The 2015 Allotment / Veg Patch Thread Part 3 already!

[agoodbook]

Just seen the other is full , so here goes - we are heading for summer now! Welcome to everyone old and new :)

here is a link to the previous thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/2350947-The-2015-Allotment-Veg-Patch-Thread-Part-2?msgid=54546739

have not done anything but sitting in the garden and enjoying the flowers.

bearleigh - I've just googled, and that looks like that may be on my list for buying! it looks good - saw Taunton Deane as well , decisions......
Too busy for plot today - tomorrow is going to be a planting day I think - leeks/cabbages/savoy/kale/more broccoli , hope I have enough time - work will get in the way.....

There's also a perennial broccoli that I fancy trying (mostly because I like growing unusual things).

Evening all,

A good hour up at the plot tonight saw my courgettes planted out. They are still very small and vulnerable looking, I am going to worry about them. I made each one a little straw nest, mainly so I can see them and not accidentally tread on them as they are next to a poorly defined path.

First strawberry eaten too .

Today I rescued a cucumber plant from homebase but I have just realised I have no idea what to do with it. So I am hitting my Dr H books and googling like crazy. I have also committed a veggie faux pas! I have managed to plant all my brassicas together which I have discovered means nothing will grow well and the soil will be drained of all nutrients! Amateur!! I have also shoved some root veg and lettuce in so maybe it isn't all bad? Reassurance anyone??? Tomorrow I am spending as much of my day off at the plot. I am going to dig out and mulch all my strawberries and feed then net them before my lovely bird neighbours eat the lot. I'm also going to move as much of the crap I have dug out from off my plot so I can see what else I have to do I might dig out the sprouts and re-site them and replace them with my leftover brassicas? Who knows. Onwards and upwards,

We've had a bit much of nature, red in tooth and claw. I'd forgotton to shut the pophole on my laying hens Of course we got a visit from our vulpine neighbours and nothing left but feathers.
A couple of hens with chicks took advantage of my grief and went on a garden raid. - Don't know how they got in they could'nt get out again. They had scratted two courgettes to bits and were started on the radishes.
Something has been eating my strawberries - the whole plant, one plat has vanished completely and none of my salad or spinach seed hss germinated

On the plus side the fat baby have germinated, wooo hooo. We have also been cropping lettuce.

good morning!
well, not so good for violet horrible....my spinach has been a bit hit and miss on germination , I have 2 short rows at the plot - 1st didn't germinate, 2nd did a week later, so hoed and resowed 1st row , and no sign yet.., but the stuff in pots at home doing really well -
Linski - don't panic - if its just this first year putting all your brassicas together, thats absolutely fine - thats what I do , and then you plant them somewhere else next year, so the pests and diseases don't build up in that area - that's the crop rotation system - its easier to net/protect them when they are all together as well!( I do the 4 year crop rotation)

forgot Linski - I pot my cucumbers in a generous size pot on the greenhouse floor, then water and feed like tomatoes, then let them get on with it!

violet - I'm so sorry . That sounds horrible.

I got my first proper 'veg box' off the plot last night - leeks, peas, a few broad beans (my crop isn't good), a cauliflower, a cabbage! I felt mighty proud carrying them out of the gate. I wanted someone to stop and coo over them but unfortunately there was nobody about. And probably people wouldn't do that anyway, unless (like me) they were a bit mental.

shove - joy isn't it- and where are the pics - we could have coo'ed!

you are well ahead of me - I have just used the last of the spring cabbage, I have stopped picking asparagus, and the spinach is about a week away, as are the broad beans and lettuce - and the strawberries just need to get on with it and ripen .

goodbook I should have taken a picture, shouldn't I!

The cabbage is a 'spring' one - mine were really late this year. I would like to blame the weather but actually it was my fault because I allowed them to be ravaged into brassica skeletons by pigeons, which meant that they had to regrow! (Which they did remarkably successfully, slightly to my surprise). My broad beans and peas went in over October/November and I planted a second load a few weeks ago so hopefully I will get loads and loads as I do love them and could happily just eat them out of the pod all day. The peas have worked really well and I will definitely be doing another load next year. The beans haven't been as good, but again I think this is probably my fault in that they didn't have enough support to get through our recent windy patch and got really bashed around.

I think I have basically made a mistake with every single crop that I have grown, but fortunately most haven't been terminal. I'm learning all the time, and hopefully I won't repeat any of them I will just find new creative ways to screw things up!

Hopefully today's weather will set your strawberries a-ripenin'.

What are juneberries and wineberries? I don't think I've heard of them before.

I am impatient for my loganberries to start ripening. I have one in the back garden and it is full of fruit. Just need to some sun to get some colour on the plants.

150 squash plants! There was me panicking about finding space for 5 squashes and 3 pumpkins

I have not spent all day at my scruffy plot, I have spent all day st my house waiting for deliveries for OTHER PEOPLE!! Which have call been late and now I am trapped here as ds is due home in twenty mins so I now can't leave. however, I have cleared all my garden borders filled them with border plants and then mulched the lot. I have tidied up all the flower beds removed bits of weeds and topped up all the flower beds for my house and next doors with top soil and given everything a good soak. So not a wasted day. At least I have tomorrow.

