TopVeg – growing veg,fruit&herbs

May 19, 2011

Spots on leaves of Swiss Chard

Filed under: pests&diseases — TopVeg @ 7:31 am

Val has noticed creamy coloured spots on the leaves of Swiss Chard & contacted TopVeg in despair………..

“i saw your website when i was searching for a solution for my swiss chard problem and wonder if you can help? spots of a creamy colour are taking over the lovely shiny leaves and i dont think i can eat them looking like that what can i do?

thanks for any help
val”

TopVeg has replied:

Hi Val

Sorry to hear your swiss chard is having problems. When did you plant it & whereabouts do you live?

It sounds rather like a fungal disease called Light Leaf Spot. If you look at the pale patches can you see any concentric rings of spores erupting through the leaf cuticle, resembling grains of salt? This disease is worse in certain regions & is particularly prevalent after wet winters.

Does this ring a bell? If it is this you can pull off affected leaves & destroy them – any shiny green leaves will be fine to eat. Hopefully it will not attack all your chard.

Let us know how you get on.  TopVeg

What do you think?  Have you any idea as to what is causing these spots on Val’s Swiss Chard?

May 17, 2011

Grow your own trends

Filed under: Uncategorized — TopVeg @ 9:06 pm

LoveTheGarden.com have come up with a  really neat infographic  about the upward trend of ‘grow your own’ in the UK.  They are hoping it’ll inspire more people to get involved and start growing their own fruit and vegetables!   For example did you know: 17% of adults eat self grown food once a week?

Grow your own

Grow your own infographic from LoveTheGarden.com

When to pick gooseberries

Filed under: fruit — Tags: , , — TopVeg @ 9:14 am

When to pick gooseberries depends on the variety.

Picking usually starts in late May – before the gooseberries are fully ripe.  The first picked gooseberries are hard and tart; these are used for cooking crumbles, pies and tarts.  If the gooseberries start to fall of the bush, they need picking.

Picking some gooseberries early will thin the crop, and allow those remaining on the bush to grow larger and ripen. They will get softer and sweeter as they become ripe.

gooseberries-on-bush

gooseberries-on-bush

Dessert gooseberries are particularly large, soft and sweet when ripe and change to a pinky colour.  They are usually ready in late July or August and can be eaten when picked, without cooking. But it is worth picking a few desert gooseberries in late May , which can be cooked, so that the fruit is thinned out.

The gooseberries will not all ripen at the same time, so gooseberry
bushes have to be picked several times to harvest the ripe gooseberries.

*Leveller  is a popular desert gooseberry which is ready in August.
*Leveller  has thin skins.

invicta-gooseberry

invicta-gooseberry

Invicta  is a green-berried gooseberry variety, grown for cooking. It
has mildew resistance, & ripens in late July/early August.

thorns-gooseberry-invicta

thorns-gooseberry-invicta

Invicta is a very prickly variety so it is worth wearing gloves when
picking Invicta gooseberries. 

 The answer to ‘when to pick gooseberries’ is from late May, but pick
gooseberries several times, to allow the smaller fruits to get bigger.

May 16, 2011

Gro-Sure Challenge

Filed under: root veg — Tags: , — TopVeg @ 8:01 am

 

We have joined the Gro-Sure Challenge!

The Levis leek seed we have just sown were particularly easy to plant because:

  • the seed have a clay or polymer coating making them larger and easier to handle than the normal tiny seeds – & they don’t blow about!
  • seeds are coated blue – easy to see & easy to space in the row.

It was such a relief to have a stress-free leek sowing session that I took another look at the packet. They came in a Gro-sure packet so I decided to look Gro-Sure up to see what it meant– I am usually more sceptical of gimmicks!

 Apparently, Gro-sure seeds have been selected to provide:

  • high germination
  • disease resistance
  • increased yields
  • high quality
  • longer flowering periods
  • less bolting

If Gro-sure seeds fail to please, you get your money back!

The Gro-sure Challenge involves “trying Unwins Gro-sure seeds and seeing what great results you can achieve”!   There are monthly prizes to be won – so we have joined the Gro-sure challenge & here’s hoping!

May 15, 2011

First New Potatoes!

Filed under: Uncategorized, potato — Tags: , , , — TopVeg @ 7:50 pm

This must be a record for our first new potatoes!  Luck has been with us and we have had quite warm soil temperatures.

new-potatoes-15-May

new-potatoes-15-May

With fingers crossed, we planted these Maris Bard  on 12th February, very early because Mike was away for the following 3 weeks.  The seed potatoes were particularly big, which helped to give us a head start.

Even though the potatoes were covered with polythene  we had a scare last week when we had a ground frost early in the morning.  Leaping out of bed at first light, we rushed out to sprinkle the potatoes (& strawberries) with water – a trick to keep the frost off.

Other than the frost protection, we have not watered these potatoes at all since they were planted- and we only had 9.5ml rain in March and none in April!

The soil is now very dry, so it is easy to dig the new potatoes out with your hands.

digging-new-potatoes

digging-new-potatoes

The soil is full of the potato roots – which have helped the potato plants to grow so well.

roots+new-potatoes

roots+new-potatoes

The first new potatoes were quite delicious!

