Vegetable Growing 2024

My figs aren't ready yet and I'm in SW France where it has been hot.

I spent a couple of hours weeding the veg garden yesterday. It hasn't been easy this year. Growth was very slow to start with, cold and wet, then, more recently, heatwaves, up to 39C.

We had 3 lettuces then went to Norfolk to OH's cottage in May for 2 weeks and they bolted. Had several helpings of sugar snap peas. Two helpings of broad beans before we went to Norfolk again mid June. Back late July, broad beans were over and the runner beans had some beans and lots of red flowers. Heatwave and the flowers all fell off.

One huge round courgette and one normal round one. The long ones went bad in a heatwave. More are coming now. The sweet peppers only have one pepper per plant. The red onions and potatoes are rather small, but OK. I don't think CB, the handyman, watered enough but he has less time now that he's found a job he loves in a riding stables.

Tomatoes are doing fine. The brassicas, unlike last year, are doing really well. More curly kale than we can eat and now OH has said he doesn't really like it. Cabbages are good too and so is the chard.

 

Maybe need to think about seep hoses and a timer @Busy-Lizzie, then he can just cit the grass. OH doesn't have a job elsewhere and still skimps on watering so I've given him a schedule and timings. We'll see.

 

Figs now cropping in Carmarthenshire!
They are pretty big

 

Sure there should be an envy button!

 

Yes, but what to do with them? I've made jam before (it's good), made fig newton biscuits (tasty but a lot of work), have frozen some, and just eaten as is. Any other suggestions?

 

There are a lot of recipes out there for baking them with blue cheese or goats cheese. Personally we eat them almost daily with other fruit (really nice with pear and strawberry).

 

Ooo that's a possibility - thank you!

 

I usually give them away.
Put a message on the local Facebook a couple of years ago and lots of people wanted them.

 

How fabulous to have such a grand harvest. To do what you can is also brilliant. Wish we had enough to not just eat on the day but make jam, bottle, wine, freeze. Giving them away is not our problem as we don't have enough to do so. Never though I liked figs until many decades ago we went past a fabulous greengrocers in the south of France. Have you tried a fresh fig? No, I don't like figs...but have you tried a FRESH fig....so I did and wow I liked and still do like figs.

 

This sucker was eating all the vines juice, hopefully itll give a second cuce before autumn

45cm including the little nipple. but quite light

 

@CarolineL are those the Italian figs that you mentioned only they look redder and darker than my brown turkey.

 

Poblano, round courgette and an apple from my earliest tree

 

After a very slow start, my cucumbers are covered in flowers and tiny fruits. This is my first year trying to grow them, and I chose Marketmore.

Courgettes have been poor so far, have had a lot of blossom end rot. The plant that's done best is the spare that was left over after I planted the others out in the raised bed. I couldn't bring myself to chuck it so I pushed it into a pot in which some alliums had just finished flowering. It's now sharing the space with a self-seeded Cosmos but looking really happy and has produced a few decent fruits.

Purple french beans are cropping steadily, I bought a couple of cheap arches from Lidl to grow them over, and I'm having to use one of those long-handled graspers to pick the highest beans.

 

Yes they are - in sun (what little we've had) they get quite purple