2016 Growing Thread

Good show there @Sian in Belgium

Dug the garlic yesterday before it disappeared altogether. Ate the last of my international kidneys and sowed peas and PSB

Watercress is starting to get away

 

Took cuttings from the Manx Marvel Toms to fill a few empty spaces on the plot.

Sowed Siberian Kale, more Lolo Rosso and Rocket, and Touchon Carrots

 

Touchon Carrots eh? They'm sounding posh like

 

Just harvested 4 different coloured baby beets, purple carrots and some young parsnips, when it stops raining I'll go back for some more orange carrots and some peas.

 

They be thait posh that they didn't come up

 

My carrots were good that germinated, but germination was erratic and that was from different suppliers seeds of different varieties, they were grown under plastic so that might have helped.

 

Picked the first sweet corn today. Nice fat cobs with plenty of corn on them and very tasty too, looks like it's going to be a good year for them.

 

How do you know when they are ready? The hairy tassels have gone dark, but I pulled back the leaves on one cob and it is still white.

Rusty

 

If the tassels have gone dark, they should be nearly ready, give it another couple of days or so.

You can usually pick them once the kernels have turned a pale yellow colour, as the colour often changes to a deeper yellow when you cook them. Also, when you pull back the leaves, have a look further down the cob. The kernels at the tip are often smaller and less ripe than those further down.

If you're still not sure, just pick one and try it.

 

The books tell you to press your finger/thumb nail into a grain of the sweetcorn and are ready if a "milky" fluid comes out. I've tried this and have never yet seen this fluid come out and ate the cob raw and it was definitely ready.

 

I expect most of us know this already, but have the water on the boil before picking the sweetcorn and lob it in as quick as possible

 

Pulled all the blighted tomatoes and cut the tops off all but one blighted potatoes

Only thing doing really well is Mariglods

 

Zigs, may we please have a pic of the Mariglods please?

 

First Marrow has finally got over 3 foot long, and another should join it tomorrow, despite them getting off to a very slow start as my plot was waterlogged until late June (that's my size 10 boots in the foreground).

I leave a tape wrapped around where I estimate the average girth to be and use it to check if it's still increasing in size (plus estimate it's weight) so I can focus my attention on the most promising one for the village show.

Apart from when being measured, they have thick, light coloured fabric covering them to delay ripening and keep their skins supple, so despite being around 50lbs it'll be almost as tender as a Courgette.

 

Another one's over 3 feet long and is putting on 3lbs+ per day