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Post by tod2 on Aug 31, 2011 16:33:36 GMT
Hey Mick, you should try it! I'm still alive and boy were those tomatoes something else! I don't think the poo goes inside the tomato!! It only stimulates the roots....as far as I know. It's the thought isn't it?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2011 4:24:35 GMT
Long beans must be kind of weird to watch growing. ("When is it going to decide that it's long enough?")
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Post by tod2 on Sept 2, 2011 7:16:47 GMT
You can tell when it's got too long and no good for cooking because it starts to fade into a paler green and if left alone will just turn brown. The beans can be picked as young as you like but definitely while still dark green. At this stage they can measure anything from 6inches to about 15inches. At the 18-20inch stage they tend to fade. I will take particular note and report back with a photo or two.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Sept 22, 2011 17:34:34 GMT
I managed to get into the garden for half an hour this morning... ;D About 50% of my carrots were ruined, it wasn't carrot fly but it was slugs, wire worms and woodlice...drat-drat-double-drat....next year I shall grow them in containers. I was chuffed with the sweet potatoes tho. Had a feel in the soil and pulled out a big one! so I dug them all up...unfortunately the first one was the biggest and most of the others were fairly long and thin... Here are a small selection of today's produce...we had the sweetcorn as a snack...bit too sweet for me but OH and son thought that they were delicious. Haven't got a clue what to do with the sweet potatoes.... ;D
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2011 17:52:47 GMT
Sweet potatoes are icky. You can put them on the compost heap. You certainly washed your garden products thoroughly.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Sept 22, 2011 18:30:21 GMT
What? after all that effort? how annoying....
I did scrub them clean because I didn't particularly want any protein in the form of insects or moluscs in my veg rack....
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 22, 2011 18:59:36 GMT
Pay no attention to that annoying, benighted green frog. Leave him to wallow in his deliciousness-deprived hell. Those are GORGEOUS sweet potatoes! I'm from sweet potato country & know and love the terrific tubers. If you don't want to go into a sugar coma from this recipe, there are many other ways to use your crop. One way is to serve them as baked potatoes, with butter, salt & pepper. You can put them into curries, or make oven fries. Look how elegant this is. Fry them way down in olive oil with lots of garlic to serve with meat. One of my favorite ways to eat them is the plainest: bake unpeeled sweet potatoes and let them go cold. Peel & eat like a banana. All of the other stuff is absolutely perfect -- congratulations! I would like to snatch those squash and the leek for myself.
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Post by mickthecactus on Sept 23, 2011 7:55:02 GMT
Cheery, I find the only way to grow carrots is in containers in lovely soft peat based compost. You get a good crop with no marks. Try to keep the containers at least 3' off the ground to avoid carrot fly (I grow mine on the roof of a shed). I use old plastic window boxes for Chantenay type carrots and the Council's recycling boxes (with drainage holes drilled in) for larger maincrops. I grew the purple ones this year.
I have never had a decent crop out of the ground. Wrong soil probably. Commercial crops are grown in the sandy/peaty Fen soil think.
Leeks are doing really well this year too.
Like the sweet potato recipes Bixa.
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Post by rikita on Sept 27, 2011 6:43:53 GMT
this year nothing grew well. very few tomatoes, almost no peppers, a few beans, some brownish mangold, but nothing in the amounts i'd be happy with. probably too much rain. and as for the tomatoes, i bought some plants of like historic types - and it turned out one of those types (the one i actually bought several plants of) i didn't really like. the tomatoes get a strange pinkish shade, and still look and feel unripe - and then suddenly they fall off and are overripe.
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Post by rikita on Sept 27, 2011 6:45:18 GMT
i made a very nice sweet potatoe meal the other day... it had some tofu, soy sauce, some indonesian spices, koriander and other stuff... forgot what exactly, though...
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 27, 2011 6:55:12 GMT
That sweet potato dish does sound good.
I think the deal with heirloom tomatoes is sometimes they only like a particular climate/soil/growing season/whatever.
I left a question for you on your balcony thread.
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Post by mickthecactus on Oct 7, 2011 12:20:58 GMT
Tomato and cucumber salad - all home grown.
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Post by mickthecactus on Oct 10, 2011 12:07:22 GMT
Tomatoes before the blight hit - Banana Legs -
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 10, 2011 13:49:24 GMT
beeeyoootiful Mickipoo.... ;D
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 10, 2011 15:04:34 GMT
I'm hungry! That's such pretty produce, Mick. The photo of the single (heirloom?) tomato is calendar worthy.
How is your garden growing, Cheery? Is it shutting down for the winter?
And I wonder how Tod's is doing. Isn't Spring arriving in S. Africa?
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Post by tod2 on Oct 10, 2011 15:31:58 GMT
Oh yes, Spring is nearing the end and Summer is well and truly knocking on the door with temp.@29c today - bright sunny cloudless skies. My veg garden is filled to capacity with seeds and young plants. Much too small to show you now but on the 'grow' - as opposed to on-the-way, are lettuce, more parsley, beans, eggplant/aubergines, tomotoes, celery. At the moment lots of Swiss Chard maturing and more must take it's place. Also planted is a row of Bok Choy (like my last lot I showed you) What a fantastic yield it gives!
