How's the growing going ?

[janso]

Dont mean too obast but only the strawberries are having a hard time, everything else is great - lettuce is ready for picking and so are the spinach leaves!! Sorry for everyone else so far, defintiely the SW weather that makes the difference compared to the rest of the country

[Carrot Cruncher]

Strawberries are doing very well and taste amazing, Runner Beans and Broad Beans doing well, Swede and Sprouts doing well, Red Currant and Black Currant bushes doing well, Tomatoes doing well.

Peas are a disaster, Raspberry bush is struggling

Didn't bother with carrots or spuds this year but there are a few spuds appearing from last years crop

I grow most stuff in containers (apart from the swede and sprouts) and they have needed a hell of a lot of watering over the last few months. The water butts are next to useless in this weather as well so our water meter has been ticking over drastically

[Creteway]

Potatoes, broad beans, runner beans, leeks, peas, squash, pumpkins and onions doing well. Lettuce chillies and tomatoes also good. (I normally do tomatoes too late but this year actually have big tomatoes on plants just waiting for them to go red, normally I have marble sized green tomatoes.) No sign of the carrots we planted! Strawberries doing well but not growing much - not enough rain. Cooking apples, plums, eating apples, cherries - cooking and eating, raspberries and blackcurrants, cob nut tree all growing well. Peach tree covered in peaches about the size of golf balls now - looks like a good year again for that. Not too bad so far but really need some of that Scottish rain!

[Ian]

Dry, dry, dry. All is late except the artichokes and walking onions which were planted last year so have deep roots. Plenty of strawberries but they have been well watered. I have avoided planting much because of the weather predictions.

By the bye, I think there will be some spare walking onion sets later on, would anybody like one or two to get them started, fascinating plants and onions forever when established?

http://www.egyptianwalkingonion.com/

[smileyt]

Hi Ian, I would love a set if you could spare one, please! You can never have enough onions!

Things are slow on my allotment this year. Garlic and shallots are doing fine, potatoes (in bags) look ok. My baby sweetcorn have just started to put on a bit of growth. Raspberries are going great guns and tonight I picked the first three ripe strawberries nomnomnom. I've also had a lot of spicy salad leaves. Broad beans are struggling but they have a few flowers on them.

Courgettes have been massacred by slugs and are now as dead as a dodo; I sowed a couple of seeds straight into the soil tonight, covered with an upturned cut-off bottle and will hope for the best. I tried to buy some from the local community garden centre this week but they said theirs had all given up the ghost too, a combination of greenfly and the cold and damp conditions . Cucumber and pumpkins are struggling from the lack of warmth.

Tonight I planted out three runner bean plants and 18 tomato plants and will have to hope for the best. This week I intend to clear more ground and sow some french climbing beans and more salad veg, plus plant out a loganberry which will hopefully fruit next year. I also have some purple sprouting brocolli but that will have to wait until the shallots are harvested before it has a home. I will be sowing some kale this week - I know it's a bit late but we are still only at the beginning of June so hopefully it will grow! I will be trying to clear some space to sow the soya beans too, Hobo!

Then the rest of the 'summer' will be spent succession sowing beans and salad, and clearing ground for whatever late crops I can get in to overwinter, like turnips and cabbage. I want to start garlic and onions in the autumn this year, too, and maybe some broad beans.

[hobo]

Soya beans aren't doing much Smiley! Yours? Quinoa is looking ok - slow.... Peas look FAB! Courgettes, beetroot and strawberries going well too.

Hobo

[axelt123]

Good havested my third year of growing garlic and half of this crop was from old bulbs from last year.
Had a poor honey harvest the spring tho only 30 jars
axel

[Bladerunner]

What's Scunnered??????

Be lucky (and colloquial)

[Red Doe]

Scunnered is the Scots word for sickened.

[Bladerunner]

Thanks Red.

I learn something new every day.

Be lucky (and curious)