This is the place to discuss not just allotments but all general gardening problems and queries which don't fit into the specific categories below.
(formerly allotments and tips, hints and problems)
Hi all,
I love hearing about people's lotties,very inspiring! I've just come back from mine.I brought home with me two supermarket sized bags of strawberries (which I am going to make jam with tonight! I also brought home a large handful of Mange Tout,a bunch of Rainbow Chard and a bunch of Beetroot.
So tonights tea will be marinated chicken pieces,roasted beetroot with olive oil and thyme,stir fry chard and mange tout,with cous cous,and strawberries and cream,Yummo!
So what have you been bringing home?
Nothing much yet although, despite the awful weather we've been having, everything is looking fabulous - just a little late. So mainly lettuce, pak choy and salad leaves. Oh and we still have a bit of kale. We've left it to go to seed and the bumble bees are loving it!
Maggie
Never doubt that you can change history. You already have. Marge Piercy
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. Anais Nin
I've just made some kimchi with a load of cabbage I had, so I chucked the last few carrots from store in there, picked some nice red spring onions, young garlic and rats tail radish pod, so that is on the bubble now. Tonight we are having Glamorgan Sausages (cheese and onion veggie ones), some new potatoes and sugar peas from the tunnel. At the moment, the weather has been so cold, not much is really happening outside, let's hope it gets above 10 degrees from now on
Not harvesting much here yet apart from ground elder, and there's plenty of that I had hoped for asparagus this year, but hardly any of it survived the attention of the slugs
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Rachel
Take nobody's word for it, especially not mine! If I offer you an ID of something based on a photo, please treat it as a guess, and a starting point for further investigations.
Being in a different country where things grow quicker I don't really count, but if anyone is interested we have to try to get things in early as I have learned that because of the hot weather and pests successional sowing doesn't work. We can try to get more peas and potatoes, even cucumber in at the end of summer as long as the temperatures are bearable.
Finished already are peas, broad beans, strawberries, blackcurrants, goosegogs. Up and plaited are garlic. The overwintered onions went to seed so the little I could salvage have gone into chutney. Spinach and salad is finished by may, it's too hot to grow it here and it bolts. Our last frost was in April and we don't grow anything under cover.
So what we are harvesting now...cucumber, courgettes. green peppers, tomatoes, carrots, beets, Tuscan kale, green sprouting summer broccoli, red onions, French and runner beans, potatoes, raspberries, rhubarb and chard. The ducks and chooks are already fed up of cucumber and courgettes.
Lots of jam and chutney already made, and cucumber pickle, starting on bottling today.
Blimmin hard work this grow your own lark. But loving it.
A few peas, broad beans, shallots and perpetual spinach but loads and loads of strawberries. We have probably had over 20Kg from our six rows already. Have made jam, dehydrated 2 jars full, 2 lots of strawberry wine started, strawberry muffins and have frozen 8 sliced packs for later use for crumbles or muffins.
In full swing now, at last.
We will have our first pick of broad beans for dinner today, then sometime next week we will probably have to freeze loads of them.
Our first row of peas is finished and the second is about to start and the first flowers are out on the runner beans.
Picking at the moment, cauliflowers, calabrese, Savoy cabbages, French beans, carrots, spring onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, beetroot, turnips, lettuce (little gem and oak leaf), garlic, peppers and loads of strawberries.
Tony
Disclaimer: I almost certainly haven't a clue what I'm talking about.
Rhubarb. And a few radishes... Plus rocket and perpetual spinach (still the overwintered stuff). Since most of my seedlings failed, and I've not been really well enough to do much in the garden, there's not an awful lot around just now. Gooseberries should be next, though - bush is full of them, and no sawflies so far! (Thank you again to whoever gave me the tip to change the mulch underneath.... Seems to have worked.)
Ina
I'm a size 10, really; I wear a 20 for comfort. (Gina Yashere)
Salad of various forms, loads of. Strawberries just coming on stream. Broad beans and peas just beginning to show. I spied the first of the courgettes yesterday - very tiny so fingers crossed.