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

Pretty asparagus pea flower .

Lucky you to have all your courgettes adopted. But I only have a few to go... Or, I'll wait until the spuds come out and bung the stragglers in. Actually, I don't know what will go there, either. It's basically the middle bit of the plot that is 'prime' and sunny, and the 2 ends that are shady and poorer soil, due to trees. Maybe I'll plant more fruit bushes down the spud end? Or some more leafy stuff.

Ooh, i remember what the other nice thing was - new raspberry shoots popping up. They are def not bindweed as I examined them very closely.

I know Im going against the grain zebra but I really liked asparagus peas when my father grew them many, many moons ago. They taste nothing like peas or asparagus, whole pods steamed or boiled with butter on, yum. And the flowers are beautiful

Blimey, you really are, Violet ! Everyone else has said that they ming, that I'll only grow them the once...! The flowers are really a lovely colour, and there's not much colour on my plot alas. Yet.

There's a boat load of courgette plants though.

I didn't mind asparagus peas. Was just disappointed mine didn't do well.

Don't seem to be gabjng any luck with the quinoa and the calaloo either

Having any luck even

Ooh I had callaloo last year which did nothing much, and I was going to plant it this year, then... I forgot. So yours is def doing better than mine!

Mine was thoroughly flea beetled last year I think.

I haven't even seen mine yet.
Any recollection of what it looks like when it emerges?

Asparagus peas! Callaloo! I have never heard of these things, but I am excited to hear how they taste.

Hooray for Ben Squash! In my head, it has a little zebra flag on top to mark the first planting .

goodbook - shallots! That's a great idea. I'd better get those caulis on, I think. Laughed out loud at the "shanty town" comment from your DD. About two years ago, my DH went to Beijing to talk about cities with Peking U and the central government. I was lucky enough to be able to tag along. The Chinese state has a much more top-down policy about land use: they are very much still using urban designers and planners as experts in a modernist way, though with all kinds of cultural differences around creating 'harmonious' places (sometimes these seem to be produced rather to the detriment of the individual and personal harmony of existing residents, but it also has to be said that they capture some arguments about social justice that we tend to lose).

Anyway, one of the people we were with raised the issue of what to do with land around tower blocks - it is expensive for the state to maintain, yet it is a valuable and dwindling resource in vast, dense cities. I suggested turning it over to the community and allowing them to grow their own produce on it. One of them looked at me in absolute horror: "But if you let people do their own thing, it will be a complete mess! Everyone will do something different and it won't look impressive at all". I showed them pictures of allotments. They were NOT impressed!

Oh shove how amazing, the woman who almost changed China's cities

Morning!

shove - wow Beijing - I know little about it, but its a shame they couldn't let the reins loose for community growing. Its the unexpected around a corner that makes cities exciting! The shallot thing - I did have trouble finding the shallot I wanted in stock for overwintering.Its a banana shallot called 'Jermor" I planted some more of the same in spring as well, when I realised I had more space available . I 'll pop up a picture to show how they have done when I've been down to the plot

well, violet - I obviously did the asparagus pea wrong- I tried them small and uncooked, and also steamed / boiled and buttered, but will await the verdict from spotted' :)

My brain had collapsed last night after work, and forgot the kale and sprouts on the list of overwintering stuff

evening!
Managed to get down to the plot, watered,weeded and planted cabbages.

for shove - pics of shallots - the ones on the right hand side overwintered. I just think they are a little taller and thicker, but honestly not much in it . The bulbs look a bit fuller (2nd pic) - I think they probably need another month perhaps before harvest. I am going to try and remember to weigh them.

The shallots look amazing, agoodbook - they look all lush and green!

mink I've racked by brains but cannot remember what the callaloo looked like when tiny, alas. I grew it in a pot so probably didn't pay too much attention, as I didn't have to weed.