I have to tell you Mick....I am jealous. I have several packets of Heirloom tomatoes and hope that I too can show off such beautiful bounty in the months to come! The ones I have planted are:
Pantano Romanesco - Which is described as a big juicy Roman Heirloom tomato. I see I have a packet of tomato seeds with a label "Big white pink stripes" Orange Tomato Cat#TO122. Over the lovely picture of a variety of tomatoes is this:
"The Federal Gavernment has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect, except that you can't eat it. We should make every effort to make sure this disease, often referred to as 'progress' doesn't spread." -Andy Rooney.
Well, whoever or whatever he is, I hope these seeds bring me great mountains of lovely tomatoes!
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Post by mickthecactus on Oct 10, 2011 15:38:34 GMT
Were it not for blight I would have had 10 times as many. Lost pretty much all the big ones but managed to salvage a couple of "Lemon Boy" which I ripened indoors. These have the most exquisite flavour.
Recommend "Bloody Butcher" because it ripens very early.
The single one has the tiniest spot of blight Bixa so I'm afraid it would be rejected ("Black Krim" btw).
Banana Legs had a huge crop but they weren't the juiciest. Nevertheless I'll grow them again.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 10, 2011 16:02:08 GMT
Sounds glorious, Tod! Can't wait to hear/see how everything thrives.
I saw the tiny imperfection, Mick. Looks like real life!
And Tod, Andy Rooney is a well-know tv commentator/curmudgeon in the US. He is 92 & just retired a week ago.
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Post by tod2 on Oct 11, 2011 6:39:22 GMT
Thank you so much for the clip Bixa .... I LOVED it!! The seed company must love him too for printing his opinion on the front of a packet of tomato seeds He certainly looked very old and bent over towards the end and reminded me somewhat of that fantastic astonomer, Patrick Moore.
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Post by tod2 on Dec 12, 2011 17:31:13 GMT
Last evening we had one almighty rain & hail storm which lasted for about 20minutes. It has virtually wiped out my bok choy, lettuces, spinach, capsicums and other leafy veg like brinjals just about 30cm high at the moment. What was left in tact safely below ground in their individual bunkers, were my carrots! Small hail stones but oh so lethal! A faint rainbow appeared when everything was over. So here are the survivors I pulled up this afternoon- my multicoloured carrots!
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 12, 2011 17:36:25 GMT
Oh, Tod -- oh, no! It seems hail knows the moment of perfection for all the new and burgeoning foliage and sets out deliberately to destroy it. I suspect everything will make a comeback, although you probably can't even stand to look at it right now. Lovely carrots, and the rainbow picture is beautiful, although maybe faint consolation for you.
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 26, 2012 12:40:16 GMT
Is it only the Brits who grow parsnips, one of my favourite veg?
I was just reading an American article about how to set out a veg garden and what to grow but parsnips were not mentioned.............
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 26, 2012 12:43:16 GMT
Sowed 11 varieties of tomato yesterday plus carrots and leeks. Broad beans are already up and will be planted out soon. Onion sets have been planted out.
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Post by tod2 on Mar 26, 2012 14:38:52 GMT
Mick that is good news! Our end the veg are dying off and I have picked the last of my Longbeans. There are three little Bok Choy plants struggling to reach some kind of 'edibleness' ;D Whilst we're away my gardener will be turning all the beds and adding my compost thats been ripening for nigh on a year! I am very interested in your tomatoes. I did have some seed sent to me from Bakers Heirloom Seeds but the plants all died while still small. I did bring back seeds from Borough Market - they were proper hermetically sealed packets - but that was so long ago if I found the seeds they probably won't grow. I will be on the lookout for more seeds to send home whilst in England. It's such a pity I can't send home seeds for some decent potatoes!!! You asked if any of us like parsnips. Oh yes. They do have an acquired taste I suppose, but roasted in the oven with honey drizzled over them - Mmmm Here are some one can import from the US: rareseeds.com/vegetables-p-z/parsnips.html
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 26, 2012 14:54:59 GMT
Tod, if you find those seeds they may still germinate. I'e grown flowers from 12 year old seed.
Anyhow, no shortage of heirloom tomato seeds in the garden centres here.
I knew you would like parsnips - you're an honorary Brit ;D
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 26, 2012 15:44:09 GMT
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 26, 2012 16:12:10 GMT
Bixa, you are a veritable mine of information...
The last link was interesting because he had poor germination of leeks saved from the previous year - and I' sowed last years leek seed a week ago...
I know Parsnips won't save though.
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 26, 2012 16:27:36 GMT
At Kew's seed bank they aim to keep them for hundreds of years.
They dry them out down to about 8% moisture content then store them at -20c.
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Post by tod2 on Mar 26, 2012 16:54:26 GMT
I agree - the temp. is the key to keeping seeds 'ripe'. When I visited Australia about 10 years ago now, I sent home thousands of Oz seeds. So far over the years NOTHING will germinate! You would think with similar climates seedlings would be happy here. Not a bit of it! My absolute one desire above all others ( in the seed growing business) is to have the Kangaroo plants take off in my garden. I still have a few packets left and when I return in June, will start the process of collecting charcoal and mixing it with sand to try to encourage the wild flowers to germinate. Why is it so essential that when we visit another country we HAVE to HAVE a plant we have lost our hearts to, just flourishing in our own gardens?? Are we weird , or are we W E I R D!
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Post by mich64 on Mar 26, 2012 17:49:37 GMT
I enjoy parsnips very much, but am in the minority. I agree they are an aquired taste but I love adding them to the roast pan when roasting a Sunday beef! My mother always added them to her stews and for those siblings that did not like them, they went on to my plate!
Cheers! Mich
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