What's growing?

We are having peas with everything....pick them ALL one day, next day there are 20 more huge ones!!
Everything else seems to have been stopped by the heat....

Just came back from a week away. Strawberries and peas for dinner tonight! I'm just waiting for the sun to go down a bit before getting the hose out. I hate to do it but everything is parched and wilting and the lilac is turning autumn colours.

Yes I do Anno but keeping it watered in this weather is a nightmare. I'm also growing Oca. Anyone ever tried that? I put them in the ground and there's lots of leaves like shamrock but I'm blowed if I know where to go from here

Treat the Oca like potatoes, Aka. They're sweeter. They can also be grated raw into salads. Don't need peeling - but then I don't often do that to potatoes either.
Your veg. and fruit crops are a feast!
I'm growing all sorts of herbs, and tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines, beetroot, chard, butternut squash and globe artichokes. I leave the artichokes to flower - they're wonderful. My rhubarb has had it's day.
A few potatoes are looking healthy in the compost heap, too.
Happy watering.

Interesting article on them in wikipaedia

Aka check out this page for Oca: downtheplot.com/oca.php. I'm really quite interested so please let me know how you get on.
I'm currently making jam most days; the strawberry's are finally coming to an end, but raspberries, gooseberries, red/blackcurrants are plentiful with blueberries and tayberries looking like they'll be good croppers. I picked the first globe artichokes this week (had the hearts for lunch yesterday with mixed leaf salad and poached egg - num, num), mange tout still plentiful, but must end soon. Kale, turnips, cabbages and beetroot are all giving really good crops this year and french beans, squash and courgettes are all at the flowering stage. Late planting of spinach has produced some sturdy seedlings and I think I may actually get a decent crop of tomatoes this year (last year I made pots of green tomato chutney because few ripened). The asparagus we planted has taken well, so we should get a little harvest from it next year. Damsons and apples doing reasonably well, but we'll have to wait for next year before the plum and pear trees produce. Oddly enough I've had a problem growing parsley this year, usually it grows like a weed, but the coriander that I normally have trouble with is fantastic.
It's hard work keeping up with the allotment, so writing down all the lovely fruit and vegetables we get does remind me of why we take the trouble.

It is mid winter here in Queensland, Australia. Currently harvesting cherry tomatoes and silverbeet (swiss chard: a spinach substitute). We also have green paw paw: it can be used as a vegetable while still green, then a fruit when it turns orange.

I'm growing spuds, cabbages including chinese types, and broccoli. My cauli seeds never germinated. The mulberries are just starting - all still red.

Soon I'll be able to plant cucumber and lettuce. Well I could plant lettuce now, but I'm waiting for the seeds to be ready to collect from a couple of plants that I let go to seed. I've just planted a load of marigold seeds, from the last of the flowers.

I've also done a bit of guerrilla gardening. Not having enough room in my garden, I just cleared a bit of space in a derelict garden nearby, and planted some spare bean seeds. I trespass there daily anyway, collecting weeds for my chickens. No-one has lived there for 18 months.

My very favourite harvest is mango, but that won't be till December. I just love the flavour. You can germinate a new tree from the stone of a fruit - it grows true. I've go one about a foot high, which will also be included in my guerrilla activities!!!

Raspberries starting. Lots of spuds, peas, courgettes, salad leaves, callaloo, spinach. Few toms, flowers on the climbing (what are those say my French neighbours) French beans, cucumbers, baby beetroot looking good as are carrots. Lots of apples and pears coming, but fewer plums. Twenty-seven raised beds planted and doing well.

Strawberries are doing so well - and feeding both slugs and fieldfares!!!
Putting nets on tonight, and I'm afraid I bought slug pellets today. Checked that they are wildlife friendly of course. Nets tonight on red currants and blackcurrants too.

granjura I put straw and strawberry matting around my strawberries for the first time this year and I haven't had ANY slug damage. Also my husband made an ingenious netting system, so no bird damage.
All of the other soft fruit are protected by a newly built fruit cage - and again, no birds can get in so we've had a bumper crop.
Mamie; had to look up Callaloo and got mixed definitions. Is it amaranth or a type of spinach you're growing?

Thanks Butty and GA that article is really useful and I e saved it to the home screen of my iPad. You can see what I meant by shamrock leaves. So must water AND feed. Useful that the are ready for picking end of November and December

Yes it is amaranth and it is a sort of spinach. We belong to Garden Organic's heritage seed scheme and I think it was from there. I have used it in pilau and sag aloo (sp and sp?), too bitter for salads.
Am making sweet and sour courgettes with our BBQ tonight, the EU mountain has started!

Achocha is another heritage seed favourite. Nice in salads and I make an eye-wateringly hot chutney with it. I love the way the plants climb.

Anyone got any different ideas what to do with a glut of raspberries?
I've done enough jam (in a heat wave) made too many flans (even the GC are saying 'maybe later Nana'), tried raspberry ripple ice cream (total disaster) run out of space and containers in the freezer, and still they come and come. It's the invasion of the raspberry canes. And as I've only seen a couple of bees all summer I'd love to know who's pollinating the b****y things

Help!

Set up a stall at the gate? Advertise PYO?

Raspberry vinegar? Supposed to be good for sore throats.

Aka If I have a surplus of fruit or veg I pass it on to friends and usually get some of their surplus of something I don't grow in return. Neighbour on one side has apple trees (we don't) swop apples for chutney, jam, leeks, etc. - neighbours on other side get fruit, veg. They do not grow their own but 'repay' with wine. If I run out of 'swoppers' I find that home grown and home made (jam, chutney, etc.) is always warmly welcomed at Ancient Uncle's Care Home, Women's Aid and the local hospice. Can't bear to have anything go to waste.

Think that's the only solution, give it away, swap it. The family are already saying 'no more' so it's the neighbours now. Just away to look up recipe for raspberry vinegar

raspberry vinegar recipe
Now where can I find some bottles?

Down the off-licence? You may have to get rid of the contents first.

I wonder whether raspberry gin would be as successful as sloe gin? I've never heard of a recipe for it but the raspberries might be acid enough to go well with gin.

Perfect of course. I'll hold onto this week's supply of empty gin bottle. Why didn't I think of that?

raspberry gin and vodka
I'm raring to go now

I love raspberries - I'll be round.

I can't compete on the productivity stakes but my alstromeria had 'flopped' all over my pots of cerise geraniums and it all looks fabulous.

That recipe is now aded to my sloe gin one.

My amelachier tree is always early in bloom - even this year - and now has its little red berries which the local blackbirds are making short work of. They defend that tree against each other and all other invaders. The tree is usually stripped within a few days!