Vegetable Growing 2019

So, a little earlier than I'd hoped, I'm officially considering myself a vegetable grower. (Decided that last year doesn't count as someone gave us those tomato plants out of the blue)

After watching a few hours worth of YouTube videos and consulting website after website and book after book at the library, I decided whatever was covering my Jazzys looked too much like early blight to take a chance and potentially lose my favourite spuds. So, I cut all the foliage to the ground, making sure to get every last piece off the soil surface and decided to tip out the 3 much smaller, reused plant pots.



Considering I'm a good 2 weeks earlier than I'd planned on and the size of the pots they were planted in, I'm pretty happy with just over 2lbs.



I'll keep the two 30 litre pots until we've put away this batch and keep my fingers crossed for more of the same.

 

The runner beans are doing their twirling thang!



Although you can eat the leaves, flowers and seeds of the nasturtiums, I will be using them as a sacrificial crop in the hope of drawing blackflies away from the beans.

 

It's slow going for the cucumbers this year.



At this time last year, flowers and mini fruit were already on the plants.

Incidentally, the greenery under the mesh is coriander. I will be harvesting it over the next two to three weeks.

 

Spring onions and beetroot.



The variety of beetroot is Detroit. A member gave me the seeds so I thought I'd give them a try.

 

Hi Mister Q. From the photos, you certainly appear to be doing well, keep up the good work. I notice that your garden is a communial one in Stamford Hill. May I ask. Do you get much stealing/vandalism.

 

Tried Jazzy for the first time this year and have just harvested mine. I read somewhere about getting lots of small potatoes from them, and that's what's happened to me, 7.7Kg of small potatoes

 

With not having much space outside left ive only managed small quantities of greens,apart from the cauliflowers all seems to of grown ok but im that popular with white cabbage butterfly i suppose i will be sharing most of it

Ive eaten my Rocket & Charlotte Potatoes already and made a start on the cucumber harvest today,i think i prefer Femspot to Marketmore ..

 

Wowzers.

What were already my favourite spud from the supermarket are even better home grown. Will look at doubling the amount we grow next year.

 

There is a small amount of pilfering with the accompanying damage but no vandalism.

Even the pilfering is not to the degree to what you might expect for such an easily accessible, unsecured location.

I make it a point of offering a little something from the garden to visitors so there is no real need to steal. The communal herb plot, with rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, lemon balm, chives and mints is always available to anybody who wants some, just ask.

When my spare plants and crops are ready, I give at least half of them away. But, most of the time, I insist that they must get their hands dirty before they can take anything away.

It is always a delight to see children and adults alike potting up young transplants; hunting for strawberries; pulling radishes, carrots and spring onions; picking tomatoes, cherries and leaf veg; sniffing the herbs after harvesting them. Then, washing them with the hose afterwards. For a small moment they discover or re-discover the connection between the soil, the plants and themselves.

The Stamford Hill Estate Community Garden has community in the name and we haven't forgotten it.

The vast majority of locals are very respectful and have nothing but goodwill towards a tended eden in an otherwise grey urban jungle, so we definitely don't yet need to hire the services of the seven samurai.

 

Harvested yesterday, the first courgette of the season (hurrah, let the glut begin!).


A few moments before.

 

The yellow ones (Atena Polka F1) are slower but they're coming along nicely too.

 

The first handful of French beans.


Dwarf French beans, that is. The seed packet did not lie!


Suffering from leaf miner damage but the Swiss chard and beetroot are also doing fine.

 

I bought a 2Kg net of reduced to clear Sarpo Mira and after planting 3 rows in open ground at my plot, planted the remainder in 13L pots in my back garden.

The ones in pots are now 3 feet high, but those planted a week earlier in open ground are less than half that. Both received the same amount of fertilizer and have been kept watered.

Have yet to have a furtle and check which has the best crop down below (pot grown ones might be 'all top'), but the youtube videos I've watched showing big harvests of Sarpo Mira have all been plot grown plants.

Anybody else compared the 2 methods using Sarpo Mira?

 

The courgettes are starting to glut - so watch out folks. If you stop to talk to me, check your pockets as you walk away, I may have hidden a courgette in them!!

Does anyone else have these strange bi-coloured yellow courgettes? Polka, I think, and from a previous year’s packet, so they came true before...

I’ve picked all the red chillies, to try to minimise the stress on the plants in this heat.