Ooh forgot! Thanks agoodbook for the advice it is gratefully received. I am greatly reassured. violet poor you and the chickens

Thankyou all for poultry symoathy the guilt makes it worse, I know we have a fox problem. I forgot to shut the pophole.
shove I now have a wonderful mental image of you and carefully swaddled vegetables
goodbook Ive got a few bits to re sow so I'll try the spinach again.

What are juneberries and wineberries...

Juneberries - AKA Amelanchier - a gorgeous blossom, and then berries and then red leaves in the autumn. I have 3 at home and 2 at the community gardens. I also know of about 200 planted along a road near me.

Wineberries - related to brambles but a fantastic red berry that gets sweeter if you leave it a few more days on the plant. Once it starts ripening you have to go each day and pick off all the dark red berries and just eat them straight off the plant.

So today - we did seed bombing, the students chopped back a load of dock that was trying to go to seed, and then got a thirst for doing some grafting and dug out a load of self seeded plums and moving a load of huge stones out of the way of our new mandala bed that we are developing.

Tomorrow I am running 'Gardening on a Budget' in the afternoon. I am praying for some rain storms because it will be SO hot otherwise...

Oh and an Achocha has germinated; no rush mate in your own time!

Evening!
such a lovely day
I was praying for rain tomorrow as well , but looks like it may be Saturday for us in Yorkshire.
Been busy planting in the brassica cage - kale/broccoli/savoy cabbage - it is nearly full, just half a dozen late sprouting broccoli to plant, but they are too small yet.
Also weeded properly and dug over the area where my spring cabbage had been, added some rotted manure, and planted strawberry runners ( potted up from last year)- I have to resite my strawberry bed for next year, as it is in totally the wrong place now I have netted for rabbits
Weeded - they are springing up like triffids.....
Now it just needs to rain !!

For a moment I thought you had rabbits like triffids.
I think its rabbits that have had my strawberry plants.
Makes a change from cows.

I have had a good sort out in my plastic grow house and it is full! It is 6x4 and I can't fit much more in it. How tall do cucumbers grow? My biggest one is very curled over as the stem broke when it was a seedling. I have staked it up as it has one cucumber almost ready, (have had one of it already) and there are about 5 growing on it now. And I have two more that is have out in about 25cm pots, is that big enough?!

Can anyone also advise me on aubergines? I have five, one is about a foot tall and the others about 8 inches. They seem to grow very slowly though. Do they grow ok outside, in the South East?

And exciting news, I have a courgette almost ready! I will let it grow another 2-3 cms I reckon. And I have some baby green tomatoes. And potatoes flowering! I am so happy as it is my first year growing anything!
On my allotment, my broad beans and peas are going well, potatoes too. After buying slug pellets things seem to be growing better.

Can anyone advise if I need to keep my purple sprouting brocolli or calabrese covered with netting right from the start?

I wish I could talk about the first signs of different fruits appearing or my vegetables poking their promising heads up from the spoil but all I have to offer is that I spent a few hours yesterday digging up my new vegetable patch at the allotment. It was back breaking work. I'm still aching. Bravo on your first vegetable haul shovetheholly . I can't wait to have something to show for my hard work.

I love your kind of gardening mousmous i love having a quiet cup of tea first thing in the morning and pottering ... However minikimmi normally has other plans!!

The front garden is looking good - the pallet gardening is going well, and I think we will put in raised beds next year. The strawberries have been planted, hopefully we will get lots more plants for next year.

I'm a bit worried about my peas now, they haven't been netted :-( I haven't covered anything (although my brassicas are not here yet)

My Logan berry has flowers but no fruit yet, and I think it might take over the whole garden if I turn my back for too long!! The blackberries (which were new in this year) are completely pathetic in comparison!!

thanks karate
I have about 10 min in the morning between shower and kids waking up that I use for a cuppa in a sunny spot.

violet - last year we did think rabbits were the devil- they decimated everything, so I can commiserate .
Pirates - cucumbers are in the curcubit family ( squashes and courgettes) and tend to scramble around, and twirl round things rather than growing up as such - I just train the tendrils to go where they are least in the way :)
I am growing aubergines for the first time this year - mine are only about 5" tall, and yes seem to be slow growing. Mine are in the greenhouse - I read up that they like heat, and do best under glass
Purple sprouting and calabrese- mine are under net from the start- I've found that it is just easier - depending on which netting you use, it will deter the cabbage white butterflies ( so your calabrese won't be crawling with caterpillars! ) and then stops the birds ripping them apart come autumn/winter
Diet - hope you can move today - get an area totally clear, and get some stuff in! :)
Karate - my loganberry is looking good, but not any flowers yet , though I haven't checked the last 2 days . I didn't net my peas last year, and they were fine - they were in a spot the pigeons couldn't get to easily though- this year, they stripped the leaves to the stalk

Bearleigh perennial vegetables.sounds like a reasonable sort of gardening. I wonder if there are a lot of varieties.
People growing blackberries you are very brave. They breed faster than rabbits, spread like disease and are vicious thugs... But very yummy