Veg plans for 2021

MacDanger

PeadarOBriain wrote: »

Anyone else loose their garlic this year? Mine turned yellow and wilted for some reason

Mine was okay the weekend before last but maybe I need to give it a better check this week to see how it's doing

MacDanger

My garlic stalks are starting to go a bit yellow - is there something wrong with them or are they just coming ready for harvest?

CelticRambler

MacDanger wrote: »

My garlic stalks are starting to go a bit yellow - is there something wrong with them or are they just coming ready for harvest?

The "old wives" saying for garlic used to be "plant before the shortest day, harvest after the longest day". If you got it in early enough, we're only a couple of weeks away from the longest day, so it might be nearly ready to harvest.

Living Off The Splash

The veggies beginning to take a bit of a jump in size this week. Peas now growing very well. Salad leaves....already eating those. Transplanted some tomato plants but many still struggling....probably too late to get a harvest after the cool nights.

French Beans very slow. Broad Beans beginning to motor.

Both blackcurrants and gooseberries not looking as good as last year. Maybe I pruned back too hard.

Sunflowers.....we will look like a Spanish/French countryside if they all grow.....and it looks like they will.

CelticRambler

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

Sunflowers.....we will look like a Spanish/French countryside if they all grow...

We've had so many "soft days" in the month of May that this bit of the French countryside is looking like Ireland - all green and lush and impossible to mow! But whereas normally my clay soil would be baked concrete-hard by now, it's still workable (without being too claggy) and dead easy to pull the weeds out, roots and all.

I've more or less stopped "planning" veg for 2021, though. Like many of you have reported, it's been a really difficult year to get plants to germinate and grow as they should. I'm down to my last cherry tomato seedling (a pathetic two leaves more than a month after germination) and the Moneymakers and Coeur de Boeufs are not showing much more enthusiasm. Ditto for the chilis and peppers, and everything "squashy".

Potatoes are doing OK, and I'm hoping to sow two late crops in the coming weeks (need to prep the ground first); and all things oniony seem to be happy too. Accidentally picked the first shallot of the season yesterday while weeding, and it's a decent specimen. I do, however, have a lot more rotten bulbs than usual, which is almost certainly due the excessive weed growth keeping ground-level humidty too high.

Igotadose

CR, not happy that your plantings are doing poorly, but it seems like it's a trend this year. Sorry it's been a struggle. Here on the Dingle Peninsula the same story: nothing sprouts or does so in pathetic, weak ways, and grows slowly if at all.

The weirdest thing is that normally I focus on 'cool weather' vegetables like kale, chards, beets. They're doing 'barely o.k.' this year. Normally warmer weather crops are just DOA in weather like this, none of my parsnips have even bothered to sprout, butternut squash not to be seen, all things that normally do o.k.

Even the incomparable Charles Dowling's complaining about yields. A good friend, a professional vegetable grower, has been lamenting poor performance all year, says her results are like Dowlings.


But summer squash? Happy as clams. Actually better than normal. Different variety this year (from Seedaholics) than normal (Lidl - but hey, they work o.k. usually).

What's really doom and gloom, besides lockdowns, is the local weather expert telling me to expect more summers like this over time. Great.

Planet X

Kale and Sprouting Broccoli,




French and Dwarf Beans,

Living Off The Splash

I like the metal basin type raised beds. Where did you get these?

Planet X

https://www.vidaxl.ie/e/vidaxl-garden-raised-bed-160x80x81-cm-galvanised-steel-silver/8718475723141.html

SouthWesterly

Busy in the garden yesterday.

Sowed chard, beetroot and carrots. Spent the day wedding and general tidying.
Also put woodchips on the spuds and around the beds

Igotadose

Seeing garlic scapes now, what's interesting is that they're showing up where I planted softneck garlic. Well, I *think* I planted softneck garlic. It was sold as softneck. Where I planted hardneck, no scapes yet!

Actually got 1 baby courgette out of the garden a few days ago. Very vigorous variety of squash from seeds from Seedaholics. However, same source for butternut squash just now, weeks after sown, showing some seedlings.

Zero luck getting parsnips to sprout, different sources, different varieties, planting using different composts, nada.

I have another variety to try maybe later in June when we hopefully get some warm sunny days, but neighbors tell me parsnips are hit-and-miss at best.

By far this years best crop is slugs and snails. Crazy how many I'm catching in the traps. So cold and dark this spring, slugs love it

scarepanda

I've found seedaholics seeds very hit and miss for germination this year. I have iceberg lettuce and red salad bowl that have not sprouted at all. I gave some to the neighbours and they have had the same issues with the seeds. I got some comfrey and only had about 20% germination with them as well. Tomatoes, chillies and sweet corn have been great actually, at about 95% germination over all. I sowed my carrots and parsnips about 10 days ago. Just starting to see carrots now. Not holding out much hope with the parsnips as I've found it very hard to keep the bed from drying out. It's a new bed and not happy with the compost on the top.

I spent a few hours out in the garden yesterday and got loads done. I got another 8*4ft bed filled and planted my last two pumpkins in it, the sweet corn is going in there as well and are outside hardening off. I also got my tomatoes and chillis planted up into their final buckets. And helped my 4 year old plant up her new flower/veg bed. She's absolutely delighted with herself!

Living Off The Splash

We should be eating our Mange Tout this week. Lots of salad leaves and spinach growing. Tomato plants still struggling. Runner Beans taking off but French Beans very slow.

Got my first bee sting in over 50 years this week. We appear to have a small light brown bee that is attacking other bees, I got tangled up with one of them.

