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

Raining here too, I have been admiring my red cabbage army from the bathroom window, (view from the loo) How much room will they need.
I've got spare onion sets and am going to put them where the ravaged raddish reside, the survivors are pathetic.

At the moment I don't have a kitchen, so I'm looking for ideas, does anyone use grey water in the garden, if so how do you get it there?

Pirates I've read that cabbage whites can lay eggs on leaves that are touching nets, so I always use a frame - formed of bamboo canes topped with flexiballs, with netting draped over the top and down the side, then secured with random stones.

www.amazon.co.uk/garden/dp/B001QT83IU

It seems to work well, when I remember to put it in place. But it's not very elegant.

You can just used bottles or pots on bamboo and drape. I went to all the faff with flexiballs. Jt was constantly falling down but my neighbours who only did upright with bottles on top and net over never had problems. But yes if you let the net touch the pigeons will peck through it and the butterflies will lay on it.

mink - same here with the flexiballs -I just use them as cane toppers now....
Plant pots work ,and I get people to save little water bottles etc .
Bit mizzly here today, but managed a fair bit of weeding, and planted out the last lot of leeks as well.

Picture is of my main vegetable plot (4.5m x 3m) with seeds planted and my courgettes and sweetcorn in.

agoodbook, I ended up planting all the potatoes today. Let's hope I get the same luck as you did.

shove , thank you for taking the time to explain. I have so much to learn from you all.

I walked past a derelict allotment today and saw a neglected pond in the corner. It was very well made and very tidy. It made me think more positively about getting one dug up myself. Maybe later on in autumn it's a project we can tackle. The frogs would certainly have their fair share of slugs to feed on. But then I don't know what would repulse me more.... the humongous black slugs that seem to be scattered over the allotment or having several frogs jumping up and about in a corner of the plot.

I tried my hand at lazy beds today and yesterday. It was a disaster! I stopped after a square metre. The clods are supposed to be folded over in one fold, without a crack at the edge but mine crumbled and broken all over and ever one of them cracked at the edge. But I threw the potatoes in anyway and dug another strip besides it for onion sets. My courgettes and sweetcorn are also in. Will have to make the next priority covering them with some fleece or netting before the cars and pigeons get to them all.

violet I think you've confused me with shovetheholly re. house moving. :)

diet that looks great, what a huge amount of progress you have made.

I've just been adding a few plants to my herb garden (borage, bay and poppies), I'd nearly finished when I slipped and landed in my poor rosemary bush. I think it will spring back (although it was well and truly flattened)
The only good thing is I smell really strongly of rosemary now.

I have French beans ready to go out (this is about my third planting, think I was too early before) I was going to plant them out today but I've decided to harden them off for a couple more days.

Diet - that bed looks immaculate. I like your twine dividers.

And snap Rooster! (And hope you're not too sore after the rosemary incident! I'm more worried about you than the plant!) I've been working in my herb bed too. And pah, pah, pah I just had my first taste of a stevia leaf, having just bought a plant. It is like eating very, very sweet chicken poo!! (No, I haven't actually eaten chicken poo, but it tastes like chicken poo smells if you know what I mean?).

I imagine it is better when cooked and in things??!

Diet that is soo neat! I love it. Wish mine looked like that!

I am aching after turning over 8sqm of bed today to plant our chillies in. We had a load of black plastic on it for TWO MONTHS and the grass was still sodding there. My loud wingeing was heard by a fellow plot holder who leant us his mattock. A great tool! Every lady should have one. It makes you feel like you are in a zombie horror flick, but you are actually doing something quite productive.

But now I hurt.

Impressed with everyone's pics but also kind or relieved my plot doesn't look that far behind. Everything is slow this year, except the tomatoes which is weird as they are normally a bit tricky.

Is anyone sowing anything at the moment? I potted on my second sowing of sweetcorn, some red cabbages, chard and leeks this weekend. I also just ordered some fennel, beetroot, overwintering onions and also an overwintering black spanish radish that I am intreguied by. Fingers crossed the summer sown stuff behaves a bit better than the rest of my plants!

