Morning Light: The Fetchland Gardening Wire

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Eynsham Red Sep 2022 4:10pm, 4 Sep 2022 8,954 posts	0 Eynsham Red Very sadly it was our last visit to our “allotment”, or the four raised beds that we had in the Red Lion garden in the centre of the village 🙁 We found that although we’re both retired and have plenty of time, having several holidays and trying to find people who would be kind enough to water in our absence was just not compatible. Water was only available from the two water butts that we put in, and on one occasion we had to fill every possible sealable container we had at home to take water down to the plots when the butts had run dry. The raised beds need more water than planting straight in the ground. But it’s been a great experience and we’ve had good harvests of potatoes, carrots, courgettes (but who doesn’t) sweet corn, onions and garlic. The cut flower bed was pretty good too, but suffered when someone fell into it and did a fair bit of damage. More time now to focus on our own small garden at home, with a very good neighbour available who never minds watering whilst we’re away. We’ll be recovering the water butts and have one in our garden and the other one our neighbour will have.
EvilPixie Sep 2022 4:12pm, 4 Sep 2022 35,386 posts	0 EvilPixie Was that just a free standing water butt?
Eynsham Red Sep 2022 4:16pm, 4 Sep 2022 8,955 posts	0 Eynsham Red Was that just a free standing water butt? Yes, we had them connected into the down pipe from a function room. I just need to seal off the outlet when I recover them.
Fragile Do Not Bend Sep 2022 11:12am, 5 Sep 2022 10,133 posts	0 Fragile Do Not Bend Tomatoes are ripening faster than we can eat them! For the first time ever, I have some plants where all the fruit has ripened on the vine before the plants either get blight or start suffering from the cold. I’m letting the side shoots grow now instead of picking them off in the hope that I’ll get a few more fruits before the end of the season. Just about everything else has done miserably due to the lack of rain though. I’ve only just about got enough runner beans for a small portion so far, normally I’d be drowning in them by now.
Garfield Sep 2022 11:34am, 5 Sep 2022 16,852 posts	0 Garfield My neighbour grows tomatoes so well he's always telling me to help myself...which is just as well as I'm very good at killing them when trying to grow them!
Columba Sep 2022 11:26am, 7 Sep 2022 21,921 posts	0 Columba Now that I've found a way of keeping the sparrows from pecking off the buds before they even open, I am getting a little crop of runner beans every few days. And in a different part of the garden, where I grew runner beans last year, two bean plants have recently emerged somehow from under the weed suppressant and chipped bark. One of them even has a flower.
GimmeMedals Sep 2022 7:15am, 8 Sep 2022 23,118 posts	0 GimmeMedals We’ve had a decent crop of tomatoes ripen whilst we were on holiday. There are a few more courgettes and runner beans - both unexpected as I thought they were past that stage and they’ve had no watering for 2 weeks (apart from 2 nights of rain this week)
3M (aka MarkyMarkMark) Sep 2022 7:23am, 8 Sep 2022 19,090 posts	0 3M (aka MarkyMarkMark) Suddenly my garden is getting a very thorough series of waterings. Too much, too late! Still harvesting tomatoes from the greenhouse, there's one last cucumber on the vine, and the courgettes are definitely having a final hurrah flourish! The beetroot has been good. Not sure if I can get a final sowing in or not. I've got a couple of decent pumpkins in the veg bed but my french beans have started to brown now. The raspberries are very enjoyable!
Hanneke Sep 2022 9:34am, 8 Sep 2022 92,648 posts	0 Hanneke I have no success with beans, other than Borlottis. My peas were showing promise in July, until I had to be away for 4 days and the dried up to a crisp. I thought Id leave them and harvest dried peas for winter but some bug has gotten into the peas so I cannot store them. My cucurbits are a nightmare this year. Usually I have great success and lots to store but I have had 1 courgette out of 2 plants, one tromboncino I am leaving in the hope of having one for winter and one kuri. Butternut failed at germination stage, the rest struggled in the draught. I do not water my vegetables! I do have lots of tomatoes and passata in the freezer already AND my broad beans that I cut off above ground but have had no time to pull are producing beans AGAIN! That is a 3rd flush...
Flatlander Sep 2022 11:12am, 8 Sep 2022 2,585 posts	0 Flatlander My runner bean seeds had germinated and grown reasonably well and produced lots of flowers. Then came the drought and despite copious watering very few pods formed. Nevertheless I started picking them. They are supposed to be stringless but they are the stringiest ones I have ever had! All they are good for are to split open the pods and use the beans which I have allowed to form. My sweetcorn has been a disaster . Every single cob's kernels are wizened and dried up, again even though they had been watered well during the drought. I guess that for both crops, it was the persistent very high air temperatures that caused them to fail.