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

I've spent most of today at my plot, weeding digging and clearing. Its been lovely. I discovered a handful of beans dangling at the back of my dwarf beans so I grabbed them for my basket. I also picked loads of raspberries and a lettuce. I have a couple of courgettes on my plants but nowhere near a glut! Maybe I just bed to be patient. My sweetcorn is looking good and growing well. I have completely cleared my side bed and I have noticed my shallots are looking all sticky out and messy?!? They were all straight but now I can see the shallots and my leaves are pointing every which way. Are they ready for digging up?! Surely not? Advice anyone? AND... Drum role please....... I HAVE A FROG IN MY PLOT!!! I have my herbs planted temporarily in a plastic tub and I was moving it when little oscar the frog hopped out. He was near another large plastic tub that I have been filling with water to store seedlings prior to planting. I think I have inadvertently created a pond. No one else has a pond I don't think, so where did my frog come from? I have decided I need to build a pond now as a matter of urgency! Lovely wildlife! Lovely scruffy plot!

I LOVE frogs, Linski ! I love them anyway, but love them yet more for the bad things that they eat. Sounds love a lively harvest for you too.

Shove/booky I suspect you're right re aubergines. I grew them last year bit must remember that a) it was v hot and sunny throughout, and b) my garden IS a lot more sheltered than plot. Good idea to dig them up and re home them, I have big pots...

Er, yes. I have totally bunged things in wherever. I think I tool inspiration from something that Lethal had said, but I bunged without her knowledge or nous. Also, I don't think that I have made the best use of my space: I'm not going to switch to old skool straight lines, but I could have done it differently. Mostly, I have bunged armpits in, everywhere. I put some more in today, but at home. And only a few left now, lovely roots, hardening off nicely. They will def be my last armpits of 2015.

Yes, I think I may as well pop in more dwarf beans. I have the space (a small bit), I have the seeds...

Oh yes, Shove, I do that ecover spray thing already. I think it works, a bit. I have it in an old hair conditioner spray, which is the best I've found for spraying at angles, apart from probably those swanky pressurised sprays.

Cedar are you meaning phacelia for the green manure?

the name is a character from a children's book.

did the ecover shower today on the sunflowers. amazing how the bugs just skid down.

What is ecover? What is it used for?

Ecover is that "green" washing up liquid, linski. You put a bit of it in a squirty bottle with loads of water and use it to get rid of aphids. It's a lot less damaging than bug spray and it does work (though the aphids tend to get left on the plant as a kind of dead crust which only comes off after a bit).

Hooray for frogs. I'm not jealous. Not one bit

The council have done a wildflower meadow at my plot right behind the allotments. It looks so beautiful it honestly makes me want to cry. Here's a picture - I'm not good at photos, so my picture doesnt really do it justice. The air is now full of butterflies. They found it so quickly!!

Ah, thanks shove I shall grab some immediately. The meadow looks incredible! The bees will love it. I've noticed lots of bees and butterflies on my plot, far more than I'm used to seeing. Hopefully that is being replicated throughout the uk? Got to love the bees. I'm hoping to throw the last of my peas in this afternoon. Fingers crossed is not too late! The ground is really hard so I might struggle to get my canes in! But who knows. I was going to buy a shed this month until my car decided to give up the ghost! So now it is likely to be end of August before I get one. Maybe they will have reduced by then? Fingers crossed!

Glad to see so many people are harvesting so much!

We have lots of courgettes that will be ready for picking soon, but my tomatoes are still decidedly green.

We had a huge amount of manure delivered to our plot over the past three days (4 truck loads!) and spent this morning pilling up 20 barrowloads full on my plot. I have also mulched a bed that isn't being planted up until the autumn with strawberries.

Can I mulch my cucurbits with unrotted manure if I don't let it touch the stems? And my sweetcorn? It needs a bit of a boost!

what kind of manure?
horse you can use fresh, it's not as harsh as others.
but cow/pig needs to be well rotted (rotten?).

Horse manure. Ok, I'll try a little bit around some of the plants and hope it works!

Zebra - yes, phacelia is the green manure I'm trying out.

Spent most of yesterday at the allotment. We dug up our early potatoes. Some of the Pentland Javelin had marks on them which I've looked up and it seems that they'll be OK to eat still. Charlottes have done well. We're pleased (although I'm annoyed that I put the fork through at least 3 lovely sized potatoes).
Then more weeding and weeding and weeding. Sigh. And I stuck in some chard and peas and spinach seeds. See what happens with those.

I now need to decide what to put where the potatoes were.

Slinks back into the thread.

My potatoes are fab this year - last year they were a disaster.

I have masses of lettuce, kale and spinach.I might plant more spinach for later on.

Peas are amazing - I thought I'd overplanted but tbh I can't get enough of them

Two ripe tomatoes so far, but lots more on their way

Lots of tiny courgettes (much to DHs disgust after the courgette glut of 2014 he was hoping for a courgette disaster)

I also have so much weeding to do - I turned my back for a couple of weeks and the bind weed and goose grass are rampant.

ROOSTER! Hello Stranger!

No plot action from me today, we've just had weekend visitors leave. But I did manage to sneak down there for a quick sesh yesterday, when others went on a bike ride. Am sat in the garden now, it