Sorry diet dont want to force you to move.

ethel I would be planting and sowing things right now, if I was a bit more organised (and not hiding from pet lambs)

evening
hope everyone has had a good soak in the bath - all the gardening/digging is better than a workout at the gym
Diet -nice plot! - I haven't bothered covering sweetcorn or courgettes - fingers crossed I haven't had too much trouble with those .
I did disturb the biggest rabbit this morning (which had been hiding under a shed) when I went to weed around the globe artichokes, so rather glad we have netted!
poor Rooster hope you and poor rosemary are okay
ethel - I have just sown winter cauliflowers ,which have germinated really quickly, and am toying with kohlrabi, which I have not tried before. Don't forget that you can sow lots of varieties of peas - I have just sown the last row of 2nd early hurst greenshaft , but will be sowing some maincrop ones ( ambassador) in about 2-3 weeks, when the others have germinated .

violet The only time I have watered with it was a very long time ago -1976 the real year of the drought when I carted bath water/washing up water in buckets out to the garden. - My mint died ! Showing up how old I am here

Before I was born shove.

I'm chuffed you all like the neatness of my veg patch. It was bloody hard work. Yes, digging is a real workout.

Ethel, I'm also planting now. Some stuff it's too late for but lots of people seem to be doing peas, beans, beets and carrots so I'd day go ahead.

My own seeds didn't cost too much. 50p a pack so if they germinate they germinate if they don't, next time I know. I have told myself not too get too invested in the seedlings as I always end up having what seems like a very emotional affair with my seeds. I will attempt to be more aloof and nonchalant this time. Let them do the running around.

I sowed more dwarf beans this week. There should still be time unless the summer is desperately short.

I am lazy, I usually buy a job lot of over wintering crops so they arrive just as I have spaces opening up.

Maybe I should try some seeds this year as the costs do mount up!

Hi all! Been AWOL for a bit - my phone died and I never get chance to sit at the PC so had trouble keeping up.

Loving all of the pictures! Keep 'em coming!

I think I have solved my Cat dilemma! Turns out DDogs don't like the feel of string on their paws, so I've left my string lines down where I've sowed seeds and now let the dogs in - they keep the cats away but don't traipse over my seeds. Perfect.

I've taken even MORE armpit cuttings from my tomatoes. I now have 14 tomatoes planted and five more cuttings rooting. What am I going to do with that many tomatoes?!?

Things are looking good in the veggie patch - the rain we had at the weekend has broken down my soil mountain so I just need to move it around the potatoes now. My runner beans have finally got their oomph on (after three attempts!) and are climbing merrily up the canes. I tided up all of my herbs (fortunately no rosemary incidents for us!).

DS has eaten so much lettuce I'm surprised he hasn't turned green!

Oops - also meant to ask about manure.

A friend of DH has horses and has offered us manure - does it need to break down before I put it on the veggie patch? If I just put it straight on the dogs would eat it anyway. And when's the best time to do it?

morning!
Cupcakes - good news on the cat solving :). Horse manure - it needs to be rotted down before you can put it on the plot ,so you will need to find somewhere to stack it for 6 months to a year. But check with them , as they may have put it in a corner, and it may already be rotted down. Wonderful stuff. If not rotted, you could do as Monty Don on Gardeners World on Friday and grow melons on a hotbed

Cupcakes - If you want to put horse manure into the soil around crops in beds, you need to leave it to rot. I have been trying to read up a bit on this to find out why. Basically, it seems to be all about decomposition, in particular the magic that happens when things decompose in air.

Here's what I found out so far: if you put fresh manure directly onto plants, the decomposition process is different. Firstly, it can release ammonia, which will scorch plants. It can also be full of salt, which is not a good thing when you're repeatedly adding it each year. And (at a practical level), it can contain weed seeds because it hasn't got hot enough to kill these off.

However, here's the interesting part: as I am sure we all remember from the nightmare of learning the nitrogen cycle at school (trigger warning: flashbacks, traumatic memories of science exams) N is constantly transforming into all kinds of compounds. It appears to be the case that plants can't access the kind of nitrogen you get in fresh manure (it tends to get lost as the aforementioned ammonia or as nitrous oxide): it's only as its decomposed that it gets mineralized, which means that the nitrogen gets converted into forms that plants can use (i.e. nitrate).

