Vegetable Growing 2025

Morning, another hot day here in Suffolk, but rain predicted on and off for the next week. Anyway, I wonder if anyone could advise please? I had a rummage around the bottom of my feeding cupboard and found a 2Ltr squash bottle labelled up as banana tea (undiluted) from 2024, just wondering, apart from the smell possibly (I haven’t opened it) would it be okay to use on my veggies? Courgettes, tomatoes, french and runner beans, chillies? Or should I pour it in the compost bin? TIA.

 

Probably okay to use but ,play safe, dilute considerably and moisten compost heap.,I think.

 

Thanks @infradig, job for tomorrow, maybe with a clothes peg on my nose hahahaha

 

I got the rest of the Charlotte potatoes out today at the plots . Typical me, meant to go early but got sidetracked so I ended up doing it in the hottest part of the day. Anyway, got a full sack out of a 30ft row. Quite good size and nice and clean.


Also picked lots of broccoli, French beans courgettes and of course more Plums.

 

Outside Tom's are producing now, this is merrygold, as are courguettes. Two sisters, corn and winter squash worked really well last year despite the appalling summer. Onions getting bigger. Brassicas, kalletes and Brussels, under netting forever. Garlic is curing. Last of February sown lettuce still producing, next to February and April sown leeks. I'm hoping the older leeks will bulk up so I can eat them in august and September and don't bolt.

 

More harvest today same as Friday, except potatoes which I can just take from the sacks as needed. The addition, though, is blackberries, I've already said on another thread, they are now coming fully 6 weeks before they used to. Not ideal as we still have loads of Plums, and it means they will be finished just at the time you would expect to be getting them. It's hard enough getting continuity as it is, without stuff coming out of season. Sowed more Raddish and Rocket, in some of the space made by digging the spuds. The last two lots just bolted in the heat.

 

Picked 3 large figs today! Last year was a disaster so hope this one will be better.

 

I used to pick wild blackberries and they were wild ones, pretty small and always around late august and into september.
Usually growing on very thin dry soils.
To my memory cultivated varieties have always come a fair bit earlier than the wild ones.

The ones I see when I'm out walking these days rarely look like the old wild ones I remember, they are bigger and more like the cultivated varieties of some years ago.

I had a patch of so called wild ones on the allotment and they always ripened in late July, mostly finished by mid August.

 

I’ve been picking hedgerow blackberries since 8th July, way earlier than normal, but today when bagging them for the freezer I saw some of the dreaded ‘worm’ in the bags!! A farmer once told me not to pick in September because of ‘the worm’, white maggots they look like. So I’ve washed this lot and have taken out all the bags I’ve picked this month to give a thorough wash before refreezing. I guess as the heatwave brought the berries on early, ‘the worm’ has come early too!

 

Well here they are now, late sown broad beans. Nice to see the spotted flowers, but a long way off getting any edible beans. Was worth a try, I’ll leave them to get on with it and see whether a second sowing works. It was a rookie error but might turn out to be the way forward

 

But dont you find that mostly they are bigger than they were 40 yrs ago, its like they have crossed with cultivated varieties.
Yes they always have maggots in them, sometimes just leaving them in water, submerged, for a while brings them out, but mostly they are not visible once cooked or whatever you do with them, added protein.

 

yes the ones today were very big, I assumed all the rain had swollen them but you are right, they used to be much smaller and tastier too. Hmmm well we eat them raw on top of our porridge, don’t fancy watching a worm wiggle across the top of the porridge first thing in the morning (or any time of the day!!). Do you wash them just in cold water or add something like bicarbonate of soda to get the worms to show themselves and kill them off?

 

I think they will come out if you immerse them in cold water for a while, but not sure you will get them all that way.

 

Blackberries are extremely diverse, there are ones ripe even in june but those are rarer. Many different forms in how they grow, the size, flavour of fruit, the leaf shape, spineyness, etc.
The more low ground bushy ones here are aleady, too squishy to pick even! deliciously sweet.
Most of the ones we pick are in september just because the bushes I know make pickable firm berries rather than squishy ones. Most commercial breeding has been for this firmness as squishy berries are totally unsellable.

The worm comes when the berry is already very ripe ive found, the cultivated ones stay on the fruit firm longer so may have more wormies than the wild ones? not sure.
If when you are picking them you look at the core, if its white its fine, if its gone squishy or is off colour its rotting because something is eating it.

 

Ahh thanks for the info @Adam I , I will pick more slowly and check the core on my picking dog walk today