Veggie growers

Poppy03

Poppy03

Silver Member
I notice there are a few of us about but thought that maybe a thread that we could easily find may be easier. I saw there was a lady who canned her own food too.

I admit, I am an allotment addict, I have two and grow about 80% of my fruit and veg needs. I have managed to only buy one lot of onions this year, pretty self sufficient in the dreaded potoato (sorry Dr D), squashes and pumpkins, beans, carrots (only bought 1 lot) etc. Managed to can a fair few tomatoes and passata and make my own jams, jellies, chutney, pickles. Getting into making cordial too (hubby loves it.)

Would love to swap ideas on things to grow, how to grow them and how to use them.
 
Helloooo - and I'm probably the "canning" lady, although I admit that it's all very new to us and things are a little hit and miss in our potager as we're not there during the week to water, or prevent the slug/snail invasions!

Whereabouts are you in the country, Poppy (vaguely), and do you spend a lot of time in your garden? We're strictly weekend garden "visitors", and usually leave things to their own devices pretty much. We've about 10 tomato plants in pots in our courtyard (as they didn't grow well in the field where we plant our veg previous years). They're doing well. Other things not as advanced as usual as we had to replant pretty much everything end May, after the long dry period and two weeks away from the house so no water for the newly sewn seeds.

It's all good fun though and we still have some chutney from last year (green tomato; spicey beetroot; and hot red tomato). We've no fruit though (simply plant veg in a farmer's field). We've only put green beans and beetroot in jars (separately!) to date. The carrots weren't a success (ideas? we only did a couple of jars to test and both "fermented" I suppose) but we store them in sand quite successfully. Peas, we vaccuum pack and freeze.

Lovely subject... Mouse has some veggies too... (I've seen them!!)... wonder who else?
 
I am in Suffolk, so quite dry sometimes and yes I spend quite a bit of time at the allotment. Usually a day at the weekend and a half a day during the week at this time of year but earlier in the season probably more as I am getting it ready for planting. Now it is mainly harvesting and replanting a few bits.

We use organic slug pellets now on the allotment which has kept down the little blighters considerably. Unfortunately both the allotments on either side of us are not worked (management trying to evict now) so they have a lovely hiding place to hit and run from.

I have not tried canning carrots as I, like you, store them in damp sand/compost. They lasted through to about May. This year I may freeze a few too so that I can fill that last gap.

Green tomato chutney is my hubby's favourite. Have to make it every year for him. Mine favourite is Dower House which is plum based although the 3 different rhubarb chutneys are very good. What does spicey beetroot chutney have in it? Always looking for something new to do with beetroot :)

We have two small freezer but we are just about to get a chest freezer so that I can keep more of the harvest and be more self sufficient. I only found out recently that you can freeze cherry tomaotes whole to use in stews, casseroles or general cooking. How much easier is that!
 
I'll have to go hunting for the recipe we used for the beetroot - I wasn't struck personally, preferring those bottled in vinegar and spices - but we did have so many. I also made soup (not borscht particularly, but just used beetroot as the main ingredient, with some red wine vinegar - keeping it Dukan ok for PV days) and froze it in portions :D

We eat all our tomatoes :D No need to freeze any!
 
I see there are no more veggie growers :-( or are you all in the closet!

I grow about 100 tomato plants so hoping this year to be able to bottle/can enough to see us through the year, blight willing.
 
I put my name down for an allotment this week! :) There's a waiting list so will probably be 18 months before I get one, though. :( They only give out half plots now.
 
I'm a veggie grower and canner too! Last year, I canned over 70 quarts of a combination of tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, tomato juice, pizza sauce, and salsa. I also can green beans. If I can find it cheap enough, I'll also freeze corn.

My strawberries did very well this year and I have made 17 1/2 pints of jam and put 5 gallons in the freezer. Mine are ever-bearing, so I'll get another crop late summer.

I also grow beets, radishes, snap peas, cucumbers (make relish too), summer squash and zucchini, spinach, swiss chard.

I cut down my tomato plants this year to 16 since I canned so much last year.

