Page 11 - Simply Vegetables Autumn 2024

Sweet peppers
keep the plants in the ground as Dad’s had them flower a second time before, so we’ll see whether we get the same from these.
These are super easy to grow and don’t take up too much space at all as they’re a bush variety. One thing I would flag though is their system for anchorage is not up to scratch if there’s any amount of wind, and therefore always best to stake them or you end up losing the plant entirely where it blows over and snaps off.
Courgettes
Much to my disgust, the courgette plants have been disappointing this year. I put it down to a mixture of bad weather conditions for courgettes, an influx of blackfly and then a very early entrance from powdery mildew. We’ve had a few courgettes of the various shapes and colours that we’ve planted, but nothing compared to other years.
As we only have space to grow our courgettes in pots, I think we’ll have to have a re-think next year about what varieties we focus on. Some clearly detest being in the pots and do everything in their power
Lettuce cultivars
week-on-week to grow in any direction that is not up the stake they’ve been provided with. And they seem even more annoyed when week-on-week I come along with
a piece of string and attach them back
to it! Jokes aside, the plants just aren’t bred to be grown in this way, meaning the courgettes are much further spaced out than the compact container varieties and so often reach the top of their take before many courgettes have been produced. The leaves are also much larger and on longer stalks and so are often unable to support themselves when growing up a stake.
We’ll have to do some serious research on the different types of container courgette that are out there, otherwise
it might have to be 10 Midnight plants in 2025!
Peppers/chillis
Peppers and chilli plants are looking very happy so far this year. I think we’ve got
the timing of the sowing right now, which means we have a long enough season
for them to grow a decent sized plant, set peppers/chillies AND most importantly, for
those fruits to ripen.
The plants seem to be laden with fruits
this year, which is exciting, with the first of them starting to ripen this week.
Other bits and pieces
They’re the key things we’ve been growing this year, but there are a few other bits to share.
We’ve had successive sowings of lettuces: Little Gem, Red Little Gem, Red Cos and Iceberg type. It’s starting to get a bit hot here for lettuces now, so they tend to run to seed prematurely, but we’ll still have lettuce for the next few weeks at least.
The herbs are also doing alright, and it’s great to be able to pop out into the garden and pick fresh herbs to put in the dinner.
Finally, we have some flowers dotted around for a bit of colour. The deadheading is not my favourite job. I know the vegetables also take tending, tying up and taking offside shoots, etc. but at least you get to eat something at the end. I’m still yet to see the attraction of a nasturtium flower on my salad!
Simply Vegetables 11