Tag Archives: Patty Pans

October 2016 Growing Update

An October curcubit harvest - courgettes that grew to marrows, a patty pan and a ball courgette.

October is always a fun month for us. We are still harvesting crops, and we are now also planting new ones for next year. This month we’ve sown some peas and broad beans in pots, which we will move to their final positions at the allotment once we have harvested enough carrots to make space for them. These pea and bean plants will then give us a bit of a head start for next spring. Although they won’t grow much in the short cold days of winter, when the conditions improve, they will already be established plants and should start…

The first instalment of this year's patty pans from the allotment.

Back in the late spring when we were busy sowing seeds I asked my son what he would like to grow this year. He clearly had something in mind, but he couldn’t remember what it was called. A few image searches online later and he excitedly confirmed what he was trying to describe: a patty pan. So he sowed a patty pan seed and it germinated very quickly. He asked to water it, and frequently asked for updates on his patty pan. Unfortunately back in June high winds snapped the young patty pan plant. We decided not to tell our…

An early autumn treat - the biggest pumpkin we have ever grown.

September is already coming to an end. It’s been a great month for us in the garden and at the allotment. We’ve had some exciting harvests and we’ve been enjoying the changing of the seasons. The month started with weather cloudier than we had experienced in August. It was still warm, but there wasn’t as much sun, and the days were getting noticeably shorter. We had a fair bit of rain in the first week or so, which prompted another surge in courgette production. But it did give us cause for concern regarding our drying Martock field beans and Boddington’s…

It's that time of year again! That summer staple - the runner bean.

We’ve had quite a successful, if a little hectic, month. August carried on where July left off and it has been hot and sunny most days. This has been great for our squashes and courgettes, which have come on leaps and bounds. It has meant we’ve spent a lot of time watering, and so our basic evening routine is either Liz or I water the allotment, and the other waters the garden. These tasks take some time, so what with weeding and cultivating the last of the space at the allotment, it’s been a busy month just keeping things ticking…

Mature Martock field beans growing in our garden.

What a contrast July has been when compared to June! Almost every day this month has been warm and sunny with very little rain. It’s been a very busy month for us. We’ve transformed the allotment and the plants there are thriving in the warm weather. It has meant that we’ve had to spend a lot of time watering the plants this month, and even more time weeding. In the garden the legumes bed has been very productive. Our Martock field beans have produced such a crop that we’ve had a couple of plants bend in two under their own…

Some oca shoots poking through the soil.

It’s been nearly three weeks since our last post and a lot has changed since then. Shortly after going to press our young Court Pendu Plat apple came into bloom. As noted in our last post, this tree was historically known as ‘the wise apple’, because it blossoms so late in the season that it never loses its blossom to late frosts. This then signified that it was time for our mostly hardened off tomatoes and curcubits to be planted out into the miscellaneous crops bed. But then disaster struck. In quick succession strong winds and unexpected hot weather devastated…

Just some of what we grew and produced this year. Top left - bottom right: winter squashes, parsnip, kohlrabi, a batch of jam, mushrooms, spiralised courgette ('courgetti'), plums, tomatoes and courgettes, squashes in our pumpkin patch.

This year was our first in our current home with our rather large garden. We moved into this house in May, and although we were late out with many of our crops, we’ve had a very successful growing season. In this post we’ll look back over the year and share where we feel we were successful, and where we were not. Soft Fruits By far our largest and most used soft fruit crop was our plums. We can’t really take much credit for this crop, as all of the trees were already here when we moved in, and we have…

The 2015 winter squash harvest - more variety than you'd find in your local supermarket!

With the squash growing season now well and truly over here in the East of England, we are delighted to be able to able to share some photos of our very successful 2015 squash harvest. As long time readers will know, we only moved into our house and had use of its garden from May this year. We got off to a bit of a slow start due to other demands such as unpacking, work and raising children. But once we got the time we really went for it in the garden. One of our biggest projects was removing the…

A 'Turk's Turban' Squash Growing in the Pumpkin Patch. There are a couple of smaller ones too.

Here at Slightly Self-Sufficient HQ we’ve been very excited about growing our own winter squashes. We’ve never had enough space to grow them before. We did try a dwarf ‘Butternut’ squash variety last year in a large pot, but it didn’t produce any fruit. So upon seeing the garden in our new house for the first time, Liz and I exclaimed in unison that we could finally grow squashes! Why have we been so excited to grow winter squashes? First and foremost, they make for excellent eating. They are a very versatile ingredient. They make fantastic soups and, unlike their…

The area now prepared with a grand total of 7 squash, 5 courgette, 1 pumpkin and 1 patty pan plants all in position.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the garden. Aside from the mammouth tasks of weeding, watering and generally tending to our plants that are already in their final positions, we’ve also planted a lot more out. Our most noteworthy achievement in the last fortnight is probably that we cleared the remainder of the pumpkin patch. We have now, for that whole square area that was lawn, removed all of the turf, turned the soil, forked in manure, made ridges for the plants, and planted out something into all but two of the positions. These final positions will be…

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Tag Archives: Patty Pans

October 2016 Growing Update

A Boy And His Patty Pans

September 2016 Growing Update

August 2016 Growing Update

July 2016 Growing Update

Early June Garden Update

2015 – The Year In Review

The 2015 Squash Harvest

Pumpkin Patch Update

The Garden – A Quick Update