The 2015 Allotment / Veg Patch Thread Part 2

[agoodbook]

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

Hello and welcome violet what a great place to start from - if you had chance to read any of the first thread, you will find you are ready to go virtually. If you have had mulch on the last 2 years, that is your soil! Hopefully when you dig it in there will be lots of worms which have been pulling it all down .
Best advice that I personally can give - plant what you like to eat! And just work out how much sun/shade you have. If its under a window , you may need to keep an eye on the watering - it tends to be dry next to a wall ( unless its very big?)

spotted I've sown corn on the basis it's spring. no idea if it's the optimum time to do it or not.

put one row of spuds in today.

Welcome, Violet ! Have you many seeds? I have. I keep on buying them, even when I have no idea what to do with them, or where I'll grow them. Eg my sweetcorn! Wellies and cow, sheep, chickens? Are you on a farm?

agoodbook I have Sweet Nugget. It's the same family/type (super sweet) as yours I think. I have just realised that I read somewhere that you're meant to isolate different families of sweetcorn aren't you? And I have no idea what others at the allotment will grow... Hey ho. I hope that supersweet is the most common one.

I think I'll start mine soon. Maybe I will continue my experimental ways and sow 2 successional blocks, with some soaked and some not. I must remember to label properly as otherwise my experiments are futile.

violetwellies hi - that just sounds like the no dig method of soil improvement to me!

i planted sweetcorn in a propagator on my windowsill about 10 days ago and now have 12 healthy looking seedlings which need to be put in bigger pots at the weekend, they will then have to move out to the greenhouse so i can put other things in the propagator, but i might put fleece over them - we're in the south so fairly warm at the moment, but we did have a frost last week.

french marigolds, morning glory, and tomatoes have all germinated too.

Logic, meglet -makes sense to me.

Er, on Gardener's World, Month has just said that if you're growing veg, you have to grow peas. And I'm not other than asparagus peas which everyone says ming. I don't even have any pea seeds! Maybe I shall buy more!

marigolds are brilliant to watch germinating i think. those funny-shaped seeds on the surface

my peas are 6" tall in pots in my dining room and a couple are starting to flower .

think its too warm inside or I have to pinch them out. must Google it.

Oh, corn needs warmth to germinate? will the airing cupboard do it, as I want to sow the corn in fibre pots and my heated prop is only tiny.

Oh, you put marigold seeds on the surface? Oops.
I planted marigolds the other day, but guess what - no germination yet. I wonder why...

Hello again! Popping in again to remind me to get down to the allotment soon and not faff about on the internet! Just need to persuade the rest of my life not to keep getting in the way of the digging ...

I am feeling smug :) - I am growing the same pea as Monty, and thats how I sow them - I called it a zigzag, and he called it a grid . However, I have tried peasticks, and they were a nightmare to harvest- I will be doing the deeply unlovely canes and netting -e specially as I have lots of spare netting, and no peasticks.
spotted you need to grow all the same sweetcorn together, otherwise as they are wind pollinated you don't necessarily get the cob you thought you were !

spottedzebra different ones might have different instructions on the packets? mine all said to sow on the surface with a light scattering of vermiculite but not to exclude light as it aids germination. the ones i sowed last weekend have mostly germinated. i have some i sowed in february which are now quite a good size but obviously need protection for a while yet

I sowed my corn in in paper pots sat on a tray on my dining room table :)

meglet peas dont need to be warm, best outside- you have loads of time to sow more, but get those hardening off !

you can almost watch them lever themselves out of the seed before your eyes, it's extraordinary

Oh no, I've probably just done them wrong! And now I don't get to see them sprout.
Well, good old Lidl seed @ 29p a pack, luckily I bought 2 packs.And only sowed a bit of the 1st packet. So luckily, I can redo, properly

I sound a right old failure, don't I. Erm, my rhubarb is going great guns. Have eaten a lot of it already, and given some away too. I guess it's an early variety as others' isn't doing quite as well, thus far. I seem to have a small army of tomato seedlings too. And I got another free packet through post today (from that Gardener's World blight-resistant giveaway thing) so I will soon have yet more.

My father used to dip peas in paraffin as anti mouse deterrent

I've heard that before violet :)
spotted - I am just in the process of trying to palm some of mine off - I really, really don't need more than 18 all together to fit in my greenhouse. DH insists it will only fit 12 ....

I'm on a small farm (organic) and I've bought far too many seeds from the real seed catalogue.
Under the windows very dry, a few feet further out quite dry. But it's all a lot wetter for the mulch.

The first year I was here I just cleared a small patch and planted rhubarb and strawberries, unfortunately the cows got in and they lurve strawberries, the rhubarb got flattened in the rush.

I have corn germinated [from Franchi seeds] and Cupani sweetpeas [from ones picked off the ground at Ryton Gardens long before I worked there and saved year in year out] and this makes me smile. I love both. Wahoo.

Also, peas, broadies and yukina savoy [from a seed circle I run] and put a bed to a flower mix interplanted with swedes yesterday. I had the flower mix already as seedlings as I sow trays of seedlings [random] for the courses I run so that people can practice transplanting things. These had got too big to use.

Now our main course is over, I will be doing more gardening over the next fortnight. Yippee.

First though today is finally get my greenhouse mended.

No plotting for me today as we have... loads of rain again! The forecast says sunny-ish this afternoon, so it should hopefully dry my quagmire enough for me to go and play tomorrow briefly. So today, I have to content myself with my seeds and seedlings at home. So, corn will be sown.

Alternative your courses sound lovely, and the thought of swedes and flowers mixed together makes me smile for some reason. Already at the allotment site I have a rep for being 'one of them' due to my not glyphosphating everything and not sticking to straight lines, and not mowing under my tree. Swedes with flowers would blow people's mind.

Violet I grew up on a cattle farm, and never knew that cows love strawbs!

My tomatoes are up! They only took 5 weeks . Pretty much everything I've sown has germinated now, just waiting for the cucamelons.

Blueberries were treated to a nice tidy up yesterday - just need to snip off the little dead bits but that's an easy job for when DS is in bed.

Need to get on and get my parsnips in. I'm also fretting about my lack of peas having watched last night's gardener's world!

my cucamelons took ages, because i don't think there is anywhere in this whole house that is ever 24C, let alone consistently so! i did wonder about getting a heated propagator but they have come up now

I've got some seed for round courgette, what do I do with it? - Do I soak seed, will fibre pots be good, shall I put them on the mantelpiece above Rayburn or (colder but lighter) windowsill?????