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

Diet - all looking good! I love spinach :) -
a tip -( if you want! ) for another year -(nicked from a gardening blog, and i do it myself now ). When using bags to pot up tomatoes , instead of laying the bags flat, lay them on the side and bang the compost down . The plant has more support and deeper root run, and more depth to put a cane in .The bag bulges out and stabilises after a few waterings.

May I join in?

We've just moved to a new build so garden is a blank canvas. It's all just lawn right now, apart from a section of dirt beside the house which gets the morning and late afternoon sun.

I'd like to grow vegetables in this plot but am a complete novice and don't know what to grow or when to do it all. And we still don't have Internet so can't do any research as of yet.

I'd quite like carrots and maybe courgettes. Have planted a few herbs (thyme, parsley, rosemary and chives) but my daughter keeps digging them out so I'm not sure if they'll grow!

Any advice would be lovely!

Hello Kiwi, welcome.

If you could fins a courgette plant (garden centre or a gardener like me who has overplanted) you could have courgettes this year.
If you wanted you could even grow a courgette in a grow bag, hopefully because they are quite big your daughter won't be tempted to dig them up.

welcome Kiwi - ask away!
how big is the plot ? - that will have some bearing on what you can grow.
Even in a small area, you could sow lettuce/rocket/beetroot/peas now. There are still tomato plants available to buy,( though they may need some protection , depending on where you are) and you may beable to pick up a courgette as Rosster suggested

Thanks for the tip, Rooster!

goodbook It's about 6m x 1.5m. I'll have to measure it!

I would guess that the bit right against the house wouldn't be good for growing this as it won't get any sun.

My first lot of crops!!! Success!!! I could have left my lettuce longer but I needed one for tomorrow's lunch and couldn't resist. I have been on my hands and knees searching for strawberries. My strawbs were all strangled with weeds but I dug them out and re-sited loads of them. I could almost hear the sighs of relief. I'm still getting tiny strawbs but I think the next bunch will be much better it was the loveliest thing to pick my lunch out of the ground. So pleased!

My pics fell off! I'll try again.

They look delicious!

wow Linski it looks wonderful and pretty - isn't it a joy when you get to eat something you have grown :)
Kiwi - right up against a wall is always difficult anyway - it tends to be very dry. If you can dig in plenty of compost to improve the soil (if you haven't already ) that will help - I suspect that the soil in new builds isn't up to much.

Welcome, Kiwi !

Wowee, agoodbook and Linski that all looks delicious! You must be really proud!
On similar note - thanks for being so nice about my boasty posty. I know that it's ok to talk about things we've done, grown etc, but mine was very poorly-phrased!

A lovely day of weather today after another hammering of rain for a couple of days. It had raised so hard that it had left marks in my extreme clay soil at the allotment! Talking of the allotment, my tomatoes seem to have grown a bit - hurrah! As have my beans (well, a teeny bit), but they are still really being battered by the winds. Squash on BenSquash seems to have settled in well too.

But the bad news is that I have a Courgette Casualty. Was it chomped do you think? If so, by what? It has been out for a couple of weeks now. Very odd, it looked fine a few days ago, just not flourishing. But today it looked illing, so I looked under a leaf, and the whole thing came away in my hand. Any ideas?

Do pears not grow quite well against sunless walls? (Assuming you improve the soil). I am sure that's what Bob Flowerdew off GQT always recommends.

mmm spotted - the stalk by looks? and with flowers forming as well :(. I lost a courgette and a squash last year seemingly from slugs chomping through the stalk , looks a bit similar
mink - thats sounds a bit odd - I would have thought the wall thing would be okay, but doesn't all fruit do best in sun?

Yup, flowers forming
It was a round courgette too, I was dead excited about them. I only have 1 other round one.

If its the stalk then most likely it had been chewed by slugs or caterpillars, do you think?

My courgettes are looking extremely poorly. They flourished in the conservatory but look like they'll mostly be goners by the time I get back from holiday. One is already dead. Two have wilted with leaves falling off. I don't think they like the ground too much. And I was so looking forward to a courgette glut.

Linskibinski they look lovely and fresh. Looking at your picture, I think I will buy a basket especially to carry my homegrown produce in. Looks so much nicer. I've made do with colanders and trays but a basket looks much better. Even if it is only for the trip from the garden to the kitchen.

goodbook thanks for the grow bag tip. Seems such a simple but obvious one. Will do that next year, definitely.

Kiwi look here. This suggests lots of stuff you could still get in to the ground. Pick and choose what you'd like from there.

www.thompson-morgan.com/what-to-sow-and-grow-in-june

If you're jaut starting out though, spend some time digging it properly and adding manure. Do a bit at a time so you've got stuff started before you get overwhelmed with tackling the whole thing but at the same time have a plan of how you'd like the end result to be so you don't end up planting trees and perrenial herbs in places where you wish you'd put something else. Like I did in my garden.

Slugs have got a couple of my squashes. Well they've eaten all the leaves but I am still hopefully watering the stalk (I never like to giveup!).

Kiwi try a few runner bean plants - get your daughter to plant them in pots. They normally come ip within days and then they grow so fast they are really rewarding for little children to see. (I've assumed she's little!).

I reckon our first pea pod will be ready in the next couple of days. We picked first couple of loganberries off the bush in the garden last night.

Diet and Linksi - wow, great harvests! And Diet I think your tomatoes look lovely. I can see flowers! FLOWERS!

