Allotments 4 All

Grandpa's cress is a land cress , it's from HSL , it's very easy to grow with a great flavour I will now grow it instead of rocket. I think viola plants see me coming , ripe seeds ... now you see them now you don't ... but I have plenty to share . Ipomoea Tutu, the first few flowers are the standard sort but as the plant grows the show begins, fingers crossed they come true .

I shall for one be very happy to receive your land cress seeds. I was just this week reflecting on the fact that for a few years I'd relied on land cress to self-seed but that it now seems to have finally died out, and all my saved seed is old now.
And the Ipomoea and Viola much looked forward to too.

This is the isolated/handpollinated Golden Marbre that I cut up earlier this year.  It was grown last year, but too late for the seed circle.  It is producing true offspring from a few seeds I used this year to verify that handpollination.  A candidate for the seed circle. 

Here is the Early Prolific Straightneck Squash also growing this year.  This fruit is isolated/handpollinated and I hope its seeds will be ready in time for the circle distribution. 

Just noticed that RealSeeds retail this too, but a different strain of it.  Mine were from Denali Seeds in Alaska, bought when getting seeds from the USA was still widely possible some twenty years ago.  This strain has the number 353, but its history also goes back nearly 90 years. 

Here are both urls, first RealSeeds
https://www.realseeds.co.uk/courgettes.html

then Denali, my source of seeds
https://www.bestcoolseeds.com/collections/squash/products/squash-summer-early-prolific-straightneck-353

It will be great to have your Golden Marbre squash, Galina. I've become more and more of a fan of pattypan squash over the last two or three years. One cuts up and roasts so easily for two or three people as an accompaniment for summer vegetables.
It seems to take a lot of application in the UK to catch any cucurbits for hand pollination,so that I'm lucky if I succeed with more than one or two a year. This year I have one large hand pollinated courgette from your Hungarian zucchini, galina, which I think I successfully hand pollinated. It's a courgette I value for being early and productive, so I hope to have those seeds ready in time to contribute.

Yes, it is less of a struggle here, I will freely admit.  But I managed to keep almost all of my varieties going in Rushden too, at times resorting to growing them in the greenhouse.  So I sympathise.  Most parts of Britain are at the edge of what squashes love in terms of growing conditions. 

This was my rationale when I bought these Straightneck squash seeds from an Alaskan seed company.  If they succeed there, surely they also do in Rushden!  And they did.  So I hope all will go well with this fruit.  It has changed shape, put on at least another 2 inches in length and is now getting fatter at the bottom, more club shaped. 

Congratulations on getting the Hungarian to work for you, Jang.  It is so frustrating to have several male flowers and waiting for a female, or when we have a heatwave, it is the opposite, the plants develop female flowers, but there are no males.  it is nice when it all comes together. 

By the way, that Golden Marbre Squash was still perfectly edible in March, when I harvested the seeds.  I cut it into wedges along the bumps and fried them.  Almost like winter squash, - patty pans do tend to keep reasonably well. 

Two of the Golden Marbre plants growing from the seeds of the mature one in the photo above.

Is anybody interested in Buttercup squash?  Got a couple of handpollinated ones and several more just for eating.  We normally cut these open after Christmas, as they keep so well, but these early handpollinated ones look pretty full sized now, so by the time the seed circle comes around, the seeds should be ready. 

I'd be very interested in seeds of 'Buttercup'. It's a squash variety which has eluded me for some time. Quite an old standard I believe. It's one of the parents of the landrace Juliev contributed last year.

Given the greater difficulty, at least for me, of hand pollinating Cucurbita in UK, your squash successes are particularly welcome, Galina.

And your Golden Marbre looks beautifully prolific.

Quote from: JanG on August 14, 2025, 07:54:36One cuts up and roasts so easily for two or three people as an accompaniment for summer vegetables.

Your quote actually made me think of it for the circle, although Buttercup is a pretty standard commercial squash.  Different flavour and texture to Golden Marbre, very dry and quite sweet flesh, that goes well with other things.  Bakes and fries beautifully and stores well.  Some can turn quite colourful in storage, with a reddish hue that looks very decorative. 

We have Galina, Auntie Madge, Ambrosia Gold, Bosque Bumblebee, Stupice (and Papa Gary, one I am developing) all picked in the last hour.  Thanks chaps for this seed circle bounty, (not all from last year).  Tomato salad tonight   

And there are potatoes to dig up.  This time it was Pink Dog, bred by the originator of this seed circle, Jayb.  Pink Dog is doing well with really nice salad spuds and the harvest was big.  Most of the tubers are long, hinting at their ancestry of the famous salad potato, Pink Fir Apple.  Such a useful shape for slicing into 'pennies' for potato salad.  But occasionally we get crazy shapes, like one of the potatoes in the photo! 

Pink Fir Apple itself is not good with late blight, but Jayb managed to cross them with the very blight resistant Sarpo Kifli, and as a result her potatoes are doing well with late blight. 

However this year Pink Dog surprised me - it made berries for the first time.  This has never happened in all the years I have grown them.  Would you like some of these tps for the circle? 

The other photo is of one of the handpollinated buttercups. 

I always enjoy growing some potatoes from seed, so your tps from Pink Dog would be very welcome.

This year I'm growing on the potatoes I grew last year from your Pink Fir Apple x Inky Squid seed which was another Jayb cross. I called it Inky Fir Apple at first but I rather like the sound of inky Fir Squid. I had some very dark blue and some slightly lighter ones. They made surprisingly vigorous plants for their first year and I dug them up quite late by which time they had got a little chewed but yielded plenty of seed potatoes for this year. I'm looking forward to digging them up soon but of course the drought has affected all potatoes so the crop might be small. I'd like to keep it going though.

This would be another very interesting cross with Pink Fir Apple, valuable for its blight resistance. I believe Jayb also did one or two other crosses with Sarpo Kifli? 

And likewise very appreciative of several tomato varieties from the Seed Circle. In my case, Boxcar Willie, Silvery Fir Tree, Blue Beauty, Fruity Yellow, Borgo Celano, Ambrosia Rose UBX, Ron's Carbon Copy, Mango Lassi, Sunfired Flare.

Ambrosia Rose UBX was from the 2022 circle. I'm growing two plants. One has small cherry tomatoes and one larger slicing size. They both have the same smoky pink colour. I'm wondering whether anyone else has had a variation in size.

I had an Ambrosia Red that was the wrong size, way larger than a cherry, which we ate and enjoyed, but did not continue with. 

Yes, I wish Jayb was still visiting to see what has become of her seed circle under the dedicated admin of JanG.  I think she would be rightly proud. 

And it is good to be able to continue with her potato creations with seeds.  Sadly the lovely Snookie is no more here, but has been replaced by various Snookie derived similar varieties, all grown from Snookie tps.  Snookie tps number 4 (sorry I haven't given it a proper name, but I grew 4 plants from tps the last year in Rushden), has itself produced a berry this year, so her creations live on in many new but similar varieties.  I am glad that the last tps contribution did so well for you, Jang, and hope that despite drought will produce decently this year too.