Hello! My name is Jessie Sheffield, I live in the UK and I have been Vlogging from an Allotment (Vegetable Garden) in SW London since the Covid-19 lockdown started in April 2020. The VLOGS are out on a Tuesday at 4.30pm GMT (Mondays for Patreons) and cover weekly goings on at the Allotment and in life in general. You'll find mostly veg growing but might have a bathroom renovation, a trip to the pub (very likely) and/or a day out to Kew Gardens thrown in. Its a Vlog after all.
The faces are generally Me (Jessie), my Mum (Kathleen), 4 Pekin Bantam hens (Ruby, Florence, Valery and Margo) and the fluffiest Allotment Cat ever (Lily).
I am also a regular contributor to The Potty Mouth Garden Club podcast/video! Happy gardening,
Another great vid Jessie. I'm enjoying heaps of yellow wax beans (a dwarf variety), and my berlotti beans are becoming impossible to support. I've just added an upside down broom as an additional support! Broad beans totally failed :-( . Usually I use a dehydrator with the berlotti beans but this year I may leave some to dry on the plant and save some 'leccy. Have you ever done that? Did it work? For the first time I'm growing melons in my cheap POS plastic greenhouse, and they look awesome so i want to pick one, but I'd hate to go early and waste it. Thanks for mentioning apple seeds killing hens - I've had to dash into our chicken run and pick up the apples I tossed in there yesterday.
Hi I noticed that as a roof vent on your greenhouse you have let the top pane drop and held in place with a length of wood do you close in winter or leave it open all year round I have an old second hand greenhouse with no vent in the roof to open so I was going to try this next year So does it work and thanks for great videos cheers Dave
Hi Jessie, I have grown cobra beans this year thanks to your recommendation, and I agree they are great, and so tasty, miles better than any shop-bought bean so thank you for that. I might also try violette next year too - they also look good. I never realised how much I love beans until I started growing my own, it's so cool. Another first for this year was growing tromboncino and they are so fun to grow too. Thank you for another great video - glad to see your tomatoes looking so healthy - I love tomatoes. 😊
Hi Jessie, the slugs ate halfway up my beans, ruddy things! So I’m only getting little bean harvests atm but courgettes, beets and tomatoes have started 🎉
Never heard of garlic kale hmmm I must look into that 😋 I love beans and so good for you. My favorites are dragon tongue and almost all Bush beans 🫘 😋 another great vlog ❤ 🍻 😊
I make dilly beans with my large straight cobra. Water bathing them for long-term storage. The perfect answer for preserving your beans as I agree that frozen doesn't work for me either. Nothing finer than crunchy beans in a salad in the middle of winter 😋.
Only an hour long video, shame. I could listen to you ramble on for another hour 😂. But I bet it’s hard work all that editing. Could we please have kitty cat update.
Hi Jessie, your raspberries are fruiting now. Does that mean that they are autumn fruiting variety (as in late summer)? Mine are fruiting too, but I am sure mine also fruited early in the summer, so I am not sure.
Well I must be doing something right if you're doing it too! I grow Cobra french beans too, they're fantastic and v prolific like you said. I've had several kilos of beans off my plants already this year, but unlike you I am preserving them as well as eating fresh, and have done for years now. I find if they're chopped and blanched for 3 mins before freezing they turn out great when steamed for 5 mins on the hob straight from frozen, and we eat them all though winter. Each to their own likings though, and nothing wrong with just eating them fresh although I do think I'd get sick of them every day! They save seed great, too, I've found excellent germination and plants from saved seed 🌱
Your tomatoes are catching up brilliantly! We have been harvesting our boring standard varieties like Rosella, Honeycomb, cherry grape Marzano (the latter being our own saved seed) and plain but prolific beefsteak Burlesque for over three weeks now. We harvest when they’re turning to encourage more fruits but the third trusses upwards just haven’t set and we’re running out of height space. Yours already have more fruit on than what we have left to ripen. Similar varieties in the back patio garden are setting far more fruit than in the greenhouse. Just a little further behind. We really must get our act together to buy say, Black Moon etc but we never can get seed when we remember!! Yes, our French beans are prolific this year. Overwhelm! Runners doing well too. Been harvesting those for two weeks now; they’re lovely and straight/long this year, not because they’re from our own saved runner bean seeds, but because, we’re sure, the weather has been conducive. Butternut squash are only just beginning to sprawl but I’m putting that down to both cold night temperature dips and VERY poor ground…. They were last minute. We don’t get fox/badger damage but we do get moles. They’ve lifted our entire autumn carrot harvest out the ground so I know how frustrating fauna can be for you! We vacuum seal and freeze blanched French beans with a knob of butter and boil them in the bag as a quick side. Already have enough to last a year they’ve been that prolific so leaving the rest for dry white “navy” beans. If the Roma (home developed seed) paste tomatoes don’t get blight, we’re planning on making our own canned baked beans this year using Becky of Seasonal Homestead’s ketchup recipe - diluted. We pop French beans into salads, can a few and can dilly beans, not much, just enough. Not grown other French beans for a couple of years because we’ve been trying to develop our own climbing green bean (white seed) seed bank. They’re getting expensive to buy what with shrink and stretch inflation!! 😬 We too had a great raspberry and blackcurrant harvest but not a good redcurrant. Wild blackberries are gorgeous this year. We don’t like them whole in pies, etc but do make a jelly to give game or cheese - which should make up for the one jar of redcurrant jelly. Not all is going well though! Our annual flowers are a disaster. We didn’t even get a good return of the usually reliable self seeding ones this year. Dill and coriander self seeding however was the best we’ve ever had! It’s been a trying year on so many fronts this year but we’re grateful…. So grateful…. for the few successes.
