Veg plans for 2020

beggars_bush

SouthWesterly wrote: »

What, do you do with the chard? Just pull the leaves not the plant. It keeps growing I believe

We pull the plant and stir fry it. They go to seed easily

Harry Palmr

Fleetwoodmac wrote: »

Anyone else have tomatoes slow to ripen? We have loads growing in poly tunnel but they seem to have been green forever. Last year we did put them in paper bags to ripen but many turned to mush.

I keep checking the feckers and they keep not being red.

Samson1

Fleetwoodmac wrote: »

Anyone else have tomatoes slow to ripen? We have loads growing in poly tunnel but they seem to have been green forever. Last year we did put them in paper bags to ripen but many turned to mush.

I can't say I have "loads", and my problem is that they have only started appearing at all over the last 10 days or so.


First time growing them, and only set seeds on 28th March. Am I correct in thinking that is about a month late ??

beggars_bush

Samson1 wrote: »

I can't say I have "loads", and my problem is that they have only started appearing at all over the last 10 days or so.


First time growing them, and only set seeds on 28th March. Am I correct in thinking that is about a month late ??

Not really.
It's been very dull the last few weeks
They need sunshine

Harry Palmr

We'll be praying for a sunny August and autumn to get many fruit ripened.

Fleetwoodmac

Harry Palmr wrote: »

I keep checking the feckers and they keep not being red.

We will have to find recipes for green tomatoes!

kylith

My Red Baron onions went over so I pulled them. Every single one looked like it had been hit with a shotgun blast. A little googling later and wireworm is identified as the culprit. I presume I may as well toss them, or are they salvageable.

The White onions still have good firm stalks, are they a loss too and i’d Be as well off pulling them too?

MacDanger

I planted some Calabrese and some purple sprouting Broccoli at the same time, all are coming up with a huge amount of leaves but only the Calabrese has a head forming. Not even a sign of a head or a sprout anywhere - is it just later coming for the sprouting variety?

patnor1011

Fleetwoodmac wrote: »

Anyone else have tomatoes slow to ripen? We have loads growing in poly tunnel but they seem to have been green forever. Last year we did put them in paper bags to ripen but many turned to mush.

Not enough sun this year. All of my tomatoes are outside and still only flowering. There are some small green tomatoes here and there but it is slow anyway. Last year was similar I had to harvest quite a lot of them still green and I made chutney out of them.

Look at this for a harvest.


Those are lemon cucumbers.
Cauliflower was turned into cheese cauliflower and was delicious !
The cucumber into G&T

patnor1011

Beautiful stuff.

I had a lot of radishes so far, some salad and a ton of kale. I asked my dear wife to cut some kale as I had a lot of it for my friends at work and she brought a mighty bag. I suspected foul play and lol she cut all of it right off the ground.

I was left with half-empty raised bed but 2 weeks on and murdered stems started sprouting new leaves. It seems that kale is indestructible
I will post some pictures as soon as it stops raining.
I planted a lot of stuff this year.

SouthWesterly

Have pulled all our early spuds up. A disaster of a, year. Sowed more autumn beans and carrots last night. Have beds ready for some celery plants and more salad stuff seeds.

Another week or so for brassicas plants to be ready for transplant
Raining yet again.

Harry Palmr

Got a kilo of "christmas potatoes" from Quick Crop today along with Leeks and butterhead lettuce seeds something for the winter. Will add more carrots as well. The Spuds will go in two or three tubs of compost.

pconn062

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Got a kilo of "christmas potatoes" from Quick Crop today along with Leeks and butterhead lettuce seeds something for the winter. Will add more carrots as well. The Spuds will go in two or three tubs of compost.

Did you get leek plants or seeds? Very late for sowing leek seeds, they're so slow. I tried it last year sowing them in June and they did nothing.

Harry Palmr

Seeds, I'll give them a go. I'll probably three stage them like tomatoes - two pots and then in the bed.

Better buy three big bags of compost tomorrow and get straight on with them all.

patnor1011

Summer leek need about 150 days and will not survive frost. Winter variety needs 200+ days and survives frost without a problem. I got about 100 of them and I need to thin them out soon. I just hope I will find someplace to put it in

SouthWesterly

Just looked at the brassica I transplanted last week. Slugs have had a field day. I have to put down pellets at this stage.

Will this rain stop?

Zapperzy

Pulled up my carrots today, threw 95% of them straight in the compost bin. Disaster. Nearly all of them cracked open and tried to turn themselves inside out before rotting. The few that I saved were tiny, got enough for dinner this evening and that's them gone now.

