Hi everyone, I used to post a lot in a previous Gardens etc until my wife was also diagnosed with cancer just over 2 years ago and she went through such a hard time so my time was taken up with not just Mrs Tvman but I was not good because of the rise and fall of red cells, white cells, neutrophils and platelets.
The good news is that I have a little bit more free time to garden. I never stopped because it's in my DNA to get working in the garden. I'm also a wheelchair user because of a serious back condition called spinal stenosis and the pain is so great that I'm only able to work in short bursts.
So let's see photos of your gardens or allotments, whether they be large or small or maybe you only have room for pots and troughs in a balcony or back yard.
My speciality for the last 40 years is vegetables and I have won hundreds of prizes over the last 20 years or so. I have had vegetables in show that have made me Northern Ireland champion for my sins. Unfortunately, since covid some shows have ceased therefore I haven't entered any for a few years.
I've a few photos below, that's if I can remember how to insert them! It's been a while.
Below is a photo of the contents of my greenhouse, there are tomato plants left and right of the pathway. Also just past the tomatoes are cucumber plants against that have frames for them to climb up. The cucumber variety is Mini Munch, they're a small variety that are sufficient for a few salads
The plants in the large pots below are aubergines, variety Black Beauty and inbetween the pots is a seed tray in which spring onion seeds have been sown which of course haven't germinated yet. Over here in Northern Ireland we call spring onions "scallions" and apart from in salads we have them with butter in mashed potatoes and that dish is called "champ". Believe it or not that was served as a stand alone dish that we had when I was small, some 60 years ago. Just mashed potatoes with small pieces of cut up scallions, cooked slowly in real butter then a dinner plate was loaded up with champ, a hole made in the top and filled with more butter then everything was mixed together and eaten. Along with an Ulster Fry in the morning, no wonder we had the highest rate of heart disease in Europe!
Last photo below for this post is a bed of garlic (on the left), shallots in the foreground and at the far end for those of you eagle-eyed is a few red and white onions that are just 2 or 3 inches high. They are grown from onion sets that are small immature onions and usually come in a net bag weighing 250g and there are about 70 in total.
You'll notice that I have wire netting around the beds, that's because 3 years ago I had a rabbit problem. 35 years without them, 1½ years of rabbits and none since! The wire netting is staying for a while yet!
What about some photos from anyone else?
Tvman
Picked the latest crop of ripe tomatoes yesterday. There will be the same ready for picking in a couple of days. I've been talking about growing a couple of plants less next year. One is clearly a cucumber. It's lunchbox size and called Mini Munch
Tvman x
Hi Tvman, we grew up in rural Scotland next to a cattle farm so had enough manure tfor a small plot to grow for half of the year, potatoes being the main crop along with leeks, parsnips, swede, and onions things thet would keep through the winter. We did have a little meat,"usually minced beef," and an occasional chicken, but looking back I'm not sure every chicken was a chicken, and we had a salmon river right next to where we lived where we used to clean the tin bath out, one time it was left in the river by mistake and in the morning a lovely salmon was found in it
, oh.dear, the bath was accidentally left out quite a few times after that 
, different times my friend, when we moved to Yorkshire and got an allotment, the things we could grow was amazing.
Eddie xx
I had a friend on the allotment, an Italian guy, sadly passed, who grew the original san marzano, not being a hybrid, crops were variable as the originals were bred for southern Italy, but they wereso nice, so would struggle here in Yorkshire, not so much with daytime temperatures but with those occasional cool nights, but the hybrids are a fab tomato too, and if you're wondering why I don't grow the originals anymore, the mice got the seeds......PS Poppy got the mice
, sad but part of allotmenting.
Eddie xx
Hi everyone, just want to show you the latest progress on my peas. From this
To this
If you look carefully in the background there are plenty more pod left on the plants to be filled and pulled
Tvman x
Wow Tvman, peas so love the rain, what a fab crop, I never get yields that big on my semi-desert
, don'teat too many while your podding them
.
Eddie xx
