Growing your own - is it worth it?

[umslopogaas]

Is that a first early fairy? She looks more maincrop to me.

I'm curbing my impatience and not harvesting my Pink Fir Apples for at least another month. Meanwhile I am enjoying the few peas the mice have left me. Got fed up with the damage a couple of days ago and bought lots of traps. I got seven the first night and another four last night, I guess I'll keep going until I've got the lot. Incidentally, peanut butter is much better than cheese for bait, they cant resist it.

Another week or so and I should be able to start on the runners, and the french beans are looking promising.

[cloughie]

Another week or so and I should be able to start on the runners...

Looking like that for me too!

[jean]

I found some ready yesterday, to my surprise.

No peas again. Always too late getting them in, I think.

Strawberries are over, raspberries nearly so - but I have another late variety, all mixed up with the early ones so until they start producing I can't tell which are which.

[umslopogaas]

I found some ready yesterday, to my surprise.

No peas again. Always too late getting them in, I think.

Strawberries are over, raspberries nearly so - but I have another late variety, all mixed up with the early ones so until they start producing I can't tell which are which.

My strawberries were a washout, but the autumn raspberries look promising. But the peas were good and the runners and French beans look good too. Oh ye gods, its hard work, but I suppose its worth it.

[doversoul1]

My strawberries weren’t brilliant. I expect I need to replant them next year. But the peas!! I don’t think I shall ever see another crop like this. My runner beans look good, too although they are nowhere near ready yet. I thought I left enough space for the pumpkins to grow but they are almost invading the dwarf beans and leeks. I can never plant things wide enough apart in spring.

Does anyone wonder what in those bags of bird food? I have sunflowers growing all over the garden, and have seen peanuts plants sprouting amongst the begonias in tubs. I also ‘harvested’ half a dozen buckwheat plants near the bird table a couple of years ago. This year, I keep finding tuffs of unfamiliar looking grass which are quite hard to pull up. And now those nyjer seeds which are apparently from a type of African thistles, imported (I assume) and sold literally by tons. I know most imported plants don’t mature enough to produce seeds in the UK climate but all the same… Or are they sterilised (very unlikely)? I’d have thought we have enough thistles (certainly in my garden) for any wild birds to eat.

[Dave2002]

I'm curbing my impatience and not harvesting my Pink Fir Apples for at least another month. Meanwhile I am enjoying the few peas the mice have left me. Got fed up with the damage a couple of days ago and bought lots of traps. I got seven the first night and another four last night, I guess I'll keep going until I've got the lot. Incidentally, peanut butter is much better than cheese for bait, they cant resist it.

Wow - that's a lot of mice. They quite like chocolate too.

[umslopogaas]

Wow - that's a lot of mice. They quite like chocolate too.

I think I've solved the mouse problem, I only caught one last night. Of course, it may be that now the peas are almost over, they've got bored and gone away: they dont seem interested in beans. I could use chocolate, but peanut butter is very cheap and easy to spread on the bait platform, I think chocolate would be difficult to fix. Something - I think not mice - is able to set off the traps without leaving any sign of its presence. I suspect ground beetles.

[Anna]

When I had an invasion of field mice I found chocolate covered digestives or crunchy peanut butter worked well (I have a large humane trap, I don't want to kill the wee beasties so when trapped I take them for a walk in the country and let them go - I don't think I'd be so squeamish about killing house mice)

Here I'm glad to report White Lady is setting extremely well, no blossom fall and lots and lots of small beans now growing very well. I think they must be loving this rain. A friend had a couple of those big builders mechants bags you get gravel in spare so she's using them to grow courgettes (on the patio) so they don't take up space in her veg plot.

[umslopogaas]

doversoul #275, the unfamiliar tufts of grass might be millet, there are several different types and I think it gets put into birdseed.

I might salvage a few more peas now that I've eliminated the mice, but otherwise there is a slight lull for about another week, until the runner beans start. French beans are a bit further behind, but I shall soon be submerged in green beans. Never mind, the neighbours always seem glad to have the surplus.

[french frank]

I realise now (NOW! ) that if you go for a wigwam arrangement for your runners, you have to leave enough space to be able to get to the plants at the back, not set them against a fence. I have just discovered two beans which are 11 inches long, and possibly already stringy :-(

Anyway, I shall use Hugh FW's recipe for a side dish: sauté some onion and garlic in olive oil and add chopped beans and chopped tomato (he said grate! the tomato).

[umslopogaas]

How on earth do you GRATE a tomato? If I tried that, I'd get blood and tomato juice in about equal measure. Still, I suppose I could dish it up as tomato juice and the worst that would happen is someone would say, hmm, its a bit salty? i'd just say, its the added protein, its a personal touch.

[french frank]

How on earth do you GRATE a tomato?

That's why I cut them into small pieces! I think you must have to start with a pretty hard/barely ripe tomato. He said, 'It's a way of peeling it because you end up holding the skin.' I'm not convinced. Anyway, the dish was quite tasty. If I'd thought earlier I'd have flaked some Parmesan cheese over it.

[umslopogaas]

Perhaps you can buy tomato stuff ready prepared? I dont actually like tomatoes much, but recipes require them, so I have tins of various tomato puree, etc preparations in the cupboard in case the recipe requires them. When I come to cook them, I usually leave the tomatoes out. Parmesan cheese, oh yes, I'm with you there.

[gradus]

Just a thought but up-thread, Dave said he'd leave his Pink Fir Apple spuds for another month, if so it might be worth spraying them to avoid blight as this sultry weather is perfect for blight attacks. Bordeaux Mixture (still ok for organic growers) or the Bayer fungicide that replaced Dithane would both do the trick for long enough to allow the spuds to reach maturity.

[umslopogaas]

Good advice gradus! But what is the Bayer fungicide that replaced Dithane? I have Dithane, and copper oxychloride, but they are both very old packets. I ought to know this, it was my speciality when I worked in crop protection, but its been years since I studied this stuff and I'm getting very out of touch.

I''m not organic and would spray anything available on the amateur market, or anything else that wasnt if my tractor-driving nephew could get me a drop of the professional hard stuff. Was it Ridomil, or one of the specific anti-Phytophthora fungicides? I was working on Phytophthora disease control when they first appeared on the market and they initially appeared to be fantastically effective, I've still got a photo somewhere of a cocoa tree I sprayed and it was so covered with crop that the branches were breaking under the strain, but it didnt last, resistance soon set in.