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Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 19, 2020 16:38:09 GMT
I did Bixa...but my tomatoes were awful last year tho. I grew them outside in grobags so this year they will go into the greenhouse border. I started growing carrots in pots after Mick told me how well they do if the pot is big enough. Still got to sow my edamame beans too...busy busy.
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Post by mickthecactus on Apr 19, 2020 17:09:47 GMT
Mick, you don't have all that much open ground, do you? Are the tomatoes, cukes, and onions all in pots? I'm guessing the broad beans are in the ground, but ... ? All in the ground.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 14, 2020 21:19:15 GMT
None of my spring onions germinated. Apparently they need soil on the acid side and mine is probably alkaline. I have resowed in containers in a peat compost. Sowed more Canary Yellow Swiss Chard and Ruby Red beetroot.
Onion sets looking good, plenty of flowers on strawberries.
A couple more weeks and I can plant out tomatoes and cucumbers and sow sweet corn and French beans.
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Post by casimira on May 15, 2020 13:08:58 GMT
I harvested the first of my haricots verte yesterday. I have staggered the planting of these so I won't have too, too many all at once. I do this with a number of vegetables because there's only 2 of us, and, while I guess I could freeze them, I prefer to have them fresh.
In the meantime, I have blossoms on my cucumbers and zucchini.
All the leafy greens are past their time save a few arugula. It's just too hot right now.
The snow peas are on their way out too.
I have several varieties of peppers coming in and have harvested a few of hot ones.
I will be putting in eggplant(aubergines) and okra this week. They love the warmer/hot weather.
I have abandon growing tomatoes for a few years now because they take up too much room but mainly because of the pestilence that they attract and spreads to the other vegetables.
I have access to all the tomatoes I want from some nearby gardens who are more than willing to share because they know they will be rewarded with lemons later in the year or figs in July.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 15, 2020 20:39:47 GMT
How different are we in our growing regimes!
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Post by casimira on May 16, 2020 11:36:38 GMT
Indeed! Gardening in a semi-tropical climate puts a whole new spin on growing most everything.
This year was particularly challenging because we never had a freeze here. A lot of plants never died back. I was harvesting hot peppers, and all of my culinary herbs throughout. All carried over from last autumn.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 22, 2020 12:26:41 GMT
Planted tomatoes out this morning and sowed carrots. Yesterday siwed French beans and sweet corn and planted out more broad beans.
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Post by casimira on Jun 12, 2020 12:02:46 GMT
My next door neighbor, a charming young woman who moved into her mother's house after her mother died around a year ago really caught the garden bug.
I mentored her quite a bit and she has been very enthusiastic in her endeavor. (She is vegetarian so she had an incentive to grow quite a large variety of vegetables)
She put in a sizeable vegetable patch after carefully amending the soil and installed two rain barrels along with a drip irrigation system that runs on an automatic timer system.
Very impressive.
Well, she announced to me that she was leaving for the summer to follow a young man she had fallen in love with and invited me to harvest any and all of her crop.
She has someone living there house sitting but he isn't really interested too much in the garden.
And so, I have been the recipient of all manner of vegetables, many of which I haven't grown for a number of years.
Presently there are a variety of squashes, Japanese eggplant, cherry tomatoes,quite a few varieties of peppers, melons, okra and cucumbers.
Needless to say how thrilled I am to have this unexpected bounty fall my way.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jun 12, 2020 12:24:11 GMT
How lucky is that!
This weekend I shall be picking broad beans (not sure what that is in American) and Swiss Chard which are now ready.
Sowed French beans, lettuce and spring onions (scallions?) this morning.
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Post by casimira on Jun 12, 2020 12:44:28 GMT
Mick, 'broad beans' are what we refer to as fava beans. Sometimes it also refers to lima beans.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 12, 2020 14:06:06 GMT
Strangely enough, I have never seen an American style lima bean in Europe. If I did, I would recognise it immediately since I grew up eating them. We have other somewhat similar beans (flageolets…) but not the actual lima bean.
Congratulations on your summer of vegetables, casi!
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 12, 2020 14:35:34 GMT
Wow, that's really lovely casimira I hope that you enjoy your well deserved vegetables. We've been eating home grown sugar snap peas, lettuce, kohl rabi and radishes for a couple of weeks now.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 12, 2020 23:29:20 GMT
Wow, you ladies are really eating in paradise right now. Cheery, I will give you £797.16 for one kohlrabi and Casimira, I will give you $1000 for a good handful of okra. I'm willing to negotiate on the sugar snaps and some yellow summer squash as well.
