Veg patch advice please

[Chris James]

I second the suggestion of buying the vegetable expert.

As mentioned above, carrots and parsnips show lots fo leaf well before they are ready. Parsnips in particular are very slow growing and should be picked after a frost, or at leats in winter!

The carrots picking date depends on the variety and when they were sown. having siad that, my carrots this year have been laid waste by carrot fly, so I don't think I will be getting many of them.

So far i have had early pots, japense onions, broccoli, pak choi, spinach, some courgettes and lettuce (although the pak choi and spinach went to seed before we could finish them).

We still have runner beans, french beans, garlic, cabbage, red cabbage, parsnips, peppers and brussel sprouts to look forward to. Oh and I am trying florence fennel too but have my doubts as to who successful that will be.

 

[Arch]

I have a dictinct lack of variety this year - partly due to a period when I failed to get any seeds sown or plants in, and partly because I've more or less given up on brassicas - my cabbages are the size of pingpong balls, and sprouts the size of peas. Very tasty, but really not worth the effort of peeling...:?:

 

[Cab]

Not an exhaustive list by any means, but off the top of my head...

Picking at the moment - courgettes (three varieties), carrots (various earlies and thinnings form main crop, including white, purple, yellow and orange ones), peas (main crop yellow mange tout 'golden sweet' and successional sowing of earlies), runner beans, French beans, lettuce, beetroot, sorrel, chard, leaf beet, raspberries, second early spuds, savoy cabbage, calabrese, cauliflowers, assorted herbs, loganberries, tomatoes. Asparagus and broad beans long since eaten.

Harvested and stored - onions, garlic, shallots, last of the first early spuds. Some peas, raspberries, currants, tayberries, gooseberries and other fruits frozen/jammed/wined.

Still to be ready but in the ground- fennel, parsnips, main crop carrots, various varieties of squash and pumpkin, swedes, red cabbage, kale, sweetcorn, salsify, scorzonera, skirret, sprouting broccoli, spring cabbage, cucumbers, apples, salmonberries.

Still to sow this year - more fennel, more successional lettuce, radish and other salads, turnips, kohl rabi, other bits and bobs.

Most okay this year; garlic harvest poor due to white rot, spuds soldiering on but blight setting in, tomatoes on the allotment decimated by blight so only the plants in the garden still going. New potato harvest massive, carrots exceptional this year, courgettes going like rockets.

 

[Arch]

Oh dear...

Onions (red and white) - gorwing well, but not sure how well they are going to store, due to the damp.

Broad Beans - got a bit covered in blackfly. Have had decent crop though - as always, I seem to go away just as they are ready.

Peas - for second year running, didn't do well, and got swamped by weeds (that bit is my fault...)

Potatoes - went in quite late, seemed OK last time I looked..

Carrots, a couple of rows, first probably ready for pulling.

Courgettes, sweetcorn, squash. Bought as plants this year rather than sown as seed, due to hiatus in routine, but don't seem to be thriving - not sure whether the plants weren't good (normally V good from this nursery) or whether the weather has been a factor...

And that's it. I admire your variety Cab!

I suffer from terrible allotment lethargy - once I'm there, I get on and enjoy it, but it's the act of getting there (a whole 10 minute bike ride!) that's the problem... So if I'm not tough with myself, a week slips by and I've left it alone...

Still, this year I gave in and used Roundup on the couch grass, so at least when I do go, I can see the cultivated beds, rather than a waist high wastteland...

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

Oh dear...



Still, this year I gave in and used Roundup on the couch grass, so at least when I do go, I can see the cultivated beds, rather than a waist high wastteland...

Roundup is glyphosate I think. If it makes you feel better, a friend of mine who is a chemist with the Environment Agency says that it is the only weedkiller that they feel absolutely sure does not damage the envionment.

 

[Cab]

Oh dear...

Onions (red and white) - gorwing well, but not sure how well they are going to store, due to the damp.

