What are you growing?

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Woody girl

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Mar 31, 2018
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Beans beans beans.
Runners French beans borlotti and broad beans. So many beans!
Runners are being frozen
Borlotti are let mature for the beans inside to dry.
Broad beans are eaten young and sweet withe butter and black pepper
French beans are being dried for winter use in stews and eaten delicioucly fresh each day or traded for other good things.
Tomatoes have begun to ripen at last.
More potatoes to come soon.
Carrots are amazing taste wise. Shop bought don't hold a candle to them.
Looks like I'll be getting some baby parsnips in the next few weeks too.
 

Billy-o

Native
Apr 19, 2018
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Because of moving house, we planted this garden in early August which is pretty late, especially given the short, hot growing season here. Bringing seedlings on at a time when the top inch of this silty loam stuff is bone dry and returns to that condition almost immediately after watering is a task.

Anyway ... peas are up and at it, as is the spinach. The rosemary, sage, basil and other things we transplanted are finding their feet. And there's radishes and tatsoi and chard and beets and nasturtiums all with their heads above the ground. So, what are we growing ... well, salad, I guess :)

We have squirrels though. Idiot animals who probably should receive institutional care. They dig holes then forget they did, and so dig another. Really does nothing to help one's beautifully regimented rows.
 

Woody girl

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Tomatoes have begun to ripen nicely and several are now in the dehydrator to make sun dried tomatos.
The mystery pepper/ chilli plant has turned out to be a sweet pepper and they are looking good as are the butternut squash which with all this rain seem to be doubling in size daily.
Carrots are delicious and I'm still picking beans daily. Courgettes are also swamping me so I have dried a whole dehydrator full of those.
The chard is being slugged to death despite pellets.
Shallots are drying off in the greenhouse ready for pickling and I have several jars of pickled beetroot already .
Quite pleased with the amount of veg from two six by three beds and a few pots.
I'm so glad the weather has changed as I'd realy be struggling to water everything carrying cans with my broken foot.
I have been given a kilo of damsons as I can't get out to forage and lost my only tree in july(thanks council!) So damson chutney is back on the menu.
 

punkrockcaveman

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Jan 28, 2017
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hehe if it's edible why not? :D

spotted this morning, I have a cob growing on 1 out of 2 sweetcorn plants, wasn't expecting anything from these but hopefully we'll get a good size on em.
 
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Woody girl

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More strong winds and heavy rain. Slugs are going mad on the broccoli . In the past few days I've watched the leaves become colanders from the kitchen.
All the cavalo nero has gone , and the beans are just growing from edible to potential seed beans in 24 hrs!
I have the butternut sqash sweetcorn peppers tomatoes beetroot and a few courgettes left and still viable. ......for now anyway!
I need to get into the garden but it's just not safe with this orthopaedic boot on .
Wouldn't mind if it was dry, I could crawl about, but it's so wet and slippy it's realy not safe.
Ah well, I've had a fair amount out of the garden, just not as much as I envisioned at the beginning of the year.
 
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Nice65

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Apr 16, 2009
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More strong winds and heavy rain. Slugs are going mad on the broccoli . In the past few days I've watched the leaves become colanders from the kitchen.
All the cavalo nero has gone , and the beans are just growing from edible to potential seed beans in 24 hrs!
I have the butternut sqash sweetcorn peppers tomatoes beetroot and a few courgettes left and still viable. ......for now anyway!
I need to get into the garden but it's just not safe with this orthopaedic boot on .
Wouldn't mind if it was dry, I could crawl about, but it's so wet and slippy it's realy not safe.
Ah well, I've had a fair amount out of the garden, just not as much as I envisioned at the beginning of the year.

I looked at the runner beans yesterday hoping to get a few in. We only have two plants, so keep them picked. Yesterday they weren’t worth the bother, today they’re full size!

The cabbages have been ravaged by slugs and the resident pigeons, but I have some netted too. Luckily they’re solid heart type cabbage and the insides are good. Having had a big garden full of everything as a child, I‘m seriously impressed with the work my folks must have put in to get it from seed to table. Still got way too many courgettes/marrows, as you do. ;)
 

Woody girl

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Managed to hobble into the garden this morning. Supported by walking sticks.
Harvested a few tomatoes beans and courgettes.
The spinach and broccoli is totaly devastated. I think it's only worth pulling out.
They are crops I've never grown before so had no idea how they would do.
Between the slugs pigeons pheasant and cabbage white butterflies brassicas are a waste of effort.
I was so looking forward to a bit of home grown purple sprouting and cavalo nero.
Even the taggeties are devoid of any leaves!
Another crop I've never done before are parsnips. The leaves are all dying off..... is now the time to harvest? Had expected them to grow on for much longer and be a later harvested crop. They are still quite small.
Is this another disaster or shall I just use them now?
 
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bobnewboy

Native
Jul 2, 2014
1,293
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West Somerset
We've done quite well this year. We have harvested all of our raspberries and blackcurrants, and there have been an absolute shedload of them this season. Perhaps the odd weather has really suited them? Anyway, we're stocked up with jams and jellies of raspberry and blackcurrant and combinations of the same. We also have quite a few kilo bags of each in the freezer for later use. We have tried raspberry gin - very nice - and could make some more. In doing some clearing earlier on in the year, we found a small, long neglected redcurrant bush, outside of our fruit cage. That produced a handful of redcurrants this year, but I think the birds got the largest portion.....We have wild strawberries everywhere, and they too have done well - all eaten fresh :). I may be looking at making some strawberry leaf tea from some of those as well (see other threads). Our new blackberry bush (commercial type) was only planted out in the spring, and although it has a few berries on it coming along, we will just eat those as snacks this year.

