Grow Your Own with Giant Veg : Summer's Harvest

Firstly, if you have an abundance of fresh fruit or veg, you can make your own jams and chutneys.  We’ve recently made our own chutney and turned some of the raspberries and strawberries into Jam.  These will last well into 2022.   

As we enter September, the plants are growing away, flowers are flowering, and fruits are being produced.  It’s really important at this time of year to continue to feed plants. If you have plants fruiting in containers, make sure you give them a high potash liquid feed to keep them healthy and productive.  We’ve been using the Vitax All Purpose, Organic Plant food for the begonias and alternating this with watering the plants with our Giant Veg Instant Compost Tea.  

Holiday season is upon us, days away and weekend trips mean that we will need to prepare from our time away from the garden. The tomatoes and peppers that are growing in the Keder Greenhouse benefit from self-watering in the Quadgrow and Go Gro hydroponic systems.

If you don’t have self-watering systems, get a friend or neighbour to water for you while you’re away.  They can even take a few fresh fruits or vegetables away with them.

If you have been inspired to get growing during lockdown and through our handy growing blogs, there’s plenty to now harvest, including carrots, runner beans, beetroot, cucumbers, courgettes, and second early potatoes; maincrops potatoes will be ready in September. 

Our onions and shallots have been recently lifted and will now be stored in the greenhouse where they will dry off.  These will provide us with fresh onions well into the Winter months.

The tomato seed that was sent over from Denmark have proven a hit with the visitors to our garden. There’s an abundance of fruits and they are providing the perfect addition for bolognese sauce as well as summer salads.  You also can’t beat munching on a freshly picked tomato.  

Look out for signs of tomato and potato blight, removing affected plants immediately to prevent further spread. Pinch out the tops of tomatoes, as further flowers are unlikely to produce fruits that have time to ripen. Remove the lower leaves of cordon tomatoes up to the lowest truss, to let more light and air reach the fruits.  Keep an eye out for pests and diseases on greenhouse plants, and treat any you find immediately.  At this time of year diseases will spread rapidly and bugs will spread at a fast rate.

The Bell Peppers and Chillies are starting to produce an abundance of fresh fruits. We’ll be sending some to Stiga HQ for a taste test.  For now, harvest chillies regularly to encourage more fruits to form.   Try to clear away any diseased and spent foliage around your plants to discourage pests and diseases spreading. 

The flowers and summer bulbs, including begonias that we planted out in the early Spring, are blooming beautifully.  For the first time, we have managed to grow freesias.  This has been possible by growing in containers.  Both the Dahlias and freesia’s have provided a lovely display in the garden.  

It’s important to continue to feed the flowers and to deadhead dahlias and other perennials to encourage a constant display of blooms.

Giant Marrow

Our Giant marrow has now been pollinated and is starting its journey to hopefully becoming a Giant.  We’ve been busy weeding the area to ensure that the plant has the optimum growing environment.  Every 10 days, we will sprinkle handfuls of Vitax Q4 pellets over the growing area as the plants are very hungry at this time of year.  The main vine and side vines are buried and mixed with Dalefoot Compost and MycorrGiantVeg.  This provides food for the plant, including slow-release potash and nitrogen, as well as the development of a mass root system.

We also preventatively spraying SB Plant Invigorator mixed with seaweed onto the leaves. This is to reduce the chance of the plant getting powdery mildew.  Once this sets in, this will reduce the plant's ability to absorb the sunlight and turn this energy into fruit development.

Giant Tomato

Our Giant Tomatoes are continuing to produce some sizeable fruits.  They are growing in the Go Gro Self Watering system.  As the tomatoes get bigger, they need to be supported.  We do this by tying the truss with string.

Some people will use tights to support the fruits.  We haven’t tried this one just yet! 

Giant Cucumber

Our Giant Cucumbers are set and away now.  We have beaten the bees each morning and ensured that the female and male flowers have been pollinated in a controlled way.  This ensures that the genetic line of the seed is preserved for future grows. 

The cucumbers are growing in both the Go Gro self-watering system and a deep water culture system called Oxypot. This is a system that provides an oxygenated reservoir with a nutrient base.  This is a relatively simple system to use and each year we have learned how to fine-tune our growing techniques.  For the PH we use a PH Pen from BlueLAb and this provides an instant reading for the water.  The Blue Lab Truncheon will provide us with an instant EC reading.  As the plant grows the EC increases.  Hopefully, this will result in some Giant Cucumbers towards the end of September.

Giant Cantaloupe Melon

In the September edition, we will give you an update on our Giant Cantaloupe. The seeds were kindly sent over from a grower in the US and are from a fruit that weighed over 60 pounds.  Our challenge for 2021 is to secure a UK record for the Heaviest Cantaloupe Melon.

What can you plant?

You can still sow lots of crops, for harvests into autumn and beyond. They include lettuce, rocket, spring onion, radish plus winter salads.  Now is the perfect time to plant potatoes for Christmas.  First early varieties such as Charlotte, Maris Peer and Nicola are our recommended varieties.  Plant them in a container and use good quality compost.  You can use Dalefoot Compost which is an organic sheepswool compost. 

As summer draws to a close there is plenty to keep us busy, including essential garden maintenance. Kevin shares his tips at In the Garden with Giant Veg - Preparing for Autumn.

Don't miss the next edition of 'Grow Your Own With GiantVeg' - until then -'Happy Harvesting'!

All photos credit to Kevin @GiantVeg