Gardening, Part 2

My lettuce is having the same problem.

10 Likes

I can’t even get cucumbers to start because critters are eating the seedlings pretty much the second they germinate. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

(Which reminds me that I need to sprinkle more “critter ridder” right now!)

9 Likes

That’s disappointing. We switched to cherry tomatoes because the birds here nibbled a single bite of every larger tomato. With the cherry ones, the loss is manageable. Plus it’s fun to watch the silly mocking bird chase one across the yard trying to fit the entire tomato in their beak

8 Likes

Raspberry time!

8 Likes

A few of my own





13 Likes

NiceFineGrayling-max-1mb

5 Likes

Got my first one today! Two more in the next day or so.

7 Likes

The Swiss chard, zucchini, white onions, radishes, mixed salad greens, and all the herbs are still doing great, but now we’re starting to see…

Peapods:

Raspberries:

And eggplants too:

12 Likes

Morning pickings.

Spring onions, kohlrabi, zucchini, poblano peppers, sweet banana peppers (just look at it).

Also, an interesting birds-nest fungus in the garden. Cups are about 4mm wide.

11 Likes

Hungry Yum Yum GIF by corgiyolk

6 Likes

Moar raspberries!

Just over 4.5lb (2.0kg) here!

6 Likes

Thanks for the reminder!

Unfortunately, the local groundhog seems to like my salad mix and the raspberries over everything else. Wish me luck!

10 Likes

My neighbor stopped by while I was picking and said he wished he had a raspberry patch. I told him that if he stopped chopping down all the shoots my plants send out he could have had a raspberry patch for years!

8 Likes

Garlic harvesting today.

I wanted to let them grow another week but we had high winds a few weeks ago that knocked over all the soft-neck varieties and the leaves started to mold. The look pretty good though!

9 Likes

Sorry for not having been back here for so long, but I wanted to (smugly) share some pics of what is turning out to be a great soft fruit year.
So far…

  • 2kg blackcurrants (about half frozen today - still deciding what to do with the rest, tomorrow)
  • probably 3kg+ of reducurrants (some of which were on a whitecurrant bush which is now - producing half red/half whitecurrants) - maybe 1kg frozen and the rest turned into juice
  • probably 2kg whitecurrants (became juice)
  • half a punnet of red gooseberries today - first pick, still twice as many ripening on the bush
  • about 2kg of green gooseberries so far - more to come
  • I must have frozen about half a dozen or more bags of loganberries, maybe 500-600g per bag
  • strawberries are over (but it’s a variety that produces a second, smaller crop in August) but 30 new plants put in the ground in March kept us in strawberries and cream for a couple of weeks and a couple of bags went in the freezer.

A few pics of some recent days’ pickings…



On the other hand, aubergine plants are dying in the greenhouse and I’ve no idea why. I’ve planted too many courgettes and am giving them away - where I usually plant one each of maybe 5 varieties, this year I ended up with three Nice de Rond (which produce very large fruits) as well as 4-5 other courgette plants. Failed to sow enough peas (and slugs ate half of them) and 2/3 of my carrot seedlings went to slugs too. Onions were not good - I almost think I shouldn’t have bothered

It’s all one big ongoing experiment. But there’s plenty to eat! :wink:

11 Likes

What do you do to prepare your soft fruits for freezing?

Also, anyone know why a new entry into the garden this year — pear-shaped grape tomatoes, both yellow and red — are all ripening with at least one tear straight down their sides? None of the round grape tomatoes, plum tomatoes, or regular sized round tomatoes are having this issue, and they’re all next to each other.

7 Likes

At least for me tearing is from sudden overwatering like when you have a heavy downpour.

9 Likes

Oh, yes, definitely!

Thanks!!

7 Likes

Same for us. Tears are from too little water followed by too much. This variety may be more sensitive to lack of water, uptake more water than the others, or water from rain pools in that specific area.

8 Likes

Top and tail gooseberries, ensure no stalks in currants, and bung in a bag. Massage the bag after 24 hours to make sure they are not a single frozen mass.
Loganberries get laid on a tray and frozen and then bagged, otherwise they do become a solid frozen mass. If I put more than two layers in a punnet when picking, the weight of those above does risk squashing those below. When very ripe it is like picking a bag of juice. Quite often what ends up between my fingers is just an oozing, squashed berry so those get eaten while picking. I try not to let them get that ripe and they are ok picked slightly under-ripe, but not as sweet perhaps.

Re toms, usually it is too much water - the fruit expands faster than the skin can grow - perhaps the variety you describe is more susceptible to this? (ETA … as others have said.)

10 Likes