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Daphne

So how is the season so far?

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On 6/22/2020 at 6:31 AM, Cat tails said:

Radishes produce small bean pods. Before they ripen, they make a great snack or addition to salads. 

Pop them in vinegar - just like capers...

 

my plot has gone mad....squash plants are reaching for the heavens as most have been tied to get them to go up...sweetcorn is 3‘ high and doing well. Even the parsnips i planted in March 🙄 Are finally a few inches tall. 

however, I am so chuffed with my cauliflowers....1st time growing them - 

 

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It is a beauty.  Very slow here I think we've had such strong winds it keeps progress back.  Sweetcorn being pulled up by baby crows so all netted and some replanted - those that weren't snipped in pieces!  Squash are looking healthier but still not strong yet.  I think the only butternut was also nipped off.  They ignored the courgettes!  OH has been pickling gherkins which are in the greenhouse.  They seem happier in there, so will pot them up and place them at the back - or in the ground behind the peppers.  I have 2 melon plants that are reaching up.  One aubergine has a flower bud and the peppers are just starting to flower.  I delayed them by pinching out shoots to make a nice bushy plant instead of Legolas peppers.  I seem to have a fair few pepper and chilli seedlings that have self sown.  I know one is a chilli because it has purple leaves!

I will keep that capers thing in mind, thankies Christian.

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French beans have cropped well and the one self seeded squash on the compost heap has been trimmed back many times but still covers 25m2. Had two disasters though; the parsnip rows didn't germinate so have been re-seeded from a new packet and the tomatoes have developed a strange ailment where the stems go brown and shrink. I've cut the areas that I can off, which seems to have slowed the spread, but some trusses have been lost so it will be a poor crop at best. Out Bintje potatoes are ready to lift but it's far too hot for digging so they have been left in the ground for now.

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Our raspberries are also  great this year; we moved a lot from other beds into just one bed without compost. The squash on the compost heap are big and so are the self seeding potatoes amongst them which can't be reached now. Our strawberries are rubbish this year Mullethunter, even though they should be at their best; we have lizzards eating them. Next year that will be a row of sweetcorn and if we want strawberries we'll go to the market as theirs are very good.

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This is the second year I’ve grown them. Last year I had three plants and they took over the entire greenhouse. Then this year they’re growing in the greenhouse like weeds! The one I’m training up some netting was self sown and I’m now letting another two grow up a couple of tomatoes. But I’ve pulled out hundreds. 

Ive found them very easy to grow from germination through to harvest and they’ve carried on producing into November. I know other people have struggled with them though so maybe conditions in my unseated greenhouse just happen to suit them 🤷‍♀️

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Great Cauli Christian!

You all seem to be doing very well.  What does a cucamelon taste like/what do you do with it?

I have had my first tomato, and eaten the best apricot (one each!) and the best peach (one each!) that I have had all year.  The other peach tree gave us a few more, but we are still battling aphids on that one.  The dying fig tree has also given a few semi-edible figs already, its the amount of rain we've had I think.

Other than that everything is over and I am basically waiting on the toms to ripen, I am still finding self sown potatoes, and I have a mystery plant which I think is going to turn out to be some sort of squash.  I have let it ramble over the dying mint under the peach tree.

Can anybody tell me the correct time to sow cabbage seed? They are from a cabbage which was edible throughout the Spring.

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SD ive heard it’s under watering or sparrows pulling them - the two major problems with bean flowers....must be birds?? 
 

cucamelons are fab plants. I grew them a couple of years ago. Sort of crunchy like cucumber but more citrus/limey...I gave my friend some seeds as a present and she had obsessed with her plants😂
 

I’ve picked peas this week and lots of lettuce and radishes. Beetroot doing well and more seedlings in plugs to go in tomorrow - Boldor, a yellow variety I like. 
 

Sweetcorn is massive as is uchiki kuri and Anna Swartz squash plants...fruit is starting to set now. Bennings  green squash is also doing well! Turnips and swede looking nice and leafy but no sign of roots yet....

Spent two hours weeding yesterday and my back wasn’t happy so day off today. Will get more done tomorrow...

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Thanks Christian....I have been watering them well as I've heard that they like wet feet! I did wonder if it was the horrible heat last week as the plant most affected is in a very hot spot. As I do all my veggies in pots due to the appallingly heavy clay soil I have to dot the pots around the garden and patios wherever there is room, hence plants in different positions. 

