Vegetable Growing 2024

@infradig. Don't know the pH of our soil now but no we don't add lime. Maybe we should but over the years we have just been content with adding our own compost to the veg areas. Other veg we do very well and the harvests are enough during the season and then we always have plenty to freeze for later in the year. The brassicas will have to be on the back burner again.

 

@On the Levels Brassicas are a good source of calcium in our diet but, to provide it and be healthy, they need it in the soil they're grown in so, if you do try again, make sure you add some lime to the soil.

 

Do you sucessfully grow kales ; such as Red Ursa, Calvero, or Tree cabbage ?

 

@Jenny_Aster Charles Dowding grows multi sown leeks. I am giving it a go myself this year and he recommended as many as 5 planted together, with 3-4 being the ideal number. It didn't seem to reduce the size much and he mentioned they seem to like growing together. The only difference is that they aren't planted as deep so you don't get as big a white stem.

 

@infradig No to all. We are very successful with chard, spinach and all the beans. The last time we managed purple sprouting, it took 18 months before we got any, and it was not a lot, sprouts. Took a lot of space for little return. That is why we stay with the crops that do well for us.

 

Thanks, that's interesting. Not as big, but you'll (probably) end up with 2 or 3 smaller ones which pound for pound could be more. I must find out more about Charles Dowding, he seems an 'out of the box' type. I like to question garden practices that's always been the norm.

 

I do that too. I have a tray of 60 modules of leeks waiting to germinate, I should get at least 120 leeks from it, more likely 180. It's important to make sure you aren't growing too many in the same spot, I've done that before when I didn't thin and you just end up with little ones.

Multi sowing is good for yield if you like medium sized leeks. If you want really large ones I would go with individual spacing and also they tend to curve a little bit away from each other, so if you want show leeks and/or particularly straight ones then also go with the traditional way.

 

I planted another 2 bags of Potatoes, I wanted to do more but my Back is hurting quite badly now.........Still there's another day

 

That's my salads in now under fleece. About 50 lettuce, 20 spinach, parsley, dill, coriander. Beds are now full apart from the two I am going to grow climbing beans, corn and winter squash. Will need to find some space for courgettes and cucumber/gherkins somewhere but I won't be sowing them for ages yet.

Victoria plum has just started to blossom. I didn't get a single plum from it last year, the year before that I got loads

 

Sowed some pea beans in pots indoors. Harvested the last crop of carrots from the polytunnel. Not huge but still good enough for many meals for 2.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW6Tks8RKws

 

@On the Levels I'll be using the last of last year's broad beans in a vegetable stew with cheesey dumplings this evening. Haven't sown any this year because in December we were drowning in rain and I only had enough time to plant the garlic.

It's been so dark and grey here I only started sowing seeds 10 days ago in modular trays in the polytunnel. So far, rhubarb chard, choggia beets, Little Gem lettuces, cavolo nero, garlic kale, PSB and Grrek basil have sprouted and I'm felling chuffed.

4 days ago I sowed tomatoes, chillies and curcubits with bottom heat and watered with an experimental solution of aloe vera and bicarb. Today 5 of the 11 tomato varieties have popped plus the cucumbers, courgettes and crown prince. I'm impressed.

 

@Obelix-Vendée
Have you tried growing peabeans? They are very versatile as you can eat the pods like mangetout and also when the seeds inside are young and when the seeds are a lot older you can dry them, blanch them and pickle/freeze them.

Pea Beans - Slightly Self-Sufficient

 

Not here @On the Levels . I did fine with peas and mangetouts in our Belgian garden.

I sowed beans and peas our first spring here - 2017 - but it was a drought year so nothing came of them. Tried again the next year with no success and haven't bothered since tho I do love a good mangetout.

 

Is your winter climate likely to allow peas to be sown in the autumn, to come into production in April/May ? I know of sugar peas overwintered in a polytunnel which have already produced a picking this year.