The Veg Plot.

[garynortheast]

I have leeks too Trevor, forgot to mention them in the post above. I started them off in a seed tray and then dibbed them into a bed. They just took off as soon as I put them in the ground.

Some pictures of the veg plot as it is this evening.

Lettuce, climbing courgette, tomato, trailing courgettes (yellow and green), sweetcorn.



Cosmos, dahlia, rudbeckia, marigolds, more tomatoes, butternut squash.



View of the front plot from by the front door.



Spuds.



Runner and climbing French beans.



Couple of cabbages which sat and did nothing last year and are now hearting up nicely. I harvested a huge, third one the day before yesterday. Leeks just behind the cabbages and garlic just about ready to harvest behind them.



Carrots, parsnip, beetroot, radishes, and more lettuce.



Onions almost ready to lift.



Greenhouse full of tomatoes, cucumbers, cape gooseberries, aubergines, bell, and chilli peppers.



Brussels and purple sprouting. I need to raise the mesh.



Dwarf French beans and rainbow chard just about ready to plant out.



Started lining out the area for the workshop. Just installed the two linked 100ltr water butts off the roof downpipe. In yesterdays heavy downpour it took less than an hour to three quarters fill both of them.

[Sir Trev]

Very impressive Gary!

[garynortheast]

Went out to lift the last of the second earlies and got a right soaking! Still, a decent crop in the end.

Had about two or three times this number altogether.



Every time I went outside it rained. Second time was putting in the dwarf French beans....



And again when I planted out the chard where the spuds had been.

[Sir Trev]

First meal with this year's runner beans tonight. Yay. It will also have some of last year's pumpkin in it from one of the now dwindling batches left in the freezer.

[redtrummy]

Still waiting for some to come through

[garynortheast]

Originally Posted by Sir Trev

First meal with this year's runner beans tonight. Yay. It will also have some of last year's pumpkin in it from one of the now dwindling batches left in the freezer.

Originally Posted by redtrummy

Still waiting for some to come through

We should start eating mine in a few days. We've already had a few young runners from Jan's garden in a salad.

[garynortheast]

I think we are at what might be called peak harvest now.

I'm picking masses of runner beans pretty much every other day. Cucumbers have gone berserk; I've had more than 40 of them off just two plants in the greenhouse. Picking climbing and dwarf French beans, onions, garlic, and spuds are all harvested, chard is big enough to pick now, and I've had a good crop of purple broccoli today. Carrots and parsnips are growing well too. The carrots are big and seem to have avoided the root fly, and I'm leaving the parsnips until they've been frosted, but they're looking good as well.

Had loads of salad stuff this year, and the beds in the front garden are giving me courgettes and tomatoes. I should also have some sweetcorn soon as long as we get a bit more sun, and ditto the butternut squashes.

All very satisfying. It's now 15 months since I bought any veg aside from a few red peppers and some early tomatoes.

[Sir Trev]

Just back from a week away and half my runners look like they've died off. I'm guessing there was not much rain while we were in East Anglia. Might get just one more meal from them but they stopped flowering a few weeks ago now so that may be it.

The leeks look happy so may start lifting them soon and the pumpkins are now turning from green to orange, which is always nice. Lots of ripe tomatoes in the greenhouse now so will be freezing some this weekend for culinary use over winter.

[garynortheast]

Went into the greenhouse yesterday and all my tomato plants had flopped, so this evening I stripped all the tomatoes off them and uprooted and composted the plants. I now have a large basket of green tomatoes! Clearing the tomatoes revealed a number of cucumbers which had been hidden in the foliage. I'm not short of cucumbers!!

The Cape Gooseberry plants are covered in fruit which is all ripening nicely, and my outside tomatoes against the back, wood panel fence are still looking good with lots of fruit on them. Runner beans are still going strong and the dwarf French beans are now cropping to.

My chest freezer is filling nicely for the winter!

[garynortheast]

Well, I guess summer is over! This week I cleared to the two front garden beds of tomato, courgette, squash, and sweetcorn plants, and cut down the cosmos and rudbeckia.

In the back garden all the beans are now cleared, and the greenhouse has just the two Cape Gooseberry plants left from the summer, along with the pots of bell and chilli pepper plants.

Winter brassica plugs are in the back beds and growing on, with mibuna and mizuna growing in the greenhouse.

Leeks are growing on nicely, there are lots of big fat brussels and purple sprouting broccoli. Autumn sown onion sets are growing away and the rainbow chard is producing plenty of leaves as well as looking glorious in the autumn sunshine.

I'm going to plant the first of my garlic in the next couple of days too.

Been a strange old year; stuff was late to get going and some of the crops which needed a long season of warmth didn't do too well. Butternut squashes and sweetcorn were particularly poor. Consequently my freezer is not as full as I would like it to be. However, as long as the brassicas do ok I should make it through to next season without having to buy any of the chemical soaked crap from the shops. We shall see...