Doesn't help, does it? Many of my onions are hanging on lines on the plot, drying outdoors. And its lashing it down. Still, one sunny day and they'll be fine.

Broad Beans - got a bit covered in blackfly. Have had decent crop though - as always, I seem to go away just as they are ready.

Did you pinch the tops out?

Courgettes, sweetcorn, squash. Bought as plants this year rather than sown as seed, due to hiatus in routine, but don't seem to be thriving - not sure whether the plants weren't good (normally V good from this nursery) or whether the weather has been a factor...

They do that, they seem to sulk for a while before taking off. If the ground is good and rich they'll be right as rain.

And that's it. I admire your variety Cab!

I'm a real seed geek. Why grow one variety of a vegetable when you can grow seventeen (my tally on lettuce varieties this year) or twelve (this years total number of tomato varieties)?

I SHOULD just stick to less varieties of things, but its not in my nature.

Still, this year I gave in and used Roundup on the couch grass, so at least when I do go, I can see the cultivated beds, rather than a waist high wastteland...

Couchgrass is a nightmare. As long as you don't squirt your roundup anywhere near a pond or suchlike, and as long as its used right, its the best tool at your disposal for dealing with couch grass.

 

[Arch]

Yeah, that's why I went for it - everyone says, if you want to be 'organic' but have resort to killer, that's the one to use.

Although of course there are ethical concerns over Monsanto who make it.

In the end it was use it or not be able to see out of the grass...

 

[dan_bo]

I have a real problem with bindweed on mine but I have developed a cunning and devastating method of glyphosphate application involving a kitchen roll tube and a short piece of bamboo........ let the bindweed grow up the bamboo a bit, put the tube over and spray down the tube! viola! buggered bindweed and the glyphos hasn't gone everywhere!

 

[radger]

I hate all of you. I have been on the waiting list for an allotment for three years now. And we're moving out in 5 weeks.
New place must have garden, or there will be trouble

 

[Cab]

There are other ways with couch grass, but I rekon that a single application to deal with the worst of it is the way to go.

I believe that you can get glyphosate from companies other than monsanto, its just 'roundup' that is their brand. Although I could be mistaken.

 

[Cab]

Oh, forgot to list aubergines (strugglin) and sweet potatoes (thriving). And alexanders.

 

[User482]

I'm in my first year of veg growing on a decent scale. I have a 3x3 metre and a 1x3 metre patch, which are currently providing all the veg the two of us can eat. I recommend the "Grow Your Own Veg" book by Carol Klein that accompanied the TV series (the book is much better than the programme) and also "The Kitchen Garden" published by Collins is useful.

At the moment we're eating purple-sprouting broccoli (hybrid variety), early potatoes, french beans, runner beans, little gem, endive, rocket, mustard, beetroot, onion, green cabbbage and garlic.

Potatoes haven't cropped very well and I've struggled to keep the black fly down but other than that so far, so good. Need some sun to ripen the tomatoes though!

 

[User482]

There are other ways with couch grass, but I rekon that a single application to deal with the worst of it is the way to go.

I believe that you can get glyphosate from companies other than monsanto, its just 'roundup' that is their brand. Although I could be mistaken.

Glyphosphate is a generic biodegradeable weedkiller so if you don't want to buy from Monsanto, look on the label in your garden centre.

 

[GaryA]

Ok Cab thanks......annoyed to find out my swedes are by now inedible-a few have not flowered yet-will they be ok or it it likley to be too late?
And how do you know the right time to pull the swedes, what exactly am I looking for?
In simple-I've-never-done-this-thing-before terms

 

[Arch]

Oh, cheers for the advice on glyphosate - I don't think I'd connected the generic name (which I hear often on Gardeners Question Time) and Roundup, although I knew they were the same thing, but didn't know other firms made it..

Gary, I've never grown swedes, so can't help there, but I believe a turnip is ready when you need the farmer, the farmer's wife, the farmer's daughter, the farmer's son, the old lady down the road, the dog, the cat AND the mouse to help pull it up...