This week in your Kitchen Garden.

[RubyToogood]

I've now got some space - two potato sacks where I belatedly dug up my belatedly planted potatoes.

I've actually still got some of the seed potatoes I chitted and they still look good to go so I could try those. But the spuds didn't really give a very good ROI if anyone has other suggestions.

 

[iona]

I've now got some space - two potato sacks where I belatedly dug up my belatedly planted potatoes.

I've actually still got some of the seed potatoes I chitted and they still look good to go so I could try those. But the spuds didn't really give a very good ROI if anyone has other suggestions.

You're already doing salad type things and baby carrots in the table thing iirc so I won't suggest those. You should still be able to get some small new potatoes out of the ones you have left if you planted them now. Otherwise what about kale or spring cabbage, or something like beetroot or kohlrabi? (Assuming you'll want the sacks for potatoes again next year - if not, depending on how big they are you could try a perennial like berries of some sort)

 

[RubyToogood]

You're already doing salad type things and baby carrots in the table thing iirc so I won't suggest those. You should still be able to get some small new potatoes out of the ones you have left if you planted them now. Otherwise what about kale or spring cabbage, or something like beetroot or kohlrabi? (Assuming you'll want the sacks for potatoes again next year - if not, depending on how big they are you could try a perennial like berries of some sort)

Actually carrots is a good call as I've just eaten the last ones from the grow table and I really enjoyed having them. I need to grow more things that don't necessarily need cooking.

Just about to resow the table with salad.

 

[seeformiles]

Lots of beans but the beetroots are almost ready to crop.

 

[iona]

There's imposters in my row of Charlottes! Blame other people's haphazard approach to chitting.


Beetroot glut started weeks ago here. I always end up sowing way more than needed because it's so easy.

Just picked the first broad beans today (they were sown very late )

 

[iona]

That's just what I could be bother picking along the first bit of one side of the row. Think I'd better get blanching and freezing

 

[RubyToogood]

I think one of my pear trees is a goner. It's been having a real moment the last couple of years and was looking good in spring, but now seems to be rapidly failing.

It has a few spots of pear rust but not more than its healthy neighbour so god knows what's going on.

 

[RubyToogood]

The lower pics are from a week ago so progress is rapid. I don't think it's fireblight because other than the black withered shoots the symptoms don't match. For instance even the blackened bits have green inner bark.

Possibly extreme malnutrition from competing bluebells and excessive rain? I have given it a couple of seaweed feeds though.

 

[iona]

Good time to be sowing winter greens now that it's not so hot and the shortening days won't make things bolt.

Right now I'm sowing winter lettuce and a few less hardy but fast-growing types, winter spinach, spring onions, winter purslane (claytonia) and lamb's lettuce, mizuna, tatsoi, kale and texsel greens for baby leaves, and turnip greens and spring cabbage for early next year. Will get started on more oriental greens - Chinese cabbage, pak choi, tsoi sim, zha cai (weird knobbly mustard stem Real Seeds call "the thing" ), normal mustard greens and Chinese violet cress - when my seed order turns up next week. Probably a bit late but I stuck a pack of overwintering onion seed in too.

Maybe now I have a massive polytunnel this will be the year I actually manage I grow pak choi for myself and not just as a sacrifice crop for slugs...

 

[iona]

Sorry RubyToogood, don't want you to feel like your post was being ignored but not sure about your tree I'm afraid.

 

[RubyToogood]

Sorry RubyToogood, don't want you to feel like your post was being ignored but not sure about your tree I'm afraid.

I wonder if campanula might have any ideas. The leaves are all falling off now, and yet the wood is still green under the bark. There are no cankers or anything that identify some diseases.

 

[iona]

I wonder if campanula might have any ideas. The leaves are all falling off now, and yet the wood is still green under the bark. There are no cankers or anything that identify some diseases.

It can be really hard to tell from photos and without knowing exactly what conditions it's been growing in. If the branches still seem healthy and it's only leaves and some shoots affected I'd just try and give it a bit of tlc and see how it looks in the spring, I think.

 

[Ron Merlin]

Picked the first of these today

 

[iona]

Bastard birds kept going for our tomatoes so I've been having to pick them a few days early and let them ripen indoors.

 

[RubyToogood]

Bastard birds kept going for our tomatoes so I've been having to pick them a few days early and let them ripen indoors.

