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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

The 2015 Allotment / Veg Patch Thread Part 2

997 replies

agoodbook · 08/04/2015 22:49

the previous thread is just about full, - well done spotted so welcome to everyone interested in growing their own veg!

Previous thread is here
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/2282529-The-2015-Allotment-Veg-Patch-Thread-its-here?msgid=53650520

OP posts:
Thread gallery
79
shovetheholly · 27/04/2015 15:45

3 days of work, 10,567* bits of aluminium, 30 bits of 4 mm glass, 100 m of rubber, 50 glazing beads, 2 vents, 10 louvre panes, more swearing than The Thick of It, and an extremely wonderful and patient DH doing about 80% of the work while I fussed over the instructions....but we finally did it. THE GREENHOUSE IS UP!

Excuse my leggy hebe.

(*OK, so I'm exaggerating a little. But only a little.)

The 2015 Allotment / Veg Patch Thread Part 2
LetThereBeCupcakes · 27/04/2015 15:48

shove that is a thing of beauty.

shovetheholly · 27/04/2015 15:54

Oooh, and so many lovely posts to read since I was last on. rhubarb - what a lovely garden you visited, and so great to see a picture of baby rhubarb. I love kids when they are that age - they are so full of imagination, yet old enough to really start understanding the world.

goodbook - your picking tray looks amazing! Those leeks! You must be super-pleased.

Zebra - Your rhubarb looks amazing! For footwear, I have a really, really old pair of walking boots for doing the garden in. They are warmer than wellies, which always make my feet freeze, and I end up doing a strange kind of dance just to feel them again!

I have to go to the allotment tonight and harvest all my broccoli as it's going over. I think I said it was a calabrese variety. I totally lied (though not intentionally) - it's cape broccoli. I am going to have literally a whole blue Ikea bag full of the stuff so I'm going to have to blanch and freeze it I think! Shock If anyone has any ideas how on earth I can use it, they would be really welcome.

PlumpingThePartTimeMother · 27/04/2015 17:26

shove that is glorious! Did you know that you can make broccoli cheese? Grin

DH just came in to find me cooing over the T and M plant catalogue (flowers). He shook his head in a disturbed fashion and said 'You are basically growing sex organs, you know.'

He doesn't understand gardening.

shovetheholly · 27/04/2015 17:28

BROCCOLI CHEESE?! Surely not! googles recipes immediately

I feel like a childhood of hating this vegetable was quite unnecessary. Someone will be telling me you make chocolate pudding out of sprouts next. Grin

HapShawl · 27/04/2015 17:29

there is evidence to suggest that they've been growing sex organs since the middle ages...

PlumpingThePartTimeMother · 27/04/2015 19:07

creates chocolate-covered sprouts - [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16771677 Ahem]]

hap Shock

PlumpingThePartTimeMother · 27/04/2015 19:10

Link fail! www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16771677

HapShawl · 27/04/2015 19:17

chocolate sprouts Shock

(I should credit MNer jeannedemontbaston for the penis tree!)

TheSpottedZebra · 27/04/2015 19:22

Loving the penis tree - that would liven up the front garden no end (ahem).

Shove IT'S UP! lovely greenhouse, and lovely garden too!

I've not tried this - yet broccoli cake, savory

HapShawl · 27/04/2015 19:25

I am supremely envious of the greenhouse. It looks brilliant. I also like the colour of your shed

agoodbook · 27/04/2015 20:11

shove - lovely picture of garden, marvellous jigsaw work on greenhouse!

  • I make broccoli and stilton soup when I have too much broccoli - not that that happens often :) and for later in the season I have a fabulous recipe for courgette brownies, I kid you not!
Cupcakes - 20 metres to another apple tree/crab apple is fine, as long as it flowers in the same general time
OP posts:
LetThereBeCupcakes · 27/04/2015 20:47

Hap I am Shock at that picture! Grin

GnomeDePlume · 28/04/2015 06:06

Zebra, yes my work boots are good for digging. They are wide though - they are great for my circular feet. No ankles here either so my legs go straight up - like an elephant's!

shovetheholly · 28/04/2015 07:46

Plumping - chocolate sprouts!!! Zebra - broccoli cake! It's like all my childhood dreams are coming true Grin

I like this blog post about HapShawl's penis tree, which suggests it's a female illustrator's revenge on the misogynistic text. It's not smut, it's girl power! (And smut too)

readingmedievalbooks.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/jeanne-de-montbaston-penis-trees-against-the-misogynists/

I am having a dilemma today. I am away for a week from 11 May, which comes at a bad time of year for my gardening, but finding time for holidays in DH's diary is an increasingly fraught affair which basically only happens when I give him the look and a well-worn speech about work/life balance. Anyway, I'm having a bit of a panic about how I keep things alive in the greenhouse during the break. I'll be leaving the door open and meshed, and I can ask our lovely neighbours to water once but more than that and I feel I'd be taking advantage of their very good nature. How do you all manage this?

