This week in your Kitchen Garden.

[Artaxerxes]

Bunch of plum trees planted down a very nice quiet street near me so I finally got around to sampling a few, bloody lovely.



And judging by the blackberries there's going to be a glut this year, some of them were huge but not quite ripe yet.

 

[davesgcr]

Tonights dinner is enlivened by home grown spuds (sauted) in home grown rosemary , with French beans fried in garlic and butter.

(the accompanying burgers were 4 for a £1.99) -

 

[scifisam]

This week I've harvested

Apples
Cooking apples
Peaches
Tree spinach
Onions
Potatoes
Yellow courgette
Aubergine
Rainbow chard
Rocket
Lettuce
Pak choi
Alfalfa
Three different kinds of cherry tomatoes
And numerous herbs

I feel like a farmer. OK, I'd be a farmer who swiftly starved come winter (or even now) but I'm pleased with how it's going at the moment

 

[gentlegreen]

I've finally got a working bell syphon - thanks, as is so often the case, to food packaging - in this case the neck from a fancy bottle of pear juice.



Not satisfied with that, I went up to the pound shop and came back with three bottles for taking fluids onto planes, and two babies' bottles ...

After a lot of farting about, I found that the transparent domed caps from the latter worked more reliably by themselves.

But the whole operation has proved supremely twitchy - if the input flow is too slow, the syphon never initiates and there's a steady trickle through the drain pipe with the level staying high....

Though it sort of works with the top trough emptying into the lower one, I've decided to buy the extra 15mm plastic plumbing fittings to have separate drains so there's much less chance of flooding.

I'm glad it's watercress I'm growing in these shallow troughs because it has proved impossible to drain all the water through the gravel before the syphon breaks ... but feeding the water in at the far end and having the troughs sloping towards the drain has probably helped a bit.

 

[gentlegreen]

Arse

I've just realised that since I'm using a timer on my pump I don't actually need bell syphons ...

just a slow drain and an overflow....

 

[The39thStep]

Far too hot here to grow much in the summer; lettuces just go to seed, climbing beans do well for a couple of crops then just die, cherry tomatoes give you a glut and then just get burnt out by the sun, forget courgettes they just get scorched. Crops locally are grown under shade , most are brought in from the north.aubergines peppers, pumpkin are still doing ok though and the larger tomatoes are still producing . October when it's a bit cooler looks like a good time to have another go.

 

[gentlegreen]

collard greens ?
sweet potatoes ?

 

[gentlegreen]

 

[gentlegreen]

Paul Stamets - über mushroom guru - considers the common or garden agaricus bisporus mushrooms I eat daily to supply essential vitamins to be too toxic (they should never be eaten raw), so once I'm settled in my retirement home, I fully intend to get growing other species such as shitake and oyster ...

I have started happening upon techniques that don't require lab conditions - I especially like this one. :-

Technique starts at 5:09

 

[gentlegreen]

King Stropharia is definitely on my list for the future :-

 

[gentlegreen]

I'm currently trying to resist the temptation to carry home a massively heavy pack of artificial logs from Aldi and try to inoculate with mushroom spores ...

 

[nogojones]

My first jerusalem artichokes are coming in and it looks like I might be farting for a good few months. I'm still getting handfuls of french beans and a bit of chard, plus I've got a few big squashes in storage.

I've also started regular sprouting and have been cycling between broccoli, raddish, mung and alalfa. I'll be working through my store cupboard as well and looking to do sesame, fenugreek, pea and lentils, though my setup is rather basic with just an old protein tub with muslin over it. It seems to do the job though

 

[The39thStep]

Still harvesting climbing French beans, aubergines, a handful of tomatoes, pumpkins and peppers. Carrots and cabbage have germinated but no sign of onions or leeks yet. Will plant some garlic this week .

 

[scifisam]

I moved my tomato plants to a shaded area a couple of weeks ago and they're still putting out endless tomatoes. Maybe I can keep going to December this time!