View attachment 389581

I'm sitting here watching a pigeon eat my slightly underripe grapes...

 

[iona]

I'm sitting here watching a pigeon eat my slightly underripe grapes...

Sometimes nature and biodiversity and all that can just fuck right off

 

[iona]

Brought the first winter squash in to cure today

 

[RubyToogood]

I have one (1) winter squash and I'm leaving it as long as humanly possible.

 

[iona]

* childish sniggering *

 

[campanula]

I wonder if campanula might have any ideas. The leaves are all falling off now, and yet the wood is still green under the bark. There are no cankers or anything that identify some diseases.

I have been seeing phytopthera in a couple of orchards, this summer. (and on subshrubs such as lavender and shrubby wallflowers). My lewisias are fucked too. You can send off for a soil test. I am struggling to do a link but here is the website.

Phytophthora Rapid Test | Sorbus International

www.sorbus-intl.co.uk

The wet weather has provided the ideal circumstances for phytopthera spores tp swim around on soil and leaf surfaces. As Iona says, it isn't always easy to have a firm diagnosis off a screen, so I am just giving you a worst case scenario so you can follow some precautionary tactics. First of all - containment.. Cover the area around the tree with horticultural fleece, cut off any affected branches and burn them, clean your secateurs. and avoid walking around the area. I am sorry this sounds so onerous...the speed of the spread looks like it might even be vascular, such as verticillum wilt The usual way of sterilising soil is heat treatment...and if the tree was in full sun at the start of the summer, solarisation is a good method. I have never used it myself, but know that hydrogen peroxide is used as a soil drench and there are spendy fungicides from the likes of Agrigem. Anyway, it is too early to jump straight to doomy conclusions... but best to try to minimise potential spread.

 

[Oriole]

You know how every season there's 1 crop that does really well compared to the others. Last year it was cavalo nero for us, planted it again this year, got no joy.
This year it's the raspberries, doing well. I'm hoping it's not a glitch and they'll perform just as well next year.

 

[dessiato]

Our second crop potatoes are doing well but I'm not sure they'll come good before winter sets in. It comes early here.

 

[Oriole]

The tiniest of lettuce seedling from the "maybe September will be mild enough to get another batch of leaves" seeds I planted at the weekend. I planted pak choi too which explains the liberal application of slug pellets because it woul be nice to not have it decimated this time (gastropods seem to live the stuff)

 

[iona]

Our second crop potatoes are doing well but I'm not sure they'll come good before winter sets in. It comes early here.

Fleece them (nearer the time, not now!) If you're worried about early frosts.

 

[iona]

The tiniest of lettuce seedling from the "maybe September will be mild enough to get another batch of leaves" seeds I planted at the weekend. I planted pak choi too which explains the liberal application of slug pellets because it woul be nice to not have it decimated this time (gastropods seem to live the stuff)

View attachment 390437

Soil should still be warm enough for a while to apply slug nematodes, if it's in an area you're able to keep the soil moist till they get to work...

I grow a lettuce variety called Tom Thumb that makes tiny one person sized heads, and every time I forget until it germinates that it has correspondingly tweenytiny cute little cotyledons

 

[Maggot]

<pops into thread>

Hi, I am growing tomatoes for the first time. They are different varieties. Some of the smaller ones are splitting as they ripen. Any idea why this is?

 

[iona]

<pops into thread>

Hi, I am growing tomatoes for the first time. They are different varieties. Some of the smaller ones are splitting as they ripen. Any idea why this is?

Too much and/or too irregular watering

 

[Oriole]

Courgettes (de Nice), not sure if it's technically kitchen but the mini sunflowers are adorable and there's an interloper in my pakchoi seedlings.

 

[Maggot]

Too much and/or too irregular watering

Thanks. Have been watering a lot, especially in this hot weather, about 4-5 times a week. Should I water less often, or use less water when I do it?

 

[iona]

Thanks. Have been watering a lot, especially in this hot weather, about 4-5 times a week. Should I water less often, or use less water when I do it?

That's a bit of a "how long's a piece of string?" question...

Are they in pots or the ground? Full or partial sun? How much water are you giving them currently and at what time of day? How dry are the top few inches of soil when you water them again, and are they showing any signs of water stress (leaves might be wilting and curling outwards, or curling up and in on themselves) either just before or shortly after being watered?