I have canned carrots, potatoes, and peaches before too. It really depends on how ambitious I feel when the crops come in! :)
 
Red Heart, that sounds pretty typical. Whereabouts are you? I am in Suffolk, Ipswich to be precise and I think most of the allotments around here are full too, even the more run down ones.

Jennifer do you have a recipe for the Salsa? I am looking for some new recipes to try for my canning. Did you can tomato sauces for pasta or just the tomatoes in their juice? I have an electric passata maker and it is brilliant, does fruit too and made some lovely apple sauce through it too (Not as good as Motts but close). How many strawberry plants do you have! What variety? I have loads but I think they are running out of steam so I am going to replace the beds this year. Looking at some new varieties to plant.

Hubby just went a picked up a chest freezer to cope with our crops. I am hoping to freeze corn this year as last year we just ate it all, well the little one did without cooking it sometimes as it was so sweet.
 
I'm in Lincolnshire.
My friend has also put her name down so we will share our plots.
Villagers get priority thankfully so there is only one person above us so I'm hoping that we might get a plot in the spring and another the following year - just to break us in gently! :eek:
 
Wow Poppy 100 tom plants - you put my efforts to shame!! Have you tried the Jamie Oliver ketchup recipe? It is a bit of a faff but delicious!
 
Not tried the Jamie Oliver one, will hunt out that recipe. I am looking for a good tomato ketchup to make.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.25515472841.34964.612257841&l=939b4d0c68

That is a link to my allotment. It shows what it was when we started and what it is now. We don't grow the traditional allotment way in rows across, like the old boys. We got a lot of stick for it to start with but it seems most new people do now grow this way. Everything, woodwise, is from skips as hubby works on building sites, that includes the sheds which he built.

They only give out half plots on ours now. They say that 90% of newbies give up their first season but that does mean 10% stay. Touch wood, you will get your plot soon. :)
 
Holbrook may be different as it is more village like and lots of open land around there. We are in North East Ipswich and our allotment is near the fire station area. We rent from Ipswich borough council so I assume it will be a different council they would rent from.

Hope their move goes well, nice area Holbrook.
 
So you know this area pretty good then. It is very much a farming area around here and it is what we want to do as a business but are struggling to find land to do it on. We saw a lovely 10acre small holding but they wanted way too much money for it, about 150K over priced.

We are pretty addicted to the allotment. Luckily hubby loves it too and the little one would always be up there given half a chance. We have been put forward for the Ipswich competition this year which is lovely, find out in October. We grow like that because it suits us and this year I really want to produce as much as we can and freeze, can, dry to keep it through the rest of the year. The little one can even recognise seedlings now and she is only 3 and she was criticing the garden at Jimmy's Farm recently *blush*.
 
I am glad I am not the only one. Some of my friends rave about it but I think it is expensive for what it is. We went with the pre school alliance recently and I asked the guy if the kitchen garden was open. Little one and I quite excited until we got to it. No way could it be called a kitchen garden. Izzy asked the guy where the beans and peas were and why are his potatoes so small. The strawberries were doing well but that was about it. It is pretty much herbs. She then turned around to the guy and said that he had a lot of weeds! So he was dissed by a 3 year old! Funny but embarrasing too.
 
What a lovely thread.

Here's the beetroot chutney recipe we used last year. To be honest, I don't think we'd bother again, but it helped deal with the glut but I prefer beetroot preserved in vinegar and spices.
Spiced beetroot & orange chutney recipe - Recipes - BBC Good Food

Can anyone give me anidea as to how much they pay (in rent?) for their allotment? Pure curiosity as we're very lucky to have neighbours in our village who simply allow us to plant our veggies on their land (oh and prepare it for us too with their machines, so it's simply a question of turning up and sowing our seeds - and hoping it'll rain some cos it is a little far to take water there!)

We've not yet been successful with bottling carrots. We tried twice, and the contents of the jars "fermented" and the water went cloudy and we obviously had done something wrong... but I wonder what? (Can anyone advise? We used the same method as for our green beans which are fine!)
 
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