From what I can make out, it's the aerobic bacteria that do this. Anaerobic decomposition leaves you with loads of stuff that plants can't use - and some stuff that is actually toxic to them! So if you get a load of fresh manure and make a big pile and turn it regularly, it seems you'll get more of the good, water-soluble nitrogen and nutrients that make plants grow.

(I still want to know more about the details of all this!)

I dig my manure out of a very waterlogged pit, and I have a feeling this is why it didn't give my plants such a boost as I expected last year. So I'm going to get it some months in advance and make sure it's more aerated in future.

However, I think you can use fresh manure to make a hot bed - did you see Gardeners' World this week? Monty did one for something (I forget what the plant was) exotic. You basically knock together some kind of a frame, and pile the horse poo up to quite a depth - a couple of feet or so - then cover it with 15-20cm of soil. As it rots it gets really hot, so plants that like warmth - like billions of tomatoes from armpit cuttings, for instance - are happy. Then when it is well rotted you can put it on beds. So you get two uses out of it!

ethel - HOORAY for mattocks. I am a big fan. I use mine more than I ever thought i would, including to chop through some gigantic ash roots this weekend. It does feel like a kind of Buffy-style initiation ceremony to wield one.

HA! X-post with goodbook!

shove - for explaining !- glad I didn't try ( though all my qualifications are scientific )

That's brilliant - thank you both! I knew I had a vague idea that I couldn't put fresh manure on but now I know why!

Hmm. I don't have a massive amount of space. My mum does though. I wonder if I could steal some space in exchange for manure?

Shovetheholly it was a melon. He was trying different ways of growing it in the UK.

Cupcakes, if you put it in a pile to rot down/in the compost heap now it should be rotted down in 3-6 months, which means it would be good for mulching or digging in the winter, which is when you should really do it.

I have a gardening friend who puts fresh horse manure round her roses. As a weed suppressing mulch. It's pretty much what I did with my entire veg plot. About 2ft deep in places.
However the biggest effect is from the type of manure. Mine was shavings. People bed horses on straw (less common nowadays as corn has shorter stalks and a lot is burned for fuel), and paper. All decompose differently.
Deep litter also rots differently as it tends to be more compacted.

YY to mattock. It's on my WANT list!

As is a proper cage contraption. I finally moved my kale yesterday to the shady end. It had totally outgrown the plastic cloche I'd left it under for far too long, and as a result, it's all grown wonkily. It has more room now, and I've netted it against pigeons and butterflies using a cane and flexiball cage, but it doesn't look that strong, and our pigeons are very fat...

Cupcakes I'm still not that tough with seeds and seedlings, although I seem very lax once things are actually in the ground. See point re wanton neglect of cavolo nero... I have sown way way way too many courgettes and squash, and I don't have enough space for them all. I've crammed loads in, but I am being openly mocked now for my future glut problem! I gave 1 away yesterday to a friend of my mother's, almost 2 more at the allotment, but the plot holder then vanished. Did I scare her off?

My plot still not looking especially healthy. All my plot tomatoes are turning blue, and my beans are yellow and wind bashed. My toms at home are slightly healthier looking, but my mum's beans not far away look green and lush! Might pop up today to plant out a 2x pepper plants which have a few aby fruits forming. And maybe some more tomatoes. And inca berries. I'm bored of stuff in pots now (apart from all the stuff that lives in pots), and I want to plant it all out. Might pull up my home garlic too, it has rust quite badly and one has collapsed a bit. Plus I want that space for something else. Today looks dry, so a good day for a furtle?

Right, I am being an idiot. What is this weed, please? I should know it, but I, er, don't.
I have a lot of it. It has a rounded leaf when it's little, then a brittle white root that grows down and across, then deep down, a slim woodier root. It's only recently started popping up these past couple of weeks, making a pleasant change from dandelion and dock and couch. Unless it's a cousin of one of them?