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

[DuelingFanjo]

Popped up today to water and we have almost ready to pick strawberries. Yay.

Does anyone know what I can do to encourage my brassicas to grow? Do they need extra care?

[agoodbook]

Duelling - they grow behind your back, while you are not looking. They are in it for the long haul , putting down roots for bad winter weather :) hope you planted them in really firmly- which brassicas?

[Linskibinski]

Marking my place, not been to the plot for a couple of days due to shocking post BBQ hangover! but won't be able to go for next couple of days due to work and college. I might go for an hour inbetween finishing work and college, just to check for nibbles and any developing green stuff. Still need to continue digging out the rest of my tatty plot. Marathon not a sprint! On the plus side my French beans are looking really good. I'm going to start the in and out dance this week, then hopefully I will get my next bed dug out so I can start my brassicas bed and throw in my beans. Still no shed. Too poor! Maybe next payday.

[Kleptronic]

Oh I might bring the peppers back in then. Although I put sunflowers and sweetpeas in with them (randomly) and thyme. Or maybe the front garden, which faces south

Mind you I've never raised a sunflower, the bastard snails always get them. Bastards!

[Cedar03]

Snails normally attack my sunflowers too.

Exciting to be getting a new plot. We can't grow fruit trees unless they are on dwarf stock. And a friend had chickens up there but this caused a problem with rats coming in to eat the chicken feed. Also you have to factor looking after them in the winter.

I wouldn't rotovate a new plot as you could be chopping up the weeds and spreading them over your plot. Be realistic about how much time you will have to get over there when you look at it and are planning your plants for this year. If the plot was worked last year it may not be too bad but you will need to factor in some time for digging it. Still nice light evenings now!

[mousmous]

our garden is full of snails. look at this

[TheDietStartsTomorrow]

My garden looks like that too. Slugs and snails are everywhere in their droves and droves. My sweetpeas, so lovingly and carefully raised from seed in my bedroom window for weeks were demolished. They've eaten a couple of hostas right to the ground in the past. My radishes and spinach have also been munched through almost completely.

[meglet]

klep I can usually get decent sunflowers if I let them get to 1ft in pots then plant them out. slugs seem lazier at that height and less likely to crawl up and destroy them, the stems are thicker too. I left the heads on until February and the birds picked the seeds over the middle of winter

I think you've all got my slugs . my allotment is bone dry and hardly any slugs have ventured onto it so far. sadly the lack of heat and rain is stopping it actually growing.

my watermelon seedlings are still about 1" high. sweetcorn isn't looking happy either. spuds are romping away as usual.

everyone is so nice at the allotment. The old blokes aren't at all sniffy about my amateur patch. I always feel a bit conscious that mine isn't up to their standard but they've pointed out they've been doing it for 10/20/30 (!) years so have got it sussed.

[violetwellies]

I have left my courgettes out all night (I forgot about them ) they are fine

[shovetheholly]

mousmous so many snails!! My allotment is on heavy clay, but even I don't have that many!

I think I've missed a bit of succession sowing at the allotment. My overwintering crops are all nearly ready (caulis, cabbages, leeks, peas, broad beans). And then I have a bunch of stuff that is tiny (courgettes, squash, all kinds of climbing beans, maincrop broad beans, maincrop peas, potatoes, kale, summer cabbages, carrots, sweetcorn, kohl rabi, turnips, beetroot, kale, chard, spinach and loads more). But I can see this gap between the end of the overwinterers and the start of the summer crops, which I have failed to fill. GAH! It's hard to get this all-year-round stuff.

A couple of pics of the plot, 11 months on from taking over a weed-strewn bit of field! The arches are for climbing beans to maximise the space between the beds.

[LetThereBeCupcakes]

Well, I go away for one weekend and you moved house without me!

Welcome new gardeners and how exciting to be getting new plots! Don't forget to share some pictures.

holly your plot looks amazing!

I'm feeling a bit inadequate now. I need to get more in! I've got plenty in my greenhouse, just need to pull my finger out and harden it off.

My fencing is doing a great job of keeping the dogs off my plot, but unfortunately this has meant return of the CATS! Who are digging in to my beautiful seed beds and doing far more damage than the dogs ever did, so I'm taking the fences down and letting the dogs resume anti-cat patrols.

Third lot of french beans have germinated. I'm praying the slugs don't get this lot but I'm not holding out much hope! I've also got 2 more cucamelons which are staying in my kitchen forever until they're MUCH bigger. I wanted to take them on holiday with us last weekend but DH said that was a bit mad so I had to leave them behind.

My carrots are a disaster, the soil is just not suited to them. I think I'll shove some more parsnips in instead.

[shovetheholly]

Oh, I've had plenty of disasters cupcakes I really have! A lot of those plants are very small and still in my greenhouse, so I'm sure there will be more disasters to come too! And I've yet to grow a single row of carrots that has germinated

[Kleptronic]

1ft you say meglet? Right I'm bringing them sunflowers and peppers back in.

