The 2015 Allotment / Veg Patch Thread - it's here!

[TheSpottedZebra]

Yes, it's the thread you've all been waiting for, a place to chit chat about your allotment or fruit and veg patch - however big it may be. Even if it currently only imaginary or no bigger than a pot of growing basil from the supermarket.

Come discuss your plans, your seeds, your learnings from previous years and your goals for this year. All levels of knowledge welcome, from absolute beginner, to enthusiastic 2nd year-er (me!), to anyone else.

agoodbook, quite right! Awfully bad form of me. I shall desist. Right after this! eeeeeeek!!...

Note the complete lack of seed compost! I'm growing organic and choices were limited

Or you could get a heated propagator, Amantes. They're brill.

I sowed my seeds in peat-free compost last year and it's rubbish (use new horizons normally). I caved and bought some John Innes (no 1 or 2, can't remember) last year but felt very guilty. Anyone have any recommendations for good, peat-free seed compost? I haven't got a compost bin yet, still trying to work out where to put it in our odd shaped garden

I used to have a couple bolshy - and gave them away . We have ssw facing windows now, so I thought I'd see how they fared on those sills before re-investing. Found several have just sprouted their seed leaves today! So might get away with it this year.

I persisted with peat free compost for years, but it was crap, so I too caved and bought "normal" last year. The peat free was always really coarse and full of twiggy bits, plus tiny fruit flies would always hatch from it, which I hated when I was growing my seedlings indoors. I've never used my own compost for growing in, it always gets dug into the garden, I've got great compost at home but not got going with any at the allotment yet. I think my home one thrives on all our fruit and veg scraps plus grass cuttings, so it will be interesting to see how I get on without those at the allotment.

Great tip about the GQT podcasts BTW, I regularly listen to R4 podcasts at work, but usually only Woman's Hour and Medical Matters, I can add GQT to my list.

Were they not thrips, WhoKnows? Very common in compost, particularly peat free! (...and a pet hate of mine )

Or sciarid fly bastards too!

I wouldn't know the difference TBH, just know I don't want them! Not such a problem now I don't do any indoor sowing though.

my parents used to nuke garden compost in the microwave before using it indoors for seedlings. dunno if that is ok or destroys too much good stuff as well.

Yes, I've heard that works too, but sounds a bit messy/faffy.

Nematodes for sciarid and thrip, just in case
www.greengardener.co.uk/product.asp?id_pc=4&cat=55&id_product=256

I've heard of microwaving too, mousmous. It is recommended for sterilising compost but I've not tried it.

I tried peat free as well - far too coarse and twiggy, wasn't rotted down enough by looks. I feel guilty, but needs must. Always loads of wildlife in there
PS Summer eh amantes - would that be purple sprouting? :) I'm still waiting to start picking mine !
WhoKnows - I thought I had lots of great compost as well at home, the first year without anything to put on the allotment , I bagged it all up and took it down - it didn't go anywhere, the sheer increase in surface area was a bit of an eyeopener!
At the allotment I compost everything I can apart from the horrible weeds- I am always surprised that almost everyone else gets rid of it in the recycle bin

It is indeed, a good book. An eaely variery. We've for four varieties to sow successively!

I'm going to await the appearance of the rest, with interest. The compost is organic and very barky. They might not all be strong enough to break through it! No beasties though, yet.

eaely variery? Early variety!

It's a shame peat renews so slowly but while the majority of homes in many countries still use it for heating, a few sacks each won't dent the usage I tell myself!

I tend to agree on the peat sadly.
I sow a lot of broccoli as we love it so much - the big headed calabrese as well. The best last year was a cross of Chinese and european called Brokali
( Atlantis) that saw us through from late June to October .
I was given a packet of 4 different ones this year as a thank you present, so will have to break those out and see what they are - they are designed to stagger the harvest over a longer time .
I am always surprised at how they do manage to germinate at all- they are so small, but tough little things.

Last year, I sowed my french and runner beans in my greenhouse - kept looking, nothing, kept looking, nothing - until I realised that a mouse had got in and had a feast. So I am now paranoid about my greenhouse-which is not good as I have lots to put somewhere

how about those cocos fibre rounds?
I know it's not great for potting on but for germinating it seemed fine.

I was given a packet of 4 different ones this year as a thank you present, so will have to break those out and see what they are - they are designed to stagger the harvest over a longer time .

This sounds like what we have!

Naughty mouse! I can't help but be a little bit impressed by its resourcefulness though

I think it was spotted who mentioned a way up thread about Lidl seeds. Unfortunately the closest Lidl is too far to drive for cheap seeds, but Aldi is within walking distance, and they have a seed multipack and soft fruit bushes in the specialbuy event starting thursday. Think I've just found my raspberry plants

I've made the family eat eggs all weekend just to empty a 15-slot egg box to chit my potatoes. Not obsessed. Not at all.

Thoughts about peat.....I've never been evangelical about avoiding peat since I lived on the Peat Moors in Somerset, where there's a lot of horticultural peat extraction.

Pre extraction, the land would typically be yer normal pasture. Post extraction, the ground level would be lowered by several feet, the pits would fill up with water, grow reeds, and be good for nothing...except nature reserves .

Ever since then, I've felt little guilt about using peat!

(disclaimer: there are different kinds of peat environment, obvs- I know, for example, that the Irish peat bogs are v. rich in wildlife in their natural state).

haha! stainless - I get the apple holder/seperate/layer thingys ( I have no idea what they are called! ) from the veg shop - they throw them away .

Is 15 enough :)

And I have an Aldi - may have to go and browse, even though I really don't need anymore

Amanates - that wasn't going through my head when I realised

Well,its blowing a gale here, and due snow this afternoon, so I have browsed and made a decision - !st early potatoes ordered - International Kidney, now need to buy some seaweed feed for them - any bets they taste like Jersey Royals, grown up here ? We shall see..... :)

Peat free is hopeless for seedlings :( this year I'm trying a layer of peat free then seed compost over the top.

I got my seeds from the real seed company today. Will sow my chilli seeds over the weekend. They need to get going really early to get a good crop.

Signing in

Took over our veg plot last year and it was getting late in the growing season.

We managed to do really well with courgettes even though I can't stand them (only planted them to make it look as if we were using the plot )

Need to get organised this year though.

I'd like to use a section of the plot for cut flowers but need some recommendations of easiest to grow

If you want to look like you're using the plot into autumn, pumpkins are great! And you can space out brassicas to the correct spacing too.

I found that in our first year, I ordered a "brassica collection " of plants and that worked great to fill up a large patch. Another full of potatoes, a bag of onion sets, a couple of cloves of garlic filled out the onion bed.

I need to scour catelogues this weekend, order seeds next week some stormy cold night, and start thinking about planting broad beans, salad leaves and radishes the following week.

On composting on the plot, I found I never had enough decent (I.e. ones I was happy to compost) weeds there. So at the end of the week, I would take home a green bin from the office of teabags, coffee grounds from the machine and anyone's fruit peelings/apple cores/peach stones etc that they wanted to add into it. I would bring that to the plot with me at the weekend. And I often brought a second black sack or Tesco bag of Saturdays' peelings/grounds/teabags too from home, if I had enough to be worthwhile. So the first year I had nothing to use, but the second year I had a small amount and the 3rd year was decent enough and proper compost (the 2nd year it had been very dry and not composted stuff in the bin at the start of the season, so that's why I changed my approach to adding in extras).