Right, I need help. I need an intervention. I have to stop 'saving' tomato armpits. I had over 40 tomato plants originally, tho probably 8 or so we're for my sis and a few for my dad. So I must have c. 30 plants? One died. But now I keep on saving, putting in water, potting on, the armpit bits. I've even planted some directly into the soil at the allotment - and they seem to have survived! its quite possible that I have enough tomatoes now.

I think the problem is that I've not de-armpitted soon enough, so some of the bits that I am pinching out are quite big. Some have flowers! (I've caught up now, I think, and am pinching out bits mere millimetres long.) It seems a waste to chuck them. SO I DON'T.

Also, has anyone grown Black Krim? It is meant to be a cordon, it says, but it seems to have lots of big side shoots from low down, and also on a couple of plants I can't tell which is the leading stem bit. Yet its not really bushy either. I'm a bit confused! Maybe it was mislabelled?

hi spotted -
thanks on the shallots - 1st year of growing, I don't do onions and decided to do them when Monty Don said they stored better than onions. We shall see!
Right I shall be stern here - stop doing tomato armpits You are going to need a canning warehouse or a passata factory :)
Not grown Black Krim - but am growing two new varieties to me, and I have a lot of strong stems from lower down as well. I'm just tying them in , and letting them get on with it

goodbook wow, those shallots look smashing! I can definitely see a difference between the overwintered ones and the others. Though the ones planted later still have time to catch up. Are shallots supposed to taste better than onions as well as storing better?

I was wondering whether overwintering has benefits for the soil. I know peas and beans that are overwintered will fix nitrogen, but I wonder if there is also an advantage to having brassicas and other plants in, in terms of maintaining soil cultures and nutrients, versus having blank beds? I am trying to learn a bit more about soil and it is so fascinating to me how it is this interaction between mineral and organic substances and microorganisms. Amazing.

Laughing at zebra's tomato jungle/passata plant. At least you'll be able to make a lot of pasta sauce!

Zebra you have enough tomato plants!

Interesting to see the pictures of the shallots. I've noticed something has been eating the leaves of mine. Will that be slugs or something else? I can't see a slug trail but there is quite a bit of damage to the leaves of some of the shallots and onions.

I bought some French bean plants from Homebase the other week for £2 as only one of my seeds germinated. Put them in the garden to harden off. H kindly moved them onto a tiny little ledge below the fence but the wind caught them and knocked them off. So some of them were broken. Rest seem to have recovered well but this morning I've come down to find that a slug has been all over the tops of them! This is not my year for growing french beans it seems!

Managed to get over and water the allotment last night (it rained a bit later but not much). We have some sugar snap peas germinating! I'm quite excited as I've not grown these before. Couple of squashes are looking a bit sorry for themselves but apart from that things weren't looking too bad. I would have done some weeding but my daughter complained that I'd promised I wouldn't so I had to stop

Can I ask how often you all water your plants at the allotments when there is no rain all week? Particularly in the early stages of growth just after germination.

It's so much more of a faff lugging the hosepipe out there compared to my back garden.

Diet it depends on the weather/time of the year. So this week we have watered a couple of times. That's mainly because we've just planted out squashes and sweetcorn and they need a lot of watering and it's been so warm. Some weeks we haven't watered at all or we've just watered once during the week.

We normally take a watering can over and there are a couple more over there that we're able to borrow.

Cedar - oh no! Sometimes it's just not the year for it! Hopefully all your other plants will compensate!

Diet - there is no water at my plot. I am a wee bit annoyed as we were told that it would be turned on about 6 months after the site opened. It's still not on a year later! So I have to cart water down in old bottles. I generally do this as little as possible, so I will water seedlings in, and then I will leave them. I might give very thirsty things like courgettes the end of a can. Perhaps I'm just theorizing a necessity, but I've heard that if you water a lot, they tend to get a bit pampered and don't produce such deep roots. I have to say, though, I am in Sheffield, so we are not nearly as dry as other parts of the country. My water-retentive clay soil also helps.