 

[The39thStep]

A late but great aubergine

 

[seeformiles]

This overwintered Kashmiri chilli is still knocking out new fruit (despite a small whitefly infestation)

 

[seeformiles]

More Spring Chillies (from overwintered plants) have appeared this week while the new seedlings are doing well. Broad beans and runners have also been planted. Lovely sunshine today so time to sort out the patio area and set up my trellises.

 

[The39thStep]

Just got six tomato plants, six pepper plants, six cucumber plants and six aubergine plants for 6 euro from Manuel the barking mad agriculturalist. I was so pleased a bought him a whiskey ( for 1 euro)

 

[davesgcr]

Main crop spuds thriving , spinach up and french beans transplanted out today. Courgettes and marrow not yet massacred by slugs.

Coming on nicely.

 

[pogofish]

I had two very nice freshly picked strawberries from the garden with my breakfast today:

Just two - because they were each very nearly the size of a tomato. The other had been sliced and eaten by this point!

This has been my most successful way of growing strawberries ever - I don't think the shade/light conditions and soil is right for them in my garden. Previously I struggled to grow more than a handful of not very good edible examples.

So this year, I tried grow bags on an old table, making use of the neglected corner in the garden and what a difference - hundreds coming, many huge and with next to no rotting or getting eaten by birds/beasties/hedgehogs.

I have three different types of strawberry here, so hopefully, there will be fruit all summer.

Plus, they are throwing-off loads of runners, so next years new plants are almost sorted. They will be overwintered in the old coal hole.

Tomatos have been very slow this year - Probably due to the prolonged cold springl? Only the two small cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse have produced any significant crop. All the outdoor plants are now growing strongly (if a bit stuntedly) and in fruit.

 

[TopCat]

This thread needs watering, a good feed and mulch.

 

[davesgcr]

Trouble is the very hot weather has decimated my French beans , spinach , courgettes likewise - and the spuds which were late in (reaction snow etc) , are died back and probably the size of marbles. .....

 

[Artaxerxes]

Wife is making enquiries about an allotment...

So far this year from the pots we've had fairly decent amounts of blueberries, the raspberries were crap, the usual mass of alpine strawberry's and the Tom's are finally flowering, late because of having to hide them inside out of the rain in May.

We also have a redcurrant bush which was sold to us as a blackcurrant one finally producing fruit... At least the ants love it.

 

[TopCat]

I am over run with dwarf beans, cucumbers, courgettes, beetroot and all the salads. Toms going red now. As long as they water golf courses I am deep watering the kitchen garden.

 

[The39thStep]

Most of July and August in the Algarve is a waste of time growing wise. Unless you are lucky to have shade everything either bolts or just gets frazzled. Still got some tomatoes and peppers going but I'm waiting till mid September now before I plant anything else tbh.

 

[davesgcr]

Lifted 2 rows of spuds - not even a full bowl and the size of marbles.

Time to book that emigrant passage to America (aka 1847)

 

[campanula]

Lifted 2 rows of spuds - not even a full bowl and the size of marbles.

And scabby as fuck too. Suspect I shoulda just ate the seed potatoes in the first place.

Did do the first ketchup boil though...having held my nerve (being idle and neglectful), not watering the wracked tomatoes. They more or less sailed, leaflessly, through the drought month, ripening into tasty, if slightly leathery, tomatoes.

 

[davesgcr]

And scabby as fuck too. Suspect I shoulda just ate the seed potatoes in the first place.

Did do the first ketchup boil though...having held my nerve (being idle and neglectful), not watering the wracked tomatoes. They more or less sailed, leaflessly, through the drought month, ripening into tasty, if slightly leathery, tomatoes.

Indeed - about 50% of the meager crop ended up in the green bin.... crap year really all round. We will not starve though ....

 

[The39thStep]

I remember in England I spent a small fortunes not heritage potato seedlings . French , German , American , favourites of the Victorians , potatoes that survived the Irish famine etc . Pissed down all year and then was struck by acute blight . Just had row on row of mush with the surviving spuds the size of marbles .

 

[Ponyutd]

First ever try at growing my own. Very happy!