Hi all,
Almost time to harvest my onions and soon my garlic.
Any ideas to what I can put in the beds after ?
Thanks

Vaccinated30

Planted pumpkin seeds last week, had the first sprout up this morning.

2011abc

Vaccinated30 wrote: »

Planted pumpkin seeds last week, had the first sprout up this morning.

No problem getting them to sprout to 6 inches size even indoors in Feb. .Keeping them alive is another matter .Typically unless they have lots of heat the stem will shrivel and it will die in a few days .I guess nights are as warm as theyre going to get .Take it indoors for a week or two at night?

SouthWesterly

Just transplanted broad beans and peas which I started in the greenhouse.

tromtipp

I've failed to germinate courgettes, and can't find plants anywhere. Bit fed up.

However, I've got radishes, lettuce, chard and rocket ready to eat, a few spuds for St John's Eve onwards, peas, carrots, runner beans and broad beans on the way, and small leeks and broccoli to be planted out for next winter.

Oh, and tomatoes (bought-in plants) and cucumbers (grown from seed) in the greenhouse.

And loads of herbs, so it isn't all bad.

Still want courgettes.

CelticRambler

Not exactly "planned" but I have more potatoes growing than expected, mostly in places they weren't planted! All missed-and-redistributed spuds from last year, originally in the area that is destined to be the new pond (no work done on it for months ... ) Not complaining, though, as one can never have too many potatoes!

A line of peas sown on the new terraced bed seems to be doing well, to the extent that I can see the plants in between the weeds. Although the soil there is still very hard to work, I think I can be fairly sure that it's fertile and sufficiently water-retentive - the weeds are a metre high, where I've left them alone! :eek:

I have just twelve tomato plants in good health - five coeur-de-boeuf and seven Moneymaker. A long way short of the forty-odd that I need. A few days ago, I pruned the MMkrs and have shoved the prunings into a prepared bed in the hope that at least some of them will take and double or triple the number of plants. As a safety measure, I've earthed up the CdBs instead to encourage the lower laterals to root while still attached to the main stem, and I'll pull them off in a couple of weeks. Maybe.

SouthWesterly

Sowed more peas and beans in pots today along with new Zealand spinach.
Find doing thd peas and beans gets them past the being devoured by slugs stage and I can plan ahead for when ground will come free

Sowed leeks, aMaranth and something else on Saturday in trays and they are up

Got a redC polls voucher today and bought another 50m scaffold net for the veg. Need to keep chickens off them.

beggars_bush

tromtipp wrote: »

I've failed to germinate courgettes, and can't find plants anywhere. Bit fed up.

However, I've got radishes, lettuce, chard and rocket ready to eat, a few spuds for St John's Eve onwards, peas, carrots, runner beans and broad beans on the way, and small leeks and broccoli to be planted out for next winter.

Oh, and tomatoes (bought-in plants) and cucumbers (grown from seed) in the greenhouse.

And loads of herbs, so it isn't all bad.

Still want courgettes.

it is quite late to sow courgette seed, I would have thought?

tromtipp

Very late, I've planted them three times over about five weeks. Even in the greenhouse it was too cold I suspect. And I was using old seed because that was what I had. Most things were fine, but not (yet) the courgettes.

But I just had a sandwich with freshly picked lettuce, radish, thyme and marjoram (and cheese) and it was lush.

Zardaz

tromtipp wrote: »

I've failed to germinate courgettes, and can't find plants anywhere. Bit fed up.

However, I've got radishes, lettuce, chard and rocket ready to eat, a few spuds for St John's Eve onwards, peas, carrots, runner beans and broad beans on the way, and small leeks and broccoli to be planted out for next winter.

Oh, and tomatoes (bought-in plants) and cucumbers (grown from seed) in the greenhouse.

And loads of herbs, so it isn't all bad.

Still want courgettes.

Roughly whereabouts in Tipp are you?
I have a few spare ones in pots, if you are interested....

tromtipp

near Nenagh, that's a kind thought.

Hillybilly4

WTAF? Had an overnight frost! North Cork.
Hope everyone's veg is OK.

PoorFarmer

Hillybilly4 wrote: »

WTAF? Had an overnight frost! North Cork.
Hope everyone's veg is OK.

Hard frost here in West Limerick too. Alot of my stuff just starting to peep through so not happy

CelticRambler

Hillybilly4 wrote: »

WTAF? Had an overnight frost! North Cork.

PoorFarmer wrote: »

Hard frost here in West Limerick too.

Sometimes I envy ye :



Decided mid-afternoon on Wednesday that it was too hot and muggy for gardening, so went shopping instead. Came home to find all my most recently sown chilis dead in their pots. :mad:

Just cannot get over how quickly things are being killed off this year. Sure, I'm a bit more distracted than usual with other work in the garden, but to lose healthy plants in less than half a day is deeply depressing (this is only the latest in the series)

And it looks like I've also lost the last of my Coeur-de-Boeuf tomatoes too. Don't know what tipped them over the edge, but yesterday I found the five plants that I'd earthed up earlier in the week keeled over with their stems turned brown and brittle at ground level. The Moneymakers, less than a metre away, are thriving in the same soil.

Planet X

Dwarf Kale and Sprouting Broccoli,


Dwarf and main crop French Beans,


Courgettes,


Beetroot and spring onions,


Pak Choi and bits n pieces....

tromtipp

They look lovely, and I really like the planters.

I seem to have a teeny courgette emerging from its seed. Fingers crossed.

Planet X

I had a lot of "no show" courgettes and beans whilst trying to grow them from seed.