Grow Your Own

Well slow cold start this year- was out in the garden earlier and it felt as cold as March with a very cold ground temperature as well.

That said, I've got seeds propogating - and I'm hopefully that this rubbish, cold, wet, miserable weather will melt away to a glorious summer.  Well at least one that's above 12 degrees and not raining all day everyday.   

Anyways, we've got a ginormous communal polytunnel on the allotment and I'm really looking forward to trying to get some stuff like tamatillos, chillis, and sweetcorn to try and grow.  The sweetcorn will need wind to help pollinate, but I suspect the doors will be open enough that I'll be OK. 

Yeah for polytunnels.  I want to learn what to do with them one day.  There is a guy near campus that has an amazing garden on the side of his house.  I should take a pic so you can see.... I need more sun around my yard.

Maybe someone has already mentioned it, but what are courgettes???  Never heard of them.   

Maybe someone has already mentioned it, but what are courgettes???  Never heard of them.   

Zuchinni

Maybe someone has already mentioned it, but what are courgettes???  Never heard of them.  

Courgettes are zucchini.

Courgette comes from French and zucchini comes from Italian.


x-posted with PhatBeetle

Thank you for clarifying that for me! 

What you have got in gardeners?

I've got several types carrots, several types of radishes, several types of beets, several types of turnips and swedes, potatoes (first early, second earlies, main crop), peas, yellow mangetout, drawf french beans, barloti beans, runner beans, blue kohl rabi, giant kohlrabi, red celery, white celery, artichokes, pumpkins and butternut squash (under cover), green courgettes, summers squash, boston squash, patty pan squash, sweet potato squash, leeks, celeraic, parsnips, cauliflower (regular and romenseco), green and black kale, savoy cabbage, red cabbage, mustard greens, rocket, lettuce, several different types of chard, spinach, white sprouting and purple sprouting broccoli, calebrese broccoli, oca, yacon, strawberries, quiona, green and purple brussels sprouts, plus for the polytunnel - sweetcorn, several types of tomatoes, chillies, peppers, and cucumbers...  plus herbs on the window sill in my house...  I have been super busy!!  

 

WOW!

WOW!

Thanks. Hopefully they all grow up to be nice healthy fruit and veg! 

Hubs planted runner beans & we're trying to get some carrots going - but the slugs ate all the tops/foliage off the first ones we planted out.

We planted some chili seeds this weekend in our utility porch - sort of a little greenhouse space.

And we have an ongoing kitchen herb garden - thyme, oregano, rosemary, mint, etc. 

Hubs planted runner beans & we're trying to get some carrots going - but the slugs ate all the tops/foliage off the first ones we planted out.

We planted some chili seeds this weekend in our utility porch - sort of a little greenhouse space.

And we have an ongoing kitchen herb garden - thyme, oregano, rosemary, mint, etc. 

Nice!! It's so rewarding when you can eat something you grew,  isn't it? 

Nice!! It's so rewarding when you can eat something you grew,  isn't it? 

Definitely! We'll never be up to your gardening calibre though, lol! Our garden is tiny & I think we'd wait about 10 years to get one of the allotments near us - plus we are lazy with a capital L so years ago - when we could have probably got an allotment, we didn't - we just didn't think we would commit the time & effort towards it that it would need. 

Here's a link to a fab idea for preserving herbs from your garden: http://www.thekitchn.com/freeze-herbs-in-olive-oil-173648

I love this idea and wish I had come across it years ago! 

Lettuces, spinach, rocket, mustard, chard, radishes, strawberries, kohlrabi.... all ready, all yummy!

The heat has been doing wonders for my garden! Tomatoes, sweet corn, peppers, cucumbers, aubergine, tamatillos, and chillies are in the polytunnel and growing like mad!  Not to mention all the other stuff as taken off outside!! Whee!!

How are your gardens growing UKYers?

We've got:

Two types of cherry tomatoes
Two types of peas (we've already chosen one to grow next year... the other's not so nice )
Alpine strawberries
Orange peppers (taking for-ev-er)
Pointy red peppers (sooooooo slow!)
Butternut squash (MASSIVE LEAVES!  Holy Moly!)
Basil
Parsley
Radishes (just a bunch of leaves this year.... no actual radishes..... not sure what's going on down there....)
Avocado trees (we've got 4 going now)
Breadseed Poppies
Sunflowers
Salad leaves mix
Several types of sweet peas
A few snapdragons collected from random volunteer plants on our road
Various wildflowers
Wild pansies
Marigolds
Lavender (I LOOOOOVE sticking my nose in it!  Even the leaves smell like lavender!)
Passion Fruit (one in soil from last year plus about 20 cuttings from a bush overhanging the pavement that was getting trimmed down the road!)
Fuschia (cutting taken from a plant DH rescued)
Kalanchoe (original store-bought.... not a cutting.... the only 'original' plant that we didn't grow from seed, take a cutting of or rescue from the pavement!)
British begonia (started from several cuttings)
Various trees- horse chestnuts being the most recent addition 

We've been saving seeds from store-bought fruit and veg to see if they're viable.    So far, we've got lemon, clementine, passion fruit, cantaloupe, pineapple and pomegranates to come up.    Yeah for free (well, almost free) seeds!