The Victorian dwarf peas have done quite well, we've had a few but not really enough to cook. The boys just eat them from the pods! The 'surprise' Pink Fir Apple are looking good although still in flower so no touching yet! Having begged tomato plants from others in the village as mine were so droopy after planting out, they all seem to have perked up and so we'll have a bumper crop this year (she types, hopefully!). And boys and I don't even like them raw......I feel a big batch of passata coming on!!!

Calabrease/broccoli stuff is looking OK but not sure it's suited to pots.....I've been picking the little green menaces off before they strip the leaves; I'm all for butterflied but their juniors are ruinous! Baby corn is looking strong and healthy - just no sign of any corn yet! I don't have the patience to garden!

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Thanks Christian....I have been watering them well as I've heard that they like wet feet! I did wonder if it was the horrible heat last week as the plant most affected is in a very hot spot. As I do all my veggies in pots due to the appallingly heavy clay soil I have to dot the pots around the garden and patios wherever there is room, hence plants in different positions. 

The Victorian dwarf peas have done quite well, we've had a few but not really enough to cook. The boys just eat them from the pods! The 'surprise' Pink Fir Apple are looking good although still in flower so no touching yet! Having begged tomato plants from others in the village as mine were so droopy after planting out, they all seem to have perked up and so we'll have a bumper crop this year (she types, hopefully!). And boys and I don't even like them raw......I feel a big batch of passata coming on!!!

Calabrease/broccoli stuff is looking OK but not sure it's suited to pots.....I've been picking the little green menaces off before they strip the leaves; I'm all for butterflied but their juniors are ruinous! Baby corn is looking strong and healthy - just no sign of any corn yet! I don't have the patience to garden! The slug thugs have even eaten my parsley!

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Sorry; No idea how I managed to post that twice!

I do wonder if it was the heat, MH? I'm sure it wasn't the birds as they are far too busy treating our cherry tree as an 'all you can eat buffet' although I have managed to pick quite a few for the freezer. They are cooking cherries so will be nice in a crumble!  The courgettes are setting nicely - I have a yellow and a green. French beans are twirling their way up their support but no signs of flowers yet.

The two pepper and two chilli plants are still on the sunny windowsill; I suspect that that is where they will stay!!

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We had our first Sungold tomatoes today - one each!  I have to say that our grocer's tomatoes are much nicer!  But our lettuce is really nice - I've got an iceberg type but we are eating the leaves around the outside like Charles Dowding does.  Gave some of the thinnings and sluggy outer leaves to the ducklings and ducks - boy did they love it.  I also gave them kale and they liked that too.  Unlike the chickens that go arghhh scary thing - what is it!  The ducks dive in like a swarm of little feathery bees!  The other lettuce is a buttery one, for once I like lettuce.  We've both oohed and ahhhhed over it!  Also sugar snaps and Casablanca earlies that I unearthed.  Huge!  Lots more where they came from.  My poor patty pan that looked like it was done for has shot up and looking much better.  There is another courgette but it is tiny at the moment.  Probably tomorrow it will be a marrow!  I can see the beetroot is beginning to fill out.  Seems I have missed a radish and it is flowering.  OK I'm keeping it!

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Lifted two Bintje potato plants yesterday, which wasn't easy as the bed is very poor clay soil and had to be watered to soften it. Lots of small to medium sized which came to 5Kg per metre and as we have 24 metres we are due a bumper 120Kg crop.

The second attempt at parsnips was going well as they started to shoot at 11 days, but then DISASTER. Two thirds of one row just disappeared in a few hours and the culprit turned out to be a lizard, darting out from under the lavender bush to grab another shoot! CD's have been hung over the rows now and no more lost this morning.

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I can lend you our cat.  I have lost count of his lizard prey, he has now started on the geckos, although yesterday he didn't notice one that he was literally sitting on (it was hiding between a bench and a wall, with the cat sat above it on the bench).

Enjoy your spuds!

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I harvested my taters early - there weren't nearly as many as you've grown Beantree, but because my plot is small, they were taking up so much room that I pulled them. Got quite a few (only about half of them are in this trug) they taste delicious. No idea what sort they are as they were just chitting in the bottom of my veg rack, so I planted them.

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I don't eat many anyhow, so not bothered about the amount.

The other veg is still harvesting every day - Chantenay carrots, Red Orach, Red Veined Sorrel, wild rocket and baby leaf spinach.

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