Kiwi - I got my plot at this time last year and you can get a decent harvest in a few weeks. If you can get some courgettes and runner beans on, they will reward you. Oh, and radishes and salad leaves of all kinds also. You can do some overwintering things for next spring too - caulis, cabbages, and (in the autumn) peas and beans.

Chuck - 2nd June!! You are a tomato champion!!!

I open my greenhouse, so airborne blight spores can get in there! I do the same as goodbookdoes - throw the door open in the day, shut it at night. Maybe I should close it during the day too? But I think it might get too hot then (don't tomatoes have an upper limit of about 33 degrees after which they sulk??).

My friend lost all her greenhouse tomatoes in 2007 to blight, though it has to be said that this was an exceptionally rubbish summer, even by Sheffield's low standards. It just rained and rained and rained for weeks without remission and the city flooded terribly. The reason I remember this particular blight very vividly, though, is that I helped her to wash out the greenhouse with Jeyes fluid afterwards, and cackhandedly spilt some down me. I thought nothing of it, because that stuff stinks and the honk of it was all around us. Went home and showered. Could still smell it. Showered again. Changed clothes quickly and went out to dinner, which was a work thing so I was all poshed up in a frock and everything. Arrived at the restaurant and the moment I took my waterproof off, there was the Jeyes fluid again, wafting around to the point that you could almost see a cloud of billowing fumes encircling me. A couple of people stopped me and asked me about the "interesting" perfume that I was wearing. And we were having curry too, so it was hardly delicate and you could still smell it over the top! Very embarrassing and I still get teased about it now.

Thank you for all of the advice. I now feel like this is going to be fun!

Complete novice question: is it best to weed the area before adding compost?

If you are brave and do it deep enough you can mulch with compost and pull the weeds as they come through. I did but the mulch was really deep. It was mostly horse muck and shavings. Now I have bloody ryegrass growing like weeds

Kiwi - weed an area, then dig in the compost - we don't want to encourage the weeds, and they will love it as much as any plant, if not more! So I would suggest pacing yourself - have something in mind you want to grow, weed enough area for it to go in, enrich with compost/manure etc and plant pronto and then move onto the next area :)

cedar - peas ! I am jealous - mine are well behind after pigeon fiasco...and loganberries - I haven't even seen the flowers - must go and check properly, as my summer raspberries are setting fruit...

Hello!

Welcome to Kiwi - congratulations on the new house! What's the soil like? When I lived in a new build It was basically rubble with a thin layer of top soil over it. We put in raised beds in the end as there just wasn't enough soil.

Zebra sorry for your courgette loss. Here's hoping the last Courgette standing is OK.

Linsk look at those radishes! You must be chuffed to bits!

DS went to my Mum's for the whole weekend and DH was at a dog show with both dogs so I had hours and hours all alone to potter! Bliss. Nearly finished my bamboo fencing now - just need to chop down a few more canes. Potted up a few more tomato armpits. Sorted out the mountain of top soil DH brought home and have made a nice big pile in the corner, which I thought I could put a Squash in but I don't have one and neither do any of our local garden centres. Hmph.

I might have bought some more seeds at the weekend.

Where's alternative gone? Hope she's OK.

I am doing OK at the moment, but not great. Lettuce is flying, but follow on batch is a few weeks behind schedule. Radishes ditto.

First broccoli heads are almost ready, all 3 are growing well on the sunny side of the garden. Courgette plants are growing slowly but growing. Broad beans are starting to get actual bean pods, but I just hope they'll be ready before we go on hols (5 weeks - so probably but I may have to take some baby ones with us). I don't have much hope for peas before then.

My first tomato is growing as a fruit. But most of the plants are still growing size rather than flowers/fruit yet. And the baby spinach on the windowbox is bolting, so I need to use that up and start a fresh batch off. The 3 broccoli plants on the shady side of the garden are less than a quarter the size of the sunny side, and Brussels sprouts are growing even less strongly there.

I was manically busy the past few weeks so apart from watering, had neglected the garden. So there's some work to be done catching up this week.

evening
No chance to get to plot today, and really busy for next few days, so I can just hope all is well - its rained heavily on and off all afternoon, so at least I don't have to worry about watering. Did manage to find 10 minutes to prick out the winter cauliflowers, thats about it.
Cupcakes more seeds/ What did you buy? I have run out of beetroot seed, so need to go and browse :)

Finally! Some rain in London. I know a lot of you have been suffering with it, but it hadn't rained in our corner of London for three years. And god has it helped. The courgettes and pumpkins have finally taken off and doubled in size in a couple of days. My salad onions and leek seedlings have almost all taken when last year I lost about half, though this means I may have to thin them!

I sowed some sanguina beetroot seed and will get my fennel seeds in on Wednesday.

I have finally had to give in and buy some cucumber seedlings after my second batch of seedlings (first lost to the wind) were chomped by slugs with the arrival of the rain. Third time lucky?

Kiwi you can still put in beans and peas, and fennel can be sown from now. Radish (including overwintering) beetroot, chard, mizuna, pak choi, mustard, lettuce, rocket and cabbage can be sown too. I sowed hardy leeks this time last year and had them from November to March this year which was nice!
Potatoes can go in soon for a Christmas crop. There's lots of autumn sowing stuff too that you can focus on, getting ready for, onions, garlic, beans etc.