My round courgettes seem to grow to the size of golf balls before rotting. Should I just pick them when they're tiny?

Zapperzy

Zapperzy wrote: »

Pulled up my carrots today, threw 95% of them straight in the compost bin.

Thats like us with our cabbage except it was 100% into the compost bin.
Annihilated by slugs.
Dont even like cabbage but I got that box of random seeds from suttons and they were in it.

patnor1011

I got rid of most of slugs. I dig small hole and put a plastic cup in it. Those disposable small ones. I usually put two inside so I can remove one when needed and other one stays in hole.
I fill cup to one third with beer. Leave couple days then I pour it off along with drowned drunkards. Pour fresh beer in. Repeat till most of them drink themselves to death. For some reason they prefer beer when available and leave my veggies alone.
I also got those small blue pellets which are deadly for them too but beer is working like charm.

SouthWesterly

BrownFinger wrote: »

Thats like us with our cabbage except it was 100% into the compost bin.
Annihilated by slugs.
Dont even like cabbage but I got that box of random seeds from suttons and they were in it.

My cabbage was the same. Decimated but my kale is untouched.

Relented last night and put down pellets

CelticRambler

patnor1011 wrote: »

I fill cup to one third with beer. Leave couple days then I pour it off along with drowned drunkards. Pour fresh beer in. Repeat till most of them drink themselves to death. For some reason they prefer beer when available and leave my veggies alone.

Unfortunately, while it's a great way to catch slugs who fancy drowning themselves in beer, it's really no good for reducing the slug population. There's a video on YouTube somewhere that shows the slug traffic around a beer trap, and half of them look in, but decide to go off and pig out on something else.

Similarly, there are some species of slugs that spend most of their time below the surface, who won't be controlled by beer-traps or pellets.

I'm trying to build up my population of slow-worms as a more pro-active/aggressive approach.

SouthWesterly

CelticRambler wrote: »

Unfortunately, while it's a great way to catch slugs who fancy drowning themselves in beer, it's really no good for reducing the slug population. There's a video on YouTube somewhere that shows the slug traffic around a beer trap, and half of them look in, but decide to go off and pig out on something else.

Similarly, there are some species of slugs that spend most of their time below the surface, who won't be controlled by beer-traps or pellets.

I'm trying to build up my population of slow-worms as a more pro-active/aggressive approach.

Where did you get them?

Harry Palmr

What kind of beds are you growing crops in?

Living Off The Splash

I have lots of frogs living in my flower beds. As a result we do not have a big problem with slugs.

Picked the last of my gooseberries today. Got several kilos out of about 4 bushes. Netting gone now.

Picked most of my peas also. Pods turning brown at this stage. I will keep a few dozen to use as seed next year.

We will pick and freeze our French Beans over the weekend.

Most of our lettuce gone to seed, dumped in compost heap.

Hundreds of ants in the garden getting ready to fly. Hate them.

CelticRambler

SouthWesterly wrote: »

Where did you get them?

They just appeared! Unless there's only a couple and they're becoming tame, then I reckon the population has increased quite a bit (and hopefully due to my nature-friendly cultivation practices) as I'm now getting to spot one at the rate of about one a month, compared to one a year a decade ago ... but I do wish they'd learn to run a bit faster when I'm out with the strimmer - they're not easy to spot through a mask! Legs or no legs, they can skidaddle fast enough when I want to take photos!

Seve OB

Planted these spuds back around Paddy’s weekend. They never flowered at all, could be the variety? Sharpes express I think they were.
Would you recommend I leave them in or pull them?

I did have some in pots also which got battered about a month ago with wind and rain so I pulled them as I’d no choice really and got a tiny yield

Harry Palmr

Have a look, dig in gently and see what is there.

CelticRambler

Dig them if you need them, otherwise leave them until you need the space.

I lifted my Stuttgarter onions today. Jeeeeeeeeeeeez, what an effort. :eek: My clay-rich, now seriously water-deprived, soil did not want to let them go. On the basis of this morning's experience, I have decided that the first job for my new mini-digger (when it arrives at the end of the month) will be to harvest the carrots planted alongside them. And that's not a joke.

Since Saturday, our area has been moved to "crisis" status for water supplies. There's no rain forecast now for the rest of the month, and today's single "light shower" (lasted less than 10 minutes) demonstrated a phenomenon described by a woman on the radio at breakfast: such light precipitation that it evaporates on contact with the ground, contributing nothing at all to the soil.

MacDanger

How do I know when my carrots are ready? Just pull a couple and see? They were planted a bit late so is there any downside to leaving them longer?