[ethelb]

I've been managing to get down first thing in the morning to water newly planted stuff which the allotment seems to be liking.
The tomatoes are doing fine, the cucumbers look a little sad though

I did a load of seed sowing including my 4th runner bean planting as I have destroyed the other ones.

I also got in a load of herbs, lettuce, chard and some marigolds. Hope they germinate quickly. I also took some raspberry cuttings as I managed to kill/drown half of the canes I planted in Feb.

Lots of people planting cucamelons, do they actually taste nice?

[DuelingFanjo]

Hi there

I have broccoli, cabbage, sprouts and cauliflowers. Never had much luck with any but I suspect lack of water has been a problem in past years?

I finally have a Squash growing, I moved the plants inside and into a small windowsill propagator and one has come up. YAY.

[shovetheholly]

Dueling - do your brassicas have enough nitrogen? Maybe add some fertilizer (the old blood, fish and bone).

I use the feed off my bokashi bin (entire group groans at my mentioning this YET AGAIN - I am the world's foremost bokashi bore, sorry). The wet run-off is very, very high in nitrogen - much more so than normal compost. Brassicas seem to love it. Here are my cauliflowers, picture taken yesterday - they should be ready in the next 3 weeks (I need to tie them in). I have done very little to these other than feed them the bokashi juice, so the credit is all in the compost! (I then bury the bin contents in beds at the allotment for my heavy feeders, which love the waste).

[RoosterCogburn]

shove the arches between beds is genius - I'm going to pinch that for my beans and sweet peas.

The slugs have had three of my sunflowers, I thought they were big and hardy enough to avoid being chomped but alas, no.

I'm going to try planting French Beans - I've planted twice but they've just rotted away. Hopefully it will be this time lucky.

[DuelingFanjo]

All my sunflowers are gone, don't tell DS :(

My Cauliflowers look nothing like that but have only recently gone in. Am I doing them at the wrong time of year?

[TheSpottedZebra]

Shove - your pics are gorgeous! (as are those of your garden, I've lurked on the other thread ) I too have arches, tho mine are for squash. Probably. I missed your comment above re your lovely holiday -glad you had a good timme and that all your plants are well! I totally agree wrt citrus trees. I have a friend who lives in California, she has oranges and lemons in her garden. It seems somehow amazing that she can pick them. Mine you, she really misses good old Victoria plums.

Dueling Oh no re sunflowers Can/will you plant more, or is it too late now? Can you get your DS interested in fruit and veg too? Mine is 6, and he is currently a very enthusiastic gardener. And we are learning together!

I'm meant to be getting lots of my tomatoes potted in to their final pots now. Apart from those that my sister will take, and others that will come to the plot with me. But it's quite the faff so I'm mostly just bimbling about the garden with a cup of tea. I'm a bit confused, as I had thought that I had a good mix of 8 varieties, but I seem to have really maxed out on 2, with only a couple of the others. Unless I have labelled them wrongly.

[TheSpottedZebra]

Wow, look at the cauli, Shove. What mesh do you cover it with, is it a really fine one?

[Cedar03]

The arches is a good idea I may borrow that for another year.

Its so disappointing when the slugs get something you've spent ages growing isn't it? I need to finish hardening off my beans so that I can plant them out but need to put them somewhere the snails won't get them first.
My earliest carrots - planted a month ago- are still germinating so there may still be hope for those who have nothing through yet.
I'm trying again wirh french beans - I'm determined to get them to germinate this time!

[mousmous]

my carrots (sown 2 weeks ago) don't show yet. can take anything up to 6 weeks apparently.
on gqt (years ago) the guy said to sow on toilet paper in windowsill and then to bury it paper and all when they start to germinate.

[TheDietStartsTomorrow]

I've been to see my potential allotment site. Not feeling as enthusiastic as I initially was. It's nothing like I imagined it. There are 92 plots in total and from all of them, only about 10-15 look like they have been cultivated. The rest are just shambles. Totally overgrown and deserted.

I was expecting a bit of a community. But there was noone there except a couple of people, one of whom was the site manager. He was reluctant to show me around the plot and I could barely find the plots that were vacant. Everything was merged into each other.

When I finally found the plot, I realised that it was in an isolated spot, in a terrible state and the surrounding plots were all jungles too except for a plot next door that was 20% dug over.

I was told by the council that trees under 6ft are not allowed but I saw dozens of fully grown trees of all sorts.

I don't know... going away in a month the time for a month. Will I be able to restore some sort of order before I go? Need to think hard. I really, really want to but feel overwhelmed.

[TheDietStartsTomorrow]

Pics of the plot:

[RoosterCogburn]

Diet, can you tell yourself it will never look worse than it does now?

I suppose the bottom line is do you have the time and energy required to make it a feasible project?

shove I've found some arches on the wilkinson website and we've just been out to measure and they look like they'll fit so tomorrow we're going shopping [sile]