Grow Your Own

Ya know PB I want to see a pic of this lovely allotment you scored - it seems you have TONS!
I have been purposely walking to allotments and doing a tour and I am AMAZED how awesome some are!

Sure, I'll take some this weekend 

Our carrots are sprouting, our carrots are sprouting!! 

We planted leeks, broccoli, and rhubarb from small ready plants from the nursery up the road since it was so late in the season, but the carrots we've done from seed and they're starting to show.  So excited!

Not that I really have anything to do with it, but our pear and apple trees are plugging along as well.  Looking forward to having those when the time comes.  I think I may need to learn how to preserve!

How is everyone else coming along?

My peas are looking great!  I got these Champion of England peas from this amazing website (http://www.realseeds.co.uk/peas.html), and I am very close to my first harvest.  The peas grow to be about 10 feet tall!  They are lovely and are a very rare breed that has been saved from extinction.  I mostly just love the awe-struck looks my OAP neighbours who live in their gardens (and put me to shame) are giving my peas.  Here's the info from the site about how they were saved.  I find it interesting.

"Champion of England " Tall Pea: NEW! - VERY RARE
Our new pea in 2010. The conclusion of a 4-year rescue project, here is your chance to grow a traditional UK variety that has been commercially extinct for years.

Champion of England is a really good, traditional tall pea to 8 - 10 ft, dating from the 1840's. But it's been unavailable , other than seedbanks, for a long time now. A few people sent us small samples of seed from time to time, but we couldn't get them to grow. All that changed in 2007 though, when Robert Woodbridge got in touch with a new strain of family-saved seed from Lincolnshire in the 1940's.

It grew really well, and more importantly, was true to the old descriptions. It was fantastic - the only reason tall peas have been abandoned commercially is that you can't harvest them with machines. But for home gardeners, they give a great return for a small space.

So, after a few seasons, we have bulked it up from his original handful, and have a very precious few sacks of seed now that you can try.

We'll let him give the history in his own words:

"I am going to send you some seeds of a Pea called Champion of England, my grandmother grew it in her very large garden in the village of Pickworth Lincs, I promised that I would always grow it and keep it going.

She got the seed from the head gardener at a big country house during the war where my grandfather worked as a carpenter repairing wooden greenhouses and cold frames.

As to the pea it grows to ten foot high and the peas are 8 to 10 per pod and you start picking from the bottom and work your way up, it prefers to be sown at the end of April to avoid the pea moth maggot and takes about 100 days to reach 10 ft."

For us this was an amazing find. It's the genuine tall strain, well maintained over the years, and we even know the location it came from. We think Robert's grandmother would have been pleased to know her seeds have saved this variety for gardeners everywhere.

and here's our first pods

That's really cool, Cadenza! Unfortunately our boat is too windy for anything to grow taller than a few feet high - they grow outwards instead.

Right now I'm eating tons of peas (straight from the pod, they're so sweet!) and a bunch of blueberries from the two bushes I got for my birthday. We've already eaten through our strawberry crop and two croppings of radishes. The tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, and squashes are still yet to come. And I have no idea if the aubergines will do anything other than flower!

If anyone in central London wants a tomatillo seedling, I'm overloaded! Come and get 'em. I'd heard rumours they grow like weeds, but I had no idea that seeds from last year's fallen fruit would survive the winter, let alone spontaneously spring from every inch of soil this year! Tasty little weeds, though..

We've had our first cukes from the garden and it's amazing how much better they taste! Lots of flowers on our tomatoes, eggplant, and pattypan squash, too!

Turnips, kohlrabi! Everything is growing great!!!  

Today I harvested my first two zucchini and 3 tomatoes. I pulled a couple carrots but they were still pretty young, and I'll let the rest of the batch have another 2 weeks. I need to get on the case of sowing for fall crops too.

I love that Real Seeds site http://www.realseeds.co.uk/.  It's a group here in Wales that is committed to distributing seeds that real growers like smallholders, allotments, and family veg plots can grow rather than just the industrialized strains you get from big shops.  They are from here, so they know the climate and what works and doesn't.  They also grow them for some time before they sell the seeds to make sure they are good and so they can properly describe what flavour/colour you will get.  It's so much more fun browsing their site than just going to a centre where I know I'm getting tomatoes, but don't have a clue if they're good for outdoors, what kind of flavour, what kind of yield, etc.

I also like that they refuse to sell hybrids that have been bred to not produce proper seeds like most commercial ones do (so you have to keep going back to spend more money).  In fact, they give you instructions with each pack of seeds to help you collect your own seeds so that you can propagate the rare breeds yourself.  That's just cool!

Excellent site, Cadenza! Thanks.

I'm not at all bothered by hybrids as some of them are bred for things like short season and lower temps that mean they grow well here, but I do think stable varieties with these qualities are much more helpful to the home gardener in the long run.

I'm going to overwinter some pepper plants this year and see if I can get them to start producing earlier for next year. Has anyone here done that with success?

Excellent site, Cadenza! Thanks.

I'm not at all bothered by hybrids as some of them are bred for things like short season and lower temps that mean they grow well here, but I do think stable varieties with these qualities are much more helpful to the home gardener in the long run.

I'm going to overwinter some pepper plants this year and see if I can get them to start producing earlier for next year. Has anyone here done that with success?

I'm not bothered by hybrids in and of themselves as some might be, but I am bothered when they purposely breed out the ability to reproduce the plants so that you are forced to return to them for other seeds.

If anyone in central London wants a tomatillo seedling, I'm overloaded! Come and get 'em. I'd heard rumours they grow like weeds, but I had no idea that seeds from last year's fallen fruit would survive the winter, let alone spontaneously spring from every inch of soil this year! Tasty little weeds, though..

ohh we may be down in October and totally take you up on that! I want tomatillos!

ohh we may be down in October and totally take you up on that! I want tomatillos!

Sure! I doubt the plants will be in a happy state by then, but it looks like even the stunted, half rotted old tomatillos that fell off the plants last year turned into viable plants this year, so you're welcome to come and get whatever's left! The good ones go in my belly and freezer, though.

Aphids. 

Its far too cold up here to grow tomatoes and peppers outside, so I have them in pots all along my windowsills. That works well, as I get a lot of light into my flat.  But the aphids are driving me mad.  I must be missing the eggs or something ,I will spray a soap/oil spray on them and they all die off and then a few weeks later, they're back.   

On the plus side, the tomatoes make my living room smell gorgeous!!

Started picking runner beans, few carrots and tomatoes. tomatillos plants are massive with loads of flowers so hoping for another good crop this year.

I hear ya on the aphids. I've actually got a pretty solid lady beetle population, but they can't even make a dent in them. So frustrating.

Looks like Powdery Mildew will be claiming its first victim of the season this week too. Got a zucchini plant that looks very angry.