Vegetable Gardening in Wellness week

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — TopVeg @ 1:52 pm

Vegetable gardening is the perfect activity for Wellness week which started on May 11th..

Vegetable gardening helps to make you feel fitter, healthier, and happier.

May 11, 2011

Food from Your Garden and Allotment -Book Review

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — TopVeg @ 7:49 am

Food from Your Garden and Allotment: All You Need to Know to Grow, Cook and Preserve Your Own Fruit and Vegetables, London/New York/Sydney/Montreal: Reader’s Digest, 2011, £19.99, ISBN 978-0-276-44336-7, 320 pp.

 As you would expect from a Reader’s Digest book, this is attractively produced with plenty of illustrations and photographs. The book provides details on how to grow more than 100 types of fruit, vegetables and herbs, as well as giving recipes for making use of the produce. The crops are covered alphabetically in a survey which has a contemporary bias, including such plants as olives and sweet potatoes, since increasingly warm summers mean it may be feasible to grow them in British gardens.

 There is a section providing a month by month plan of what needs doing in the vegetable garden, as well as a chapter on pests and diseases.

 The book is particularly strong on information on what to do with your crops. As well as covering such widely used practices as freezing and making jams, there is also plenty of advice on drying, bottling, making jams, jellies, pickles, sauces, relishes and flavoured vinegars, as well as on wine making. There is a wealth of recipes, from modern ones such as mixed fruit Chinese style chutney and sauteed sweet potatoes to more traditional methods of dealing with a glut of garden produce, such as marrow jam and green tomato chutney.

 In a book of such wide scope it is unsurprising that there is relatively little information on the varieties of the crops mentioned, so while 22 varieties of apples are described only one variety of parsley is listed.

 Overall, I would strongly recommend this to anyone starting out with their first vegetable garden or allotment, or to more experienced growers who would like suggestions on what to do with their crops. For those with an interest in discovering new and unfamiliar varieties of vegetable, it may be necessary to supplement a book like this with a more specialist publication.

Malcolm Allison, BA, MSc

Plant Consultant

Food From Your Garden & Allotment

Fresh Air Fund seeks Host Families

Filed under: Uncategorized — TopVeg @ 6:03 am

 The Fresh Air Fund is in need of host families in the USA or Canada for this summer of 2011.

Host families are volunteers who open their hearts and homes to children from New York city to give them a Fresh Air experience that can change lives.    Can you  help them place these wonderful children into a loving host family?   It’s only for up to two weeks, but it’s an experience that can change their lives forever.

If you can help the Fresh Air Fund to find a host family please click this link.

May 4, 2011

Swift Early Potato

Filed under: potato — Tags: , , , , — TopVeg @ 8:55 am

Les told me last night that he was going to ‘try’ some of his Swift early potatoes next week.  I was impressed!

He said he always grows Swift & has the first boiling in early May!  Here are some of the secrets I picked up:

·         Swift are the earliest variety, ready within 7 weeks of planting

·         Les plants Swift in January

·         He grows them in flower buckets

·         The buckets are kept in the greenhouse all the time

·         Swift only have short tops, so don’t fall over

·         Les pulls the plant out of the bucket, picks of the largest potatoes & returns the plant to the bucket to continue growing!

Swift is ‘The earliest early” according to the British Potato Council variety database.

 Characteristics of  Potato Variety:

·         exceptionally early maturing potato variety

·         good yields

·         attractive, medium sized potatoes

·         good skins

·         good cooking quality

Click this link to buy Swift new potatoes from Unwins

Swift is a very early potato variety!

May 1, 2011

Babbington’s leeks

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: — TopVeg @ 8:23 pm

Our Babbington’s leeks are looking thirsty.  But that is hardly surprising after two exceptionally dry months.

growing-BabLeeks-1stMay

growing-BabLeeks-1stMay

Babbington’s leeks (Latin name -  Allium ampeloprasum babbingtonii ) are an interesting perennial vegetable.

 The leek leaves grow from bulbs in January until the leaves die down in late summer.  The bulbs multiply, causing the clump to spread.  The bulbs come up year after year making this a perennial vegetable which needs a permanent site.

 BulbsBabingtonLeeks BulbsBabingtonLeeks

 But the peculiarity of  Babbington’s leeks is that when they push up a flower stalk in late summer, bulbils develop on the flower head.  These bulbils drop off onto the ground and grow into bulbs.

 BabingtonLeeks BabingtonLeeks

The photo of the flower head shows the light green bulbils. Babbington’s leeks are useful in the kitchen because the green leaves can be cut in January.

 The leaves may be eaten:

  •  raw when young – in salads
  • boiled (long & slow) when mature – as they become quite fibrous
The bulbs & bulbils:

  • are eaten as a substitute for garlic
  • may be eaten raw or cooked
  • the bulbs are hotter

Kevin in Cornwall  kindly sent us both bulbs and bulbils of Babbington’s leeks.  We  planted them into well drained soil in a sunny spot. He says “It may be a couple of seasons before the Babbington’s Leeks produce flower heads, when bulbs will be big enough for garlic, and bulbils to start again”.

BabingtonLeeks1stMay

BabingtonLeeks1stMay

 Babbington’s leeks survived the very hard winter and have grown well this spring; but they are starting to look thirsty!

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