Kitchen Garden Forum

As my previous 'Plotted History' thread
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12466&start=90
has reached 7 pages I thought it might be time to start another thread.

It seems ages since my last update, it was in fact Aug 3rd, but in allotment terms almost a month is ages.
So what has been happening, well I am pleased to say I didn't feel anywhere as rough as I have in the past after my last treatment session. However my energy levels are low at present and once again I have not been up the plot as much in the last few weeks.
Got another session due on Thursday of this week, 6 hours on drips followed by 4 days of chemicals being pumped into me via a carry around bottle. Not looking forward to it.

Now for plot matters>
Tomatoes, much like many others it seems my toms have not been anywhere near as good as previous years. Quantity per plant down and ripening slow.
Did anybody else try Nimbus
the free sample packs that DT Brown were giving away with seed orders this year. I sowed the entire pack (Which understandably wasn't many seeds as it was just a free sample)Three germinated of which only ONE survived !! and has since produced a few piddly less than cherry size toms, very sweet though.

Peas Another crop which proved to be a relative failure this year. We grew a number of varieties and all failed to grow to their usual height, pea pods were stunted and despite being planted at different times all ended up with fungal growth on the leaves and pods.

Beans Again like many others earlier in the season we had trouble getting beans to propagate. The intention was to grow one 'A frame' row of 26 plants but none were coming up so sowed some more, again they didn't come up so we sowed some more of a different variety.
You can now guess what happened

All of a sudden beans started shooting, we had beans, beans, and more beans. However the first batch got wind burn when eventually planted out on the plot so I thought it likely they wouldn't recover. They did and we ended up with 2 'A Frame' lots of St George runners each containing 26 plants plus 1 'A frame' row of 26 Emergo runners.
In last four weeks we have picked 50lb of St George, and Emergo are just starting to yield.

Picture of the beans that had been wind burnt when younger



And a recent picking of 14lb 8ozs of beans from them


Inspecting Peas before disposal


Potatoes Lady Christl and Winston both lived up to our previous experiences, both have once again been versatile in their usage and have held good taste whichever way cooked.
Not sure how one mistake came about but I had logged and planted Vales Emerald as a main crop. Harvest was disappointing both in size and volume.
I am keeping a close eye on our late main crop 'Sarpo Mira' which is allegedly blight resistant and has always proved to be so in the past, this year there appears to be signs.

Please keep this thread gowing pasnip its a great read, i hope all your treatment comes good my son in laws mother is going through the same

thanks Robo, glad you enjoy the read. It's good to get feedback

Whilst composing comments or a thread I do tend to wonder if others may find it boring.

Hope son in laws mum recovers soon.

Morning Pa Snip, just do what you can when you can and you will still achive remarkable things.
I too love these updates of yours and i'm sure there is not one person on here that find them boring....if they do, they must be on the wrong forum.

Very wet here this morning, so i have been clearing out the back greenhouse, ready for the bulbs to go in for forcing. Is it really that time of the year already.

Thanks OH,

yep time flies and its time to think about bulbs as well as overwintering onions, shallots and garlic

Wet here as well, not much point in going to plot this morning, hope it brightens up a bit later.
Got a batch of beans to blanch and freeze (or might take the easy option and give them to neighbours )

Not sure what to do with white cabbages, had to get them out the ground as they were beginning to get heavily infested with slugs and wood lice

Been lucky so far, hasn't been much sign of slugs up to now. So far its only the cabbages that have been hit.

I love your updates - keep them coming. Very informative and interesting.

I always like to read your plot updates, it is interesting to read how varieties I've not tried have done and to compare similar crops. My beans were slow to get going but germination was good and Ive had a good crop so far. The Painted Lady are smaller than usual, and the peas like yours seem quite small plants this year. I have noticed that there is very little damage from pea moth caterpillars this year. They spoilt lot last year, so that is a bonus.

I've lifted all my potatoes now and the Kestrel and the Sarpo Axona have done really well. The Sarpo Axona have produced plenty of large tubers and there is little slug damage. I think the Sarpos are best picked about now because the flavour isn't as good if you leave them very late. The first time I grew them I was waiting for the foliage to start dying down, but it doesn't so they get too large and the slugs move in

I hope the weather lets you get out there again soon.

Love the updates. Keep them coming although you certainly won't have been able to be out there with your camera today!

I smiled when we had a visitor earlier today who was looking out in the rain at my vegetable patch and admired my "rhubarb" plants Actually they were courgettes so my mind boggled slightly wondering whether he would recognise the difference between courgette and rhubarb crumble. And he asked what the yellow "berries" were on the plants in the patio containers..........Errh....yellow tomatoes.! He'd never knew such things existed. And he asked what the "tall grasses" were. Leeks !

Hello Pa Snip. Like everyone else, I love your updates! Please keep them coming.

Thank you Diane, glad you think so.

PLUMPUDDING I have never dug Sarpo's this early so have not made the taste comparison, perhaps I should.
Didn't see any pea moth maggots on what little we picked that were edible. Most were thrown away due to the fungal virus. Not sure what caused that, there was plenty of airflow space around the plants.

Hi Primrose Certainly wasn't out with camera today, didn't venture near the plot.
This friend of yours, can you get him back and keep him there until I arrive with the camera, we could make a fortune, I assume he is Alien from another planet

Hello Elaine, Pleased to hear you like the posts, thank you for saying so.


As Primrose said, today not a good day for picture taking. This is a picture showing 3/4 of front of plot, it was taken on 31/7/15

Plots looking good Pa Snip! Great achievement indeed as you had some time out as well! Look after yourself though & don't overdo it!

Westi

Yes, it's great to compare, PaSnip, and see what you are doing. Keep it going and do look after yourself!

Westi and Monika

Thank you both for the interest and taking time to comment.

On the health front I am off for my monthly visit to see consultant this morning. Hopefully it will be a quick visit.

It's 01.55am as I type this so hopefully once daylight arrives, today will be dry and I may be able to wander up the plot again later this morning.

Well that's made another job to be done, fortunately it is not one that has to be carried out within next few days. It can wait a week or two.>
The Job in question ??

Planting out the following, which I purchased yesterday,
20 Senshyu Yellow Onion set
50 Electric (Red) Onion sets
50 Troy Onion sets
2 bulbs Garlic Iberian Wight, yet to be split down to individual cloves
2 bulbs Garlic Mukulov Wight, ditto above
2 bulbs Garlic Vallelado Wight, ditto above
10 Shallot Eschalote Grise
20 Shallot Jermor

Just hope I don't find similar quality sets et cetera at cheaper price at Malvern Show next weekend.
>
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Also got some brassica plants that need to go in with a bit more urgency.

Just realised I probably need to get on with onion sets etc within two weeks as got another treatment session soon and if previous sessions are anything to go by I shall be fit for nothing during that and for a few days after.