Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
I picked some Bramleys for a crumble and a mini pumpkin to roast.
This week in your Kitchen Garden.
- Thread starter Mrs Magpie
- Start date
Tbh not long ago I was questioning if it was worth taking up so much polytunnel space with tomatoes, up here. This most recent warm spell has given them the kick they needed though and I'm pleased to have to admit I was wrong (watch us have a shit summer next year now I've said that and they won't ripen at all 
)
)
BoatieBird
Well-Known Member
Saffy
Under the duvet..
I've only had one so far and I used it with a load of others for some pasta/pizza sauce for the freezer.
I've got 4 more almost ready and I'm planning on stuffing them. I found a Nigel Slater recipe which looks lush which used orzo.
Nigel Slater’s beefsteak tomato with orzo and basil recipe, and his peppers, haricot, lemon and parmesan recipe
Some ingredients have always felt comfortable with each other. So sit back and let them get on with it, says Nigel Slater
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
My Chinese broccoli was a fail. Both bolted and got eaten by presumably caterpillars. I mean it's meant to be in bud, but not straight away. I've just ripped it out and will put something else in that half of the grow table. Not sure what.All the switching from autumn to sudden random summer heatwaves has made my mizuna bolt less than six weeks after I sowed it
Not something I like to do, but given they have literally acres of space here where they're left alone I have been doing a BT spray on a few things in the polytunnel that were really getting trashed by caterpillars.
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
Mrs Forward bought me a beautiful looking chilli plant, seeing as I eat a fair bit of chilli. It was labelled as Apache chilli so strong on the scoville scale (just below scotch bonnet). It came on really well on the recent hot days so I harvested the red ones, and dried them in the sun.
Tried them in my cooking and there's zero bite. I ate one whole and nothing. No chilli in the chilli! Anyone got any ideas what went wrong?
Tried them in my cooking and there's zero bite. I ate one whole and nothing. No chilli in the chilli! Anyone got any ideas what went wrong?
Overwatering? Too much fertiliser or being too cold or shaded can affect how hot they are too iirc.
Or any chance it could've been mislabelled or grown from seed that had crossed?
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
I'm thinking mislabelled maybe. Didn't overwater or use fertiliser as that's beyond my ken. I wonder if chili plants are gendered like cannabis plants?
No, they aren't.
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
Hmm... I'm going for mislabelled 
The wood pigeon has been at my seedlings. The winged thief could have just thinned out the overcrowded shoots and been helpful but no, he got up this morning and chose violence and randomly cleaned out whole chunks. The cat watched and did nothing to shoo the winged destroyer. I suspect it was payback on the cat's part for giving the wrong food. It seems carrot seedings are less tasty to pigeons than lettuce ones.
but she was cuter and more fun than a stupid fat greedy bird.
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
My apple trees are having a similarly fallow year
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
It'll do them good to have a rest.
I also had 4 apples, but mine tends to be biennial anyway, however much I thin the fruit in a boom year.
I haven't investigated the pear tree issue further. To be fair, all my fruit trees have outlived their theoretical lifespan on dwarfing rootstocks and I need to do succession planning really.
Reading up on replant disease it might be quite a long time before it's safe to put another fruit tree back in the same place. Alternative spaces are limited though. Perhaps some big containers.
newme
Giant in Pastyland now
Ah its gone a bit wrong, hugelkultur continues to grow slowly, one bed waiting to be seeded. Half of another one went to caterpillars on my lettuces and an ants nest. Planned everything way top heavily, Chinese cabbages are coming out like salad as there's no room, corn has hit the top of the poly since its not a big one, peas got forgotten about and sort of fell down, chive patch looks like grass for some reason, have another bed to go in.
Looking into growing three sisters (corn, beans, squash) after watching netflix blue zones thing. Stuff that actually grows well together? Great. Also Japanese sweet potatoes assuming they will grow.
Have had so much work to do on the rest of the garden its rather stopped the growing side a lot. Pond is far better now tho, clover coming in all over the lawn used a few different ones and existing micro. Everything's trimmed back, loads of sticks and logs for the hugelkultur and log pile if I ever turn the old washing machine or tumbledtier into a fire pit. Bloody thing has a huge bolt on the one I'm trying and I can't find anything in the sheds cos they are newly filled with lots of tools and nerf. So I probably have it but getting it is another thing. Got a while before that's needed tho.
Looking into growing three sisters (corn, beans, squash) after watching netflix blue zones thing. Stuff that actually grows well together? Great. Also Japanese sweet potatoes assuming they will grow.
Have had so much work to do on the rest of the garden its rather stopped the growing side a lot. Pond is far better now tho, clover coming in all over the lawn used a few different ones and existing micro. Everything's trimmed back, loads of sticks and logs for the hugelkultur and log pile if I ever turn the old washing machine or tumbledtier into a fire pit. Bloody thing has a huge bolt on the one I'm trying and I can't find anything in the sheds cos they are newly filled with lots of tools and nerf. So I probably have it but getting it is another thing. Got a while before that's needed tho.
You can just thin out seedlings as they grow, until you have plants left at the spacings you want. Eat the thinnings! Chives should be easy enough to tell apart from grass as soon as they've grown more than one leaf, so if it looks like grass it might actually be grass..?
There's a good six months to go before you can even start sowing the three sisters, but you'll ideally need to plant in a block rather than long rows unless you're going to hand pollinate the sweetcorn. Squash and beans can go in once the corn is about a foot tall, and they'll need an uncovered bed as you've found. Carrots and alliums (onions, leeks, garlic) are another combination that do well together.
davesgcr
Reading books
Update - 2 decent apples recovered , so a couple of breakfast servings..........(tree is clearly having a year off , it will get a barrow of home made compost to perk it up)
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
I've just started the grape harvest and juicing. It's a very good year! I thought it might be a bit sour but my not getting round to it for ages has paid off. Perfect balance of sweetness and acidity.
What variety of grapes do you have RubyToogood? I'm looking at putting a few vines in the polytunnel.
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
It's called Boskoop Glory. I've found it's best suited to juicing. The fruits are nice, but a bit pippy/skinny. They'd probably be less so if one thinned them out radically. I hadn't realised before I planted it that grapevines don't grow like this in nature:
They are huge rampant triffids if left to their own devices.
The taste is very affected by the weather. Last year I had to water it down a bit because it was so sweet whereas some years I've had to add a bit of sugar. They are very intense, not like shop grapes. It's like the difference between a golden delicious and an old-fashioned apple variety. I just mash the grapes with a potato masher, strain through a colander and then a sieve. If you don't want it cloudy and sludge coloured you can filter it through muslin or something but I like it cloudy and it's much simpler. I then freeze a lot.
I'm trying to prune it a bit more by the book now but it's still quite wild and romantic. It's a lot of fun and the leaves look lovely in autumn too. Part of it is trained over the patio to provide some shade.
I planted it around 30 years ago and it was a good decision given the weather situation.
Previous years:
Ha! Yeah there's two in the greenhouse here that were planted this winter gone and left to do their own thing and they're already trying to take over. I'll be pretty strict with the polytunnel ones though, that space is valuable. Thanks.
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
You may have a bit more choice of variety under cover. I don't know what your climate is like. I picked this one as it was reliable outdoors at the time.
Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
Garden apple & walnut chutney 