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Post by casimira on Jun 13, 2020 1:12:53 GMT
I was able to harvest 3 really nice cucumbers and some cherry tomatoes and incorporated them onto the tabbouleh T made for supper this evening.
I've been freezing the okra for use later. It's too hot to think about cooking it this time of year. I've always hated the fact that it's a heat loving vegetable. I'd much rather it grow during the cool season months.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jun 13, 2020 6:48:40 GMT
Wow, you ladies are really eating in paradise right now. Cheery, I will give you £797.16 for one kohlrabi and Casimira, I will give you $1000 for a good handful of okra. I'm willing to negotiate on the sugar snaps and some yellow summer squash as well. " title="::cheesy:: " style="max-width:100%;"] Oi! What's wrong with my veg? I can do you a good deal with my Chard....
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Post by bjd on Jun 13, 2020 7:14:19 GMT
It's hard to find kohlrabi here. The one guy I saw selling it at the market was an organic seller and he wanted about 3€ for one. But about 2 months ago I was at Lidl (cheap German supermarket chain) and in the veggie section they had some plants under "aromatics". I spotted a box of 6 kohlrabi plants in hard little blocks of soil and bought them for 1.99. They are now growing slowly in my garden. It's probably the wrong climate for them, like for dill. I sowed an entire packet of dill seeds and one came up, not in the flowerbed but in the gravel under the clothesline.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jun 13, 2020 8:27:08 GMT
My Chard.
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Post by casimira on Jun 13, 2020 11:36:34 GMT
Gorgeous Mick, and, a great pic!
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 13, 2020 17:44:25 GMT
Oi! What's wrong with my veg? I can do you a good deal with my Chard.... Dearest Mick ~ chard is one vegetable that is reliably available all year round here. Yours is undoubtedly better, because it is grown by you. Also, am just now seeing the pictures. Ooooo ~ yellow stems! Never saw that before. Of course I am now extending my monetary offer to you. Bjd, that has been my experience with dill. Way back when I lived partway up the mountain in San Sebastian I could grow gorgeous stands of dill. Since then the best I've ever gotten was some stunted little plants if I got anything at all. I grind my teeth in frustrated envy whenever Kerouac reports on the lush growth in his windowbox.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 13, 2020 20:24:09 GMT
I got cabbage white caterpillars on my swede foliage....I ought to destroy them...but they're so sweet...
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Post by mickthecactus on Jun 13, 2020 21:16:20 GMT
I think £1 a leaf would be reasonable.Its a variety Canary Yellow.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 13, 2020 23:00:28 GMT
Killlll the katerpillers, kill kill kill!
That seems like a great bargain, Mick!
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 14, 2020 15:25:28 GMT
Carry the caterpillars next door to the neighbours, Cheery.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jun 23, 2020 17:19:36 GMT
This evening picked broad beans, Swiss Chard and strawberries.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 24, 2020 2:19:45 GMT
Sounds like high summer in Eden, Mick!
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Post by tod2 on Jul 4, 2020 14:35:52 GMT
We are planting madly at the moment. Have Nicola store bought potatoes chitting in 10L buckets, and various trays with carrot seeds, beans, leeks, and today sowed Wild Arugula. Lots of chard and cabbages have gone in too. Giving growing Aubergines another go from Nursery seedings in trays. By the way I found out an amazing fact about selecting aubergines/eggplant when in the supermarket. Pick the purple thing up, look at it's behind, if it displays a small circle 'navel' it is male and will have far more seeds internally than the longer 'navel' of the female plant.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jul 5, 2020 10:46:53 GMT
Picked broad beans, lettuce, beetroot and strawberries this morning. Then fed everything. Oh and planted French bean plants.
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Post by tod2 on Jul 5, 2020 11:46:03 GMT
For the first time ever, we have started planting vegetables in 5 and 10L tubs. All started with this Lockdown business. Too much 'vegetable growing techniques' watched on TV! At the moment I keep noticing that the potatoes in my veg rack keep disappearing and another pot with a dark green leaf appears on the patio….
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Post by mickthecactus on Jul 5, 2020 11:54:04 GMT
I grow carrots, lettuce, spring onion and cherry tomatoes in containers. And strawberries.
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Post by tod2 on Jul 5, 2020 14:06:37 GMT
Mick, I have got to ask - why are you not growing potatoes ? For us, who have enough space to run a small farm, the 'portable' method of using pots is very attractive. I have tried to grow potatoes in my raised beds and other space in the garden but too much wet weather rots most. With these containers we are able to keep them out of too much rain. Now, tomatoes are difficult here. We don't have greenhouses for a start, but you would think all this everyday sunshine would be on a par with Italian grown tomatoes…..but no! we even buy Israeli tomatoes when we go veg shopping.
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