Growing your own - is it worth it?

[gradus]

Its been a good year for outdoor toms with exceptionally low blight levels here in S. Suffolk. Just my luck to have planted few outdoors this year having regularly lost them to blight previously.
I've found the evidence of attacks such as you describe but never seen anything actually 'in flagrante'. Because our allotments feed most of Suffolk's wildlife it could have been almost anything up to and including deer which incidentally have grazed some of our sweetcorn. The other possibility is disease eg blossom end rot can produce effects like you describe. If it is animals, some sort of barrier next year is the answer. For blossom end rot it's often irregular watering that's the problem.

[doversoul1]

Its been a good year for outdoor toms with exceptionally low blight levels here in S. Suffolk. Just my luck to have planted few outdoors this year having regularly lost them to blight previously.
I've found the evidence of attacks such as you describe but never seen anything actually 'in flagrante'. Because our allotments feed most of Suffolk's wildlife it could have been almost anything up to and including deer which incidentally have grazed some of our sweetcorn. The other possibility is disease eg blossom end rot can produce effects like you describe. If it is animals, some sort of barrier next year is the answer. For blossom end rot it's often irregular watering that's the problem.

It’s definitely a damage rather than a disease. I have managed to stop the rabbits getting in but the squirrels have learned to climb over the wire fence. We never win. I don’t know why ever I feed them. I am surprised that any animals would eat so much quantity of tomatoes.

Most things have done well this year, and as you say, with hardly any blight, the potatoes were very good. However, everything seems to be coming to an end much earlier than other years. The runner beans are now at their tail end of the crop, Victoria plums came and went, the pumpkins are more than ready to harvest nearly a month earlier than last year. The same as the flowers. Strange.

[gradus]

It's an early season here too but by no means a poor yield from most things. Paradoxically rabbit damage prolongs the runner bean season by making them multi-shoot, delaying flowering and thus producing beans later on a multitude of stems - puts a premium on sufficient soil prep to keep the crop healthy viz loads of pig muck which works a treat.
Apple and gage crops broke boughs but wasp damage was /is quite light. For the first time I've managed to get pluots to the edible stage and they appear to be worth the wait being sweet, juicy and almost perfumed. They have a very long growth season being almost the first to flower and the last to fruit and like apricots and peaches they seem to benefit from hand pollination, nothing fancy just dabbing from flower to flower with cotton wool appears to do the trick.

[oddoneout]

My outdoor tomatoes (our first attempt of growing them outside) have grown into a massive wall and heavy with huge fruit. We have picked quite a lot but now something have found them and all we have left are shells (skin). I was very pleased with myself for managing to keep the rabbits out of my vegetable patch. So it’s not the rabbits. I know blackbirds peck at tomatoes when the weather is dry or maybe just from curiosity. Squirrels nibble at lot of things but do they eat tomatoes in this quantity? The fruit are literally shelled out. They are large variety (the tomatoes, not the squirrels). Eating the fruit and leaving three quarters of the skin/shell looks to me to be not the sort of thing squirrels can or want to do. Birds will peck at them but I don’t think they eat the fruit so thoroughly as this. Has anyone had similar problems?

Wood lice and slugs are often culprits, but in this case I wonder if it's wasps? They are expert at eviscerating things(think plums) and can achieve a lot in a relatively short time thanks to their wood shredding jaws.

[Dave2002]

My potatoes this time round are/were like truffles - very expensive. Poor yield, and one bag produced nothing at all. Some of them tested excellent though - significantly better than from the supermarkets. I might be tempted to try again on a larger scale next year, or maybe even try an allotment - if I can find the time.

[umslopogaas]

Potatoes need a LOT of water, especially if you are growing them in bags. Never let them dry out, or you will get very small tubers, which, as compensation, will probably taste very good, esp. if you are growing an old 'heritage' variety like Pink Fir Apple. Which is the one I grow, but I have a veg. plot so I can grow them in open ground.

[ardcarp]

Runner beans still cropping here in the Southwest though showing signs of finishing soon. Not such a good year for figs. Not enough sustained sun in the ripening season. Last couple of years were bumper. Leeks always a good reliable thing to grow IMO. Pretty much foolproof and so slow growing they keep you going (like figs!) for months.

[Dave2002]

These:

Just spotted one of those as I cleared my bags out.
Look a bit like green tomatoes.

[gurnemanz]

Runner beans have been great after a slow start with flowers dropping off. Also one of the best years for potatoes - Maris Bard.

[ardcarp]

Not growing my own exactly, but have just been given some quinces by a neighbour. Lacking a runcible spoon, I've just stewed them up with some apples (ours) to make a scrummy puree. A good ratio is one quince to three large apples. Am freezing several batches.

Hint (from neighbour): Quinces don't cook as quickly as apples, so cut them up into small bits first or, as I did, shove them in the food processor.

Private thought: 'Quince' doesn't sound right in the plural. Maybe one should say 'half a dozen quince' as one would with grouse or partridge.

[vinteuil]

Private thought: 'Quince' doesn't sound right in the plural. Maybe one should say 'half a dozen quince' as one would with grouse or partridge.

... I think etymologically this makes sense. The word 'quince' was originally a collective plural, from singular 'quine'. We seem to have taken the plural for a singular - rather the reverse of what we did with cherries (cerise) and peas (pois) where we took the French singular but thought it was a plural bicoz ending with an 's' and created a singular 'cherry' and 'pea'...

[umslopogaas]

672 jean and 683 Dave2002 These are the fruits of the potato, which occasionally form if the flowers are fertilised. They do indeed look like green tomatoes, potatoes and tomatoes are both in the same plant family, the Solanaceae. Plant breeders use fruits, or rather the seeds in them, to grow plants that are genetically variable and may lead to new varieties. Of course, gardeners arent usually interested in genetic variation, they want uniformity, which is why they grow from tubers (confusingly sometimes called "seed" potatoes). But if yours ripen it would be interesting to germinate the seeds and see what sort of variation you got: could be a great new variety waiting to be discovered.

[gradus]

Bit like stopping (safely) to pick promising looking apples from roadside bushes. Could be the new Cox's Orange Pippin.

[ardcarp]

Wow Vints.. #686. You learn a lot from this thread..

[For a horrified moment I thought #687 was something to do with quince. Phew.]

[Constantbee]

Took 10 years watching what survived here to decide what to grow :¬/ Peculiar soil here and extreme weather conditions mean everything is a gamble. Looked at what veg was expensive in the shops and struck lucky with a few that we grow a lot of. Courgettes are great, but you have to watch them for blossom end rot because of the damp. Leeks love it here, but you'd expect that because it's practically the north east ;¬) And florence fennel. Found a late fruiting variety called Cantino that loves it here. It's got another 3-4 weeks to go before harvesting this year. Nice aniseed flavour. I used it in salads and stews :¬)