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Our 'cut & come again' salad is going mental. It's growing faster than I can eat it. Our runners & french beans are now in, whilst our beetroot & parsnips are going well, and I managed to sow some carrot seed last night.
In the greenhouse we're still bringing on our leeks, aubergines, butternut squash & peppers, whilst the tomatoes have shown a sudden spurt of growth...
Lettuce leaves can be picked off the plants in the ground. You only need a couple sowed every three or four weeks. An over abundance of these will be loved by any neighbours with chickens, in fact let them bolt and chickens get more food.
Onions and leeks love well manured ground that has been fed at the end of last season with rotted horse/cow shit. New bought shop stuff is as BM thought a bit strong as it,s new not rotted. Unless you spend a lot more on specialist compost, but horse shit is mostly free {BM}
TIP- Horse poo plant food.
Put some rotted poo in a bucket about 1/3 full. Now top up with water and leave to stand for a couple of weeks, stirring occasionally. Strain off the fluid and use 1 part to 3 parts water for toms, corgettes etc.
yeah but you don't get 20 tons delivered to your door and its awkward bag by bag on the pushie.
Anyway - not poo, just houshold stuff that's been composted.
Another tip is to look for ants running up and down your beans, they harvest off the greenfly, aphids, and blackfly. Spray all your plants as soon as you see some! One or two today is hundreds tomorrow.
I've distracted the slugs away from the veg patch by planting loads of marigolds! The marigolds are decimated and my beans have had a reprieve. either that or a liberal dosage of slug pellets (OK so that's not very organic) has done the trick!
Afternoon all!
Interesting - might give that a go, BM!
No idea about your beetle problem, Poacher.
We currently have way more salad than we can possibly use.
Raspberries are now ripening up!
Fecking blackbirds!
Hubby has now completely covered the raspberry canes in netting to stop the feckers nicking our berries...
The annoying this is not so much that they were eating them, but that they kept eating half a raspberry and leaving the rest. Inconsiderate little buggers!
Luckily, there are still plenty there for us and they're now protected...
I'm seriously thinking an air rifle might be a good idea, though
- might stop the proliferation of cat shit appearing everywhere, despite everything we do to try and deter the little feckers.
Air rifle? And this is coming from a former vegan...
In other news, still swamped by salads, spuds are looking very healthy, french beans are a bit 'meh' but doing alright, broad bean pods swelling beautifully, and the previously sickly-looking courgette plants are now greening up again and growing nicely.
Next year, however, I really am going to forget all about growing onions.
I always get free sets from my uncle, so I see no harm in giving them a go, but the hailstorm earlier this year did serious damage, and they've really not come on very well at all - the worst year I've had with them...
Netting is the best solution, although rather than an air gun, get a high powered water pistol - one you can pump pressure into - and use that instead as it deters but doesn't harm. Cats hate them!! Or you could try a catapult although they aren't as accurate as a water pistol.
In other news - my toms are setting nicely, chillies also; first early spuds about to be harvested (Swift); salad leaves have now bolted so new stuff to go in soon; beans are growing well but no flowers yet; courgettes and squash developing nicely. Chard has been disappointing as it's been ravaged by leafminer (as has the sorrel in places) so I'll let that go and plant some new stuff.
Dont have a problem with blackbirds just bloody PIGEONS! I they crap every where, when my veg starts to appear they peck the leaves clean off the stems! If I had a gun I'd shoot the buggers and why do I have a rat in my compost bin?
Apart from that had the first broad beans and courgettes last night which were lovely, been eating peas for about a week now. French beans are starting to appear, no sign of the bolotti beans but they do have flowers.
Got a glut of cabbages, radish, rocket and spinach.
All your veg patches sound lovely and fruitful.
Happy gardening.
Don't worry, FB - I was actually being a bit flippant.
I wouldn't shoot anything - I'm actually more of a pacifist than anything...
Other than them nicking a few berries, I quite like having the blackbirds around as their song is nice.
There's a blackbird couple that live in one of the neighbours' trees and I do quite like watching them flitting about.
We've had plenty of berries growing - the birds got a bit of extra food which was nice for them, but now we have the netting on and it's our turn.
Water pistol sounds like a good idea for the cats
, although I rarely actually catch the little blighters in the act...
" I quite like having the blackbirds around as their song is nice"
'cept at 4am.........