Shove that's annoying about your water at your plot. I think you're right in that it is better to give plants a good soak rather than a bit of water every day because their root systems tend to be all at the surface rather than growing down to look for water.

It does depend where you are in the country. We're in the South East and overall we've had a fairly dry winter/spring. I'm also gardening on clay and it turned into heavy dried out clods weeks ago. We had one downpour last week where the soil still looked damp a couple of days later but apart from that it has been dry for weeks.

Cedar - I'm very very jealous!! I love the south east, East Anglia in particular. I miss the big skies every single day. But dryness can be such an issue. My parents live in the extreme east, and the climate isn't really British. The rain peters out before it gets to them, and it is quite frequently five or ten degrees warmer than here in the north. I will be on the phone to them in a jumper, and they will be complaining that it's too hot despite having all the windows open. They are on sandy soil, too, which makes it all the more difficult. Their courgettes, squash and asparagus are amazing though!

Good to know that it's not a myth about the shallow rooting with water!

Oh stop being so mean to Zebra. I have 20 tomato plants in the bed now . I had ten last year and only had a little bit to preserve with. That said we still haven't made our way through the salsa I canned last September....

All of you people growing onions, how do you do it? I'm really confused. I have bought some overwintering onion seeds that they say to sow in mid August, transplant to final position in October and then pick in early summer next year. Is that right?

How did you overwinter your shallots, did you do them from seed or from sets? And where did you get seed/sets from?

I'm SE too (Hampshire) and on clay soil,which is still fairly soft, but turning drier now. Last year the surface was like concrete in the height of summer. Most of my direct sown seeds are in a raised bed with better soil, only got peas straight into the soil in the main beds. I'm watering every third day or so, I left my runner beans a bit longer last week and they all wilted. It's been pretty breezy, which is so drying. I'm lucky though, the tap is right next to my plot, and the site is 5 mins walk from home, so I can pop in easily. Trouble is the tap is shared with about 12 other plots, so I found quite often last year I had to queue for the tap, my hose won't reach the next one.

Zebra can't help with the armpit obsession I'm afraid - I have it too! I've got a vague idea that I want to see how long I can keep tomatoes going for with this method. Can I keep doing it all year and have some sungolds next year? I'm sure there's a reason why it won't work but I'm trying anyway. No idea what I'm going to do with the 18 plants I'm now up to though...

cedar I'm on my fourth batch of french beans and the slugs had them AGAIN last night . I'm on the verge of giving up!

Not had much time in the garden this week, and SIL is here now. We're away at the weekend too so aside from some essential watering that's it for us.

On a slightly unrelated note, DS and I spent a lovely afternoon in the garden gathering various flowers and leaves which we then laminated and cut into shapes to make sun catchers. Love sharing the garden with him!

Ha, YES! I may pretend that this is one of those AIBUs, ignore the armpit-naysayers, and listen only to the enablers! I slightly wish that I'd counted how many seeds I'd sown, how many germinated, how many plants I kept (ok I know that, it's G-1), then how many armpits I tried, and finally what the tomato harvest was. But I didn't. So I'll just chit chat about armpits again. Cupcakes that sounds a great idea and I may try it.even though the things I tried overwinter before, died.

I love tomatoes. I've already started Googling to see what new varieties - and really I mean old as it's the heirlooms which appeal - I'll do next year. I feel an obsession taking hold! Albeit one which may vanish if blight takes hold this year.

Boo to all the slugging. I've sown almost everything at home and only moved it out when it was probably too big. The only things that I tried direct were beetroot and turnip, and they were a total failure due I guess to slugs and soil.

I am suddenly v v grateful for my water at the allotment. We can't use hoses, but there are plenty of water points - dip tank and tap. I mostly use the tank as it's so quick. I must start wearing a pedometer to see how much I trundle back and forth.

Oh, Cupcakes I missed your point about the suncatchers - that sounds idyllic! I too love sharing the garden, and all nature things, wih my DS. My DD is really not interested, so I hope DS will continue to indulge me!