real thugs and not enough fruit to save their lives.
Compost bin to be sorted and good stuff to be used under the black plastic over winter.
My tomato & chilli structure has to be moved to make an new asparagus bed.
To dig up the runaway raspberries.
To clear the rest of the herb bed & resite it - & buy the right herbs to fill!
Replace the posts on my raspberry bed.

Didn't do it last year, but got some optimistic news today that the council is unable to find another location and as they want to get started with the housing behind, we are 90% likely to stay where we are. It will be a shame to see the farmers field go and the hedgerow, but will get new fencing and a reduction in rabbits. No doubt will have issues from the new neighbours but will see. Now all I need is confirmation I don't have to give up one of my plots as now can plan to have a tunnel!

Westi

Yes hollyhocks are hardy Primrose, mine keep seeding and coming up in cracks in the paving and all sorts of odd places. They cross pollinate too and you get some lovely new colours.

Good news about the allotment Westi. You can't plan anything when there's uncertainty. Must be awful.

Plum Pudding. The cross pollination of hollyhocks was a real surprise to me because I was given the seed from a lovely purple one growing at Sissinghurst . The ones I sowed died after germinating, but I gave some seed to a friend who gave me five seedlings. Three of them produced pinky apricot flowers, one produced dark claret flowers and one brighter ruby claret flowers! But of the original purple colour, not a single bloom, which I was rather disappointed about. These tiny seedlings Ive just spotted are probably from one of the claret coloured flowers but you seem to be suggesting that what I end up with may be completely different from what I was planning.

A bit like growing winter squashes from saved seed. What you end up with is not always what you expect, which probably makes gardening a conjuring trick rather than an art as Johnboy recently suggested!

Westi, pleased for you about the allotment news which means you can hopefully soldier on with more enthusiasm and less uncertainty now, but I do hope your committee will be able to negotiate that your plots are very securely fenced off and inaccessible from any new houses being built. I know from bitter experience many years ago when we had an allotment,, the council built some new homes nearby and thereafter we were plagued with thefts of produce at cropping time and sheer wanton damage. It was so disheartening in the end we gave up after seeing people almost in tears after seeing months of hard work totally wrecked.

Bonfires and powered equipment will be the first complaints.

Yours will be the two legged vermin, unless the new fence is a good one.

Primrose and Peter - we inherit the fencing from the children areas around the borough so expect more the same. Currently we have a pretty impressive one about 8 foot with waves at the top at the front of the site, and another bit down about 1/3 of the side has just rails but a crest type thing in the middle that looks a bit like a train. Does the job, but can see wee heads would get trapped in the railings.

They certainly work better than the bit of chicken wire with a couple of rows of barbed wire 1/2 collapsing and only about 3 foot tall! I'll miss the hedgerow at the back of my plot the most, even though spikey & hard to control it does provide refuge for the birds, which no doubt will also go the way of the rabbits - but the New Forest starts just a few miles up the road so habitat for them to move to.

Westi