Vegetable Growing 2025

How do you grow them? Our squashes in pots seemed to give up after setting 1 or 2 fruit. huge leaf growth but the baby female flowers were aborting before opening :(

Butternut is the best for pie. my favourite autumn pud

 

@Adam I I'm lucky I had some tree stumps ground out a couple of years and then gathered all the grindings and soil into a heap so could plant the area. Then the following summer I was looking for somewhere to grow squashes and stuck the plants in the heap, watered once and they took off. After that the past couple of years I've used the same heap, planted in June and left them to get on with it, this dry summer I watered them twice. They grow to a length of about 20 ft, the spot is fairly shady and I top the mound up with more shreddings of shrub prunings.

 

I'm not a great fan of pumpkin/squash pie, but soup, roast or in risotto they're excellent.

 

My tromboncinos are in a similar situation. I have a heap where I tip out all the spent compost from pots, and also dump all the leaves I collect in the autumn. Then I stick a bit of garden compost on the top and plant into it. They're allowed to sprawl all down the length of the boundary on that side. It's generally a shady spot but gets good sun from the west late in the day. It's also the dampest part of the garden but I was watering at least once a week through the driest part of the summer.

Made an excellent soup today from half of a huge tromboncino (used the other half in a bake last week), plus all the stuff I had that needed using up - celery, carrots, a potato, lettuce, and a good number of overripe home grown tomatoes. Added a bit of oregano, basil and paprika. Really tasty, and enough for lunches for the next 3 or 4 days.

 

@Adam I I've never tried growing squashes/courgettes in pots. What I have noticed is that squashes do better on the shady damp heap than the sunnier spot in the veg plot in most years.
I think that they like plenty of organic matter to grow in and plenty of water. However they don't appear to make massive root systems.

I've noticed this with courgettes, squashes and relatives like melons and cucumbers they get so many fruit developing and that's it. With cucumbers if you harvest the largest couple when this happens they will start to set more fruit/ resume producing female flowers.
I've always put it down to not enough water, nutrient, etc for the plant to support more, but as I don't want masses of cucumbers I'm happy with one a week.
In my plot I plant out towards the end of May when the soil has warmed up otherwise they stall, feel sorry for themselves and get eaten by slugs.

 

Does my method count as gardening? I stuck a couple of squash plants in an area of the horse field where I had dumped old compost and the horses had pood a bit. Then I left them. I put a fake electric fence around the young plants to stop the horses stepping on them, but they soon meandered outside. I went and harvested a couple of weeks ago, but I've left the plants to rot into the soil. Those were the big blue ones I showed earlier in this thread.

 

Yes it's not that different to what myself and @Ergates did and we all got usable crops so definitely gardening.

 

I stuck a leftover Defender courgette into a rather too small pot this year and it produced very well, in fact there are still two courgettes on it that I shall pick in the next day or two.

 

can l ask for someone for some more advice please..not sure this is the right thread to ask, so forgive me if got it wrong..but does anyone know ,would it be ok to put on shredded wood chips onto to our raised veg beds this autumn/Winter. We bought a garden shredder this Summer as we have loads of rambler roses and a large flowering cherry tree bottom of garden , so im wondering if we could make use of those woodchips it on the veg raised bed?

 

Queensland Blue were picked in case of potential frost. 3.6kg and 3.7kg. largest uchi kuri is 1.3kg

 

wood chips yes, you might find roses and brambles survive that though and reroot

 

I have just picked my final tromboncino for the year; it measured in at 93cm long. The plants are covered in jolly male flowers, but the female ones aren't bothering to open any more and just rot.

Took my first pickings of my late sowing of dwarf yellow beans. I sowed those in July; the blue french beans I sowed at the same time are just starting to flower.

 

Another early frost, courgette and squash got the worst of it. A few tomato leaves lightly frosted and the beans looked untouched

 

We've not had frost yet, but we really need much more rain. I planted out some late lettuce and beetroot plugs yesterday and the soil is merely moist on top but more than 4 inches down it's dry and hard. Today I had to do more watering, on the outdoor tomatoes, the sprouts and Kale. The main job was finally getting all the support wires up for the new Raspberry row. I need to get my maincrop potatoes out but I fear it may be very hard going because the soil is so dry. I know some places have had lots of rain but we've missed most of it.

 

I'd be a bit careful how much you use as it is suggested it robs the soil of nitrogen as it rots down over time.
It's better if you can stack it somewhere and use it after a year imo.
Having said that I do using fresh chippings as a mulch around established trees and shrubs without any noticeable problems.
You might find the thorns survive so watch it when handling, I have shredded lots of pyracantha recently and the thorns are still there.