#blackbird singing in the dead of night....
BANG - sod off ya little fecker!!
as for the cats - don't worry about catching them in the act - just water them every time they come into the garden - they'll quickly get the hint and stay away.
*excited update*
First cucumber picked today, a bit on the short, fat side, but perfectly edible. And the strawbs are yummy.
Lettuce still growing like blazes - and there is only so much lettuce you can eat!
Slightly worried the toms haven't started to turn yet, there are a load of them on the plants but so far all green.
my toms are all outdoors so will be slower than greenhouse - the plum ones are setting nicely but the GDs are setting unevenly this year which is a concern but we'll see what happens. first courgettes picked yesterday and 1st french bean crop soon.
Ta FB. I guessed that would be the answer - unfortunately patience isn't always my strong suit.
And I'm everso slightly miffed at having lettuce & cucumbers for my salads, but no toms as yet. Making lunch involves a trip to the greenhouse on a daily basis at the moment. 
Hi all,
Am new to this thread after trying to unearth my green fingers in our new garden. It's slightly worrying how obsessive i'm becoming with these! Luckily we dont have to worry too much about birds/other pests...they dont seem to even come near the garden!
In March/April i planted carrots and onions and they are growing fantastically - but i have a very elementary question: When are they ready to be picked? What should i be looking for? The onions are already sprouting out of the ground but some of the carrots look a little green. What is the "normal" growing period?
onions usually ripen up around August - the tell tale sign that they are ripening is that the green leaves will start going brown and withering. most people leave them in the soil for a while after to help the bulb swell further, but once all the green has died back, lift them and dry them.
what you can see of the carrots is probably just the shoulders as they peek out of the ground - and because they are in light they will go green but underneath they will be carrot coloured. to see what they are like, just pull one up! we're eating ours now so yours should be OK
Hi fat buddha,
Thanks for the recommendations! I'll take a look at the carrots tonight. i feel like a little kid at christmas waiting to unwrap the presents! To be honest, i started this gardening out as an experiment to see if anything would grow..... now my garden is filled full of herbs and vegetables! I'll start on the fruit next year!
How do you dry the onions? Leave them outside for the sun to dry them? or put them in a humid place (e.g. laundry room)?
I find the right time for pulling carrots is when I'm walking down the garden and am feeling a little pekish.
OK - so I thought that the drawf in drawf beans was the sie of the plant not the size of the bean. What do you do with microscopic beans I wonder?
Afternoon all!
Welcome, Emmy!
I have decided that from next year we will not be growing onions or garlic again. They really don't work in our garden, and there's really no monetary benefit. I think I'm going to give that portion of the garden over to a permanent strawberry patch.
Strawberries are doing fantastically well in the big planter, but are suckering like crazy. I've just decided that given how much I like soft fruit, how much nicer and better value it is homegrown, and how easy it is, it would be a much better use of space.
Raspberries are now doing really well - early yields had a really disappointing lack of flavour because of the crap weather
, but now we've had a prolonged spell of decent sunshine the flavour and sweetness has definitely improved. 
In my experience, Dottie, dwarf beans do indeed produce small pods. Ours are yet to get that far, though...
Our French beans are still rubbish.
Courgette plants coming along nicely.
Spuds excellent. Dug up some Red Duke of Yorks - not an amazing yield, but pretty respectable, and very tasty indeed.
Charlottes shouldn't be long, Nadines and Picassos I'll leave some while longer...
Waaaaay too much salad, though.
my tom plants are tiny as well. Must be dwarf hormone or something.
I'm loving my blueberries though. the plants are attractive and beautiful when they flower and very attractive with all the fruit on. For aesthetics they beat the blackcurrents but they don't smell as wonderful as my blackcurrent bushes.
We're going to be getting some blueberries, morse-mouse.
My parents have two bushes that they haven't really got room for in their garden anymore since they re-landscaped it, so want them to go to a good home.
They certainly are very pretty plants.
I'm definitely moving towards growing more soft fruit. Seems to be far better value than some of the annual veg crops I've been struggling with.
Certain things I shall still continue with, though - courgettes, spuds and salady stuff, and possibly broad beans (I only had a small number of plants this year, but they did well; far better than the french beans seem to be doing...)
Our Red Duke of York potatoes have been fabulous.