I only have left hands gloves! Lets get them together 😂. I got the felco 322 snips , is that more what you are looking for? Lovely to see you again , lots of love from Belgium ❤
Black Moon and Black Strawberry tomatoes have been surprisingly good and healthy for me, which I wasn’t expecting. Thought they’d be all looks and disappointing taste. I’ve had quite a challenging tomato season and these two tomatoes have been my best performer’s so far. Will definitely do them again next year! Top 2 for me so far… Alice’s Dream and Rebel Starfighter…. Sart Roloise still to ripen🤞🏻 Looking forward to your eventual taste test this season, particularly when you solve the Alice’s Dream and Sart Roloise case😂
Hi, enjoy your videos no matter how long, I grow the yellow Kentucky wonder pole beans with the right conditions they do good, but I also grow in containers so teepee is too short they do better against a wall with netting, you and your mom take care, till next week 👍
If im feeling like i cant botheted. I always get inspired by your vlogs. Its still so cold here though spring is next month..eep!! The garden centre where i work is slowly coming to life in readiness. Expecting tommie seedlings any day!
My Sunshine french beans are definitely not prolific. Mine have really struggled to climb the canes. But having said that my Cobra aren't anywhere near as good as they were last year either. This time last year I was getting way more Cobra than I can eat but this year I've only been getting handfuls. I'm hoping the recent heatwave will get my plants to bush out more. Yours look amazing covering the arches. I like the long videos. 45 mins to an hour is perfect from my point of view. I think I'd get Plot 37 withdrawal symptoms if they were only half an hour 😂.
Hey Jessie, Lotsa great information this week. I was thinking about your question about clippers or shears. I only buy the Felco products. I like the Felco Pruning Shears (F 310) - High Performance One-Hand Garden Pruners - F-310 it is rounded. I use these a lot......... FELCO F320 320 Snip, Harvesting Shear, Steel Handles, Curved Nickeled Blade, Re shorter in the tip length but it is rounded and I like these a lot also..... I do not like the pointed ones like Felco 321 and 322 they are pointed. They poke holes in ALL your pockets. Not sure how I know that..... This year I took three beans the green, yellow and purple colors of US, Italian and French varieties which is 9 different beans. I can not figure it out something is eating the French beans all the way down to the soil but not the Italian or US varieties???? I can let you know how they get on as the summer goes. I just started these two weeks ago. I do love to see your mom moving about and so involved in the garden right into the potato bed as you were digging. I did find myself smiling over that one. I do hope you are finding time to enjoy the garden and feel some pride in all the work the two of you are doing. Take care Cya next thyme, Steven
Jessie, the parched empty potato bed is a great opportunity to chuck in a bag of manure and grow a cover crop. Food for the soil. It's already been forked over so why not sow a load of old out of date seeds, let them grow on a bit then turn them in slightly or hoe them down. Then sow a load of field beans to over winter, then chop them down in early spring leaving the roots in the ground and the green material to rot down on the soil. Cover crops are great if you can bare to terminate them at the right time.
Picked our first beans this evening! Cosse Violette. So chuffed to have any as slugs just destroyed all that we put out, despite multiple sowings! And I thought that the cobra plants were done for but found 2 beans on a feeble looking hidden plant. Yay! 😂 I look forward to Tuesdays and feel sad when the video is over, knowing I have to wait for another week, so the longer the better for me. Sending lots of love Oh I would love to see that recipe for the slow cooked beans 🤤 x