PeaceOfWildThings · 28/04/2015 08:51

Shove - brocolli is great in a deep quiche.Make the 'custard' with eggs and crème fraîche, add herbs and spring onion or grainy mustard if you like, stand brocolli florettes on end like trees in your pre/par cooked pastry case, and pour the custard around the florettes. Cook then freeze.

I also love garlic with brocolli, and in a stir fry with hoisin sauce.

violetwellies · 28/04/2015 09:39

Broccoli yum, broccoli and blue cheese soup, broccoli and cauliflower cheese, broccoli with Chinese veg, on its own...

Does anyone know anything about chrysanthemum I had a big bunch given and two stems have rooted. They're lovely,white with a pink blush.
What do I do for the best chance of survival?

agoodbook · 28/04/2015 21:13

good evening!
shove - is the greenhouse stuffed? in the past I have put plants in my kitchen sink/bath etc with damp newspaper underneath, or a cool north facing bedroom to reduce water stress? It seems a shame but also greenhouse shading may be worth a thought. I was gifted one of those automatic watering systems and tried it on my tomatoes, a couple of years ago- but basically it gave out after about 3 days
violet - no personal experience of propagating chrysanthemums, but if they already have roots, you are already nearly there - pot up and keep an eye on them I guess?
I haven't been to allotment for a couple of days - and the rest of the week is looking a bit bleugh, but hoping to catch an hour tomorrow . I was in Aldi and got some weed suppressant matting - a bit the wrong size as it was 10m x 1m , but if I cut in half to make it 5m x 2m , I have enough to cover a patch on the new bit that I don't think I have time for until the autumn - it was only £3.99 so worth a punt!

OP posts:
Linskibinski · 28/04/2015 22:13

Tonight is the last night of a seven year wait for my first plot! Tomorrow at 10am I meet council dude to have chat about rules etc before I am handed my keys. After years of growing spuds in bags and herbs in pots, I finally have a whole half plot all to myself. I am so excited, but nervous as well, at the extent of the possible weed drama's that lay ahead. I have snaffled myself a bunch of tools second hand but I am treating myself to a brand new Dutch hoe tomorrow. I am surrounded by gardening books and I've watched ridiculous amounts of you tube videos on digging! I have searched mumsnet for all the allotment experiences of others which has led me to this lovely thread. I should be very useful here for providing endless laughs at my woeful inexperience. I am also happy to make brews for all. GrinFlowersBrewBrew

HapShawl · 28/04/2015 22:19

Happy plot-eve linski!

agoodbook · 28/04/2015 22:19

welcome Linski - there are loads of lovely people on here, just wade in and ask - we all have our highs and lows, regardless of experience. - Is your plot well looked after, neglected or brand new? and have you plans :) -

OP posts:
TheSpottedZebra · 28/04/2015 22:35

Welcome, Linski and how exciting!
But you will have to be really thick if you think that you can be more woefully inexperienced than me... Grin

You'll have to yell us all about your plot after your meeting tomorrow. What do you plan to grow, do you know?

TragicallyUnbeyachted · 28/04/2015 22:43

Hello I have a new plot too, so wading in. It's about 15m x 5m, pretty neglected. So far (last couple of weeks) I've stripped back and dug over about 2/3 of it I am tempted by "no dig" but this is riddled with horsetail and not even the greatest no dig advocate suggests that you can beat horsetail with it, so I suspect I have a couple of years at least of dig before I can consider switching. But I'm structuring it in 2m x 2m (ish) beds anyway.

So far I have in broccoli, cauliflower, beetroot, spinach, spring onions, a couple of types of lettuce, potatoes (need to buy more seed potatoes), two types of carrots (one that's apparently good with stony ground), autumn raspberry canes, a couple of blackcurrant bushes and a dwarf apple tree that was in a pot on my balcony and I thought was dead until it suddenly blossomed a week or so ago -- not expecting any fruit off it this year, but it'll be a lot happier in the ground and there are plenty of bees at the allotment so it may even get fertilised next year. I'm planning additional sweetcorn (the packet says to plant it next month if sowing directly outside), pumpkins and quinoa (my mother has some spare seedlings that she's throwing my way).

This is all a bit random this year on a basis of just getting things in so that I manage to harvest something, but I need to work out a proper rotation system for the vegetable beds and want to acquire more fruit bushes next year (gooseberries, at least).

HapShawl · 28/04/2015 22:48

I have to tell you I love your username tragicallyunbeyachted Grin

Is the lemon in play?

TragicallyUnbeyachted · 28/04/2015 22:58

Just off to X-ray the geese.