Our peas, french beans and mangetout have been very nice, and although we ate the mangetout and beans fresh, we have lots of 2-portion bags of peas frozen and stored away for the darker nights (I'm thinking pea & ham soup!). Those pods that we left to dry out have also been picked and the seeds will be dried for next year's crop. The dead plants have been pulled up and are now becoming compost for next year.

The various types of tomatoes in their buckets have ripened well, inside and outside of the greenhouse, giving us some progression in picking, but a lot of those have been frozen for soups and stews later as its impossible to eat them all fresh. We have also tried the making of tomato powder and 'sun-dried' tomatoes using our dehydrator, as per Big Red's YouTube video. They certainly take up a heck of a lot less space for storage, and the powder smells wonderful (some oregano and black pepper added during drying helps...). There are still a kilo or so to be picked on the vines. The peppers we grew in the greenhouse have done OK rather than well, but they seem to have thick skins, which is fine for cooking but not so nice for salads. Maybe chillis next year instead?

Our two mini cucumber plants in the greenhouse have been through the wringer (thought we would lose one at one point), but are both still producing between 6 and 10 mini cucumbers in total each week. Delicious! The packet of seeds only had 4 seeds for the price of £4, but, for the number of fruit they have produced what originally seemed like a luxury expensive purchase has been repaid over and over.

We've tried very hard with three types of onions, but they haven't really been that good. They generally remained small, and so we have lifted them all. They are now drying in our porch, and will perhaps become yet more jars of caramelised onion chutney (my favourite!).

A few days back we lifted some (most..) of our carrots and beetroot. Germination was poor for both of these sets, but there are some to eat at least. See the following picture:

50255496406_dcafe61eef_c.jpg


I also lifted out a couple of plants which I am unable to identify, on the right of the photo. The plants looked very much like rather pale versions of spinach, with white roots. We didn't sow them, so we probably wont eat them. Does anyone have any ideas? White chard maybe???

We still have parsnips in the ground, now growing well. They took forever to germinate, and grew very slowly throughout the spring. I think they will be ready for eating next spring, but at least we can see them clearly now :). WG, fingers crossed for your parsnips! Maybe lift one or two of the worst affected, and check to see if you have any kind of insect attacks on the roots?

Cheers, Bob
 

Billy-o

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Apr 19, 2018
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Canada
Do you think the UFO could be sugar beet, Bob?

Chard has a slightly different looking root and the leaves aren't as coarse-looking ... but it's a photo and hard to say, I get it.

(Just saw you said you have a fruit cage. Envy you that. :))
 
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bobnewboy

Native
Jul 2, 2014
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847
West Somerset
Do you think the UFO sugar beet, Bob?

Chard has a slightly different looking root and the leaves aren't as coarse-looking ... but it's a photo and hard to say, I get it.

(Just saw you said you have a fruit cage. Envy you that. :))

Hmmm. I’ve never seen a sugar beet in real life, but I can find pictures of them on t’interweb. I can see that there are similarities but the leaves seemed paler than online pics, and the plants I dug up had very divided roots, rather than a grooved single chunky root. It would also seem an odd thing for the previous house owner to have grown in a garden plot - far from impossible, granted - but I’ve not even seen any growing in fields near us. I will keep sugar beet as a possible :) Thanks.

Yep, our fruit cage was here when we moved in. It was packed solid from ground to top with overgrown plants, raspberry and blackcurrant bushes. We had to cut everything down to the ground inside, except the blackcurrant bushes (pruned only). It’s constructed of chicken wire over a wooden frame (3x3’s and 2x2s etc), and is about 40x20x6 feet. It’s where we grow most of our fruit and veg, and has protected them from all the crows, pigeons, squirrels and rabbits that we have round here - see the thread ‘War!’ :)

Cheers, Bob
 

Billy-o

Native
Apr 19, 2018
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975
Canada
It would be a bit odd but (photography aside) that leaf is very familiar sight round here, though not in town. See it in ditches and so forth as much as in fields. The root on your specimens, I thought, maybe just hadn’t made the grade. They lacking a dose of agricultural fertilizer.
 
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Woody girl

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Mar 31, 2018
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I'm wondering if it could be horse radish? The leaves look rather similar.
Used to see it myself growing wild on the somerset levels.
Try cutting the root and smelling it. You'll know instantly if it is.! But if it's not you might get a clue from the smell as to what else it could be.
 

bobnewboy

Native
Jul 2, 2014
1,293
847
West Somerset
I'm wondering if it could be horse radish? The leaves look rather similar.
Used to see it myself growing wild on the somerset levels.
Try cutting the root and smelling it. You'll know instantly if it is.! But if it's not you might get a clue from the smell as to what else it could be.
Hi WG, a good suggestion, but I’m very familiar with horseradish plants in my past. It is very true that the smell is unmistakable, and I like it very much. I’m starting to think that these plants may well have been sugar beet.
Cheers, Bob
 

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