Be Excellent To Each Other

Oh, thank you! Some of them are a bit small, but they certainly scrubbed up well. I was worried they’d be a bit grotty before I cleaned them up, but once the outer layer is off for the outer layers to dry and cure they start looking a lot prettier.

Just a quick update. Everything is growing as hoped, I guess, apart from the brassicas which got nommed.

Potatoes we’ve harvested two of our six summer potato plantings, and I’ve sown three winter potato plantings too.



Carrots are brilliant again this year. I think Bean has magic carrot growing skills.



We have had amazing peas. They cropped heavily forested six weeks straight then died off, but then put out a load of new green growth and are cropping again.

We’ve had beetroot and onions and garlic.

I’m keeping an eye on the sweetcorn. I don’t know if o have a timing issue with the variety I have (Swift) with the males appearing so long before the females, so I’ll have to check the cob formation in a fortnight.

Tomatoes have been brilliant. I’ve got a few definite favourites to grow again next year, and I’m going to try and cross pollinate a tomato next year.



The pumpkins are growing well, too. The one at the front measured over a metre in circumference today



There’s other stuff, but it’s fun, and quite comforting at the current time.

Lovely Mimi

Really envious of your potatoes and tomatoes, and those carrots look like something you would see in an advert or cookery show or something.

Amazing!

That all looks awesome mimi! I'm so jealous!

I just want the t-shirt

Excellent harvest Mimi!

Solid.

Lovely colourful photos too.

How long would you say you have spent, and continue to spend on the garden?

Part of what's holding me back from trying is a feeling I've already a bit overcommitted, a realisation I already have a a lot of other tings to be responsible for... plus I think a little bit of inherent laziness

Hmmm, difficult question. As all of my tomatoes are in pots during the heatwave I’ve had to water them every day, but usually I’d water them every third day. The stuff in the beds rarely needs watering, even during the heatwave I’ve only watered most of it once a week.

On top of that I usually do a little thing at lunchtime. That might be pruning the tomatoes, or just tidying something up. Usually I just wander around and look at stuff.

The busiest time is definitely March, because that is seed sowing time, and looking after baby plants.

You could just get a couple of buckets (97p in B&Q) and buy a couple of tomato plants next year (also B&Q) and with a couple of sticks see how you go. I don’t beat myself about things if I let them die. I had a bit of a MH blip earlier in the year and just didn’t want to look after some flower plants I’d grown from seed, and they died, and so I chucked them away and concentrated on what I was enjoying (which at that time was cleaning plant pots and tools).

I have a few more pictures.

Some potatoes. These are Jazzy potatoes (I bought them solely because they made me think of @goddess Jasmine and I’m so glad I did because they are stellar and I’ll definitely grow them again).



The Heinz tomatoes are just excellent, too


And the pumpkins are all starting to ripen.

We decided to harvest the pumpkins today as they seem nicely cured and the skins have hardened, so they’ll store for 3 - 6 months +. These were grown as an afterthought really, just as I saw the seeds in Morrisons garden centre bit, but Darwin is so proud of them. They’re great fun.

They look awesome. Are they eaters or carvers?

We have what appear to be pumpkins growing in our new veg beds. No idea exactly, and where they've come from is a mystery! The beds are filled with home-made compost and we don't eat pumpkins...

These are a carving variety because I’m super allergic to pumpkins/squash. If I touch the flesh all of the skin that it’s touches starts to peel off. It’s gross. Actually, I touched just the outside of the pumpkins last week and all my skin started peeling, so it must be the outside to some degree as well, but I’ve been wearing gloves today and all is fine. We have them in the house at Halloween and it’s no worry, but I wouldn’t risk trying to eat them. Oddly, I was talking to a friend about the pumpkin allergy and she has the same so maybe it’s a common allergy.

I’ve just bought 100 saffron crocus bulbs, which should yield me just under one whole gram of saffron. I’ll be rich beyond my wildest dreams in no time!

I thought it’d be a nice little thing to be able to say I grew, though, and will come back each year of course.

https://www.farmergracy.co.uk/products/ ... s-bulbs-uk

Couldn’t afford the £770 for the 10,000 bulbs, sadly, so 100 will have to do. There’s free shipping on for the next couple of days at Farmer Gracy, BTW (code FRSH) in case anyone else wants some saffron crocuses or whatever else.

The first of my saffron crocuses have popped up. I should get about three strands from each bulb that blooms. It said that there likely wouldn’t be a huge yield in the first year, but they’re looking like most of them are going to bloom, and they naturalise really easily, apparently, so I should get more and more each year.

Look: actual saffron strands!

I’m not sure if this is of interest to anyone but me, but my little saffron growing idea is really stepping up a gear now. Today was the biggest single day harvest so far. I was told not to expect much by way of a harvest this first year, but the saffron flowers are doing so well. I’m drying them in little piles so that I can put them in little jars when they get to the right stage. I might even have enough to give a little jar to Ma at Christmas.

Cor! Just caught up with this thread, amazing work, Mimi!

With your clearly magical spot you could become the UK baroness of the stuff.

Hehe, thanks both! It’s a happy little thing going on in the garden now that many crops have come to an end. I’m going to get a herb bed put out in spring as I bought one of these and thought I could sow a different herb in each of the sections: 12-Section Covered Potager Growhouse https://amzn.eu/cs0Fc31 It seemed like an amazing price.

The saffron crocuses are in large patio containers, Bik. We have a very heavy clay here, so I’m amending the soil as we work the garden, but that will be an ongoing project over many years.

The actual saffron crocuses smell stunning.

That saffron looks great! You should make lussebullar! https://www.scandikitchen.co.uk/recipe- ... ucia-buns/

I’ve read about these buns! (One of my Christmas hobbies is reading books on various holiday traditions). I’ll give them a go.

Our Japanese quince sure can quince. Probably 10kg.

Some of these things are as big as apples!

Wow that's loads. Will you be able to make all those into something?

Last year Helen stewed them down and made ice cubes for adding to... Er, I forget what she said. They're all still in the freezer because they get forgotten about. Quite lucky I haven't fed them to the dog really. Or maybe I have and that's why she wasn't keen at first.

With this many we may be on for a few jars of quince jelly though.

That’s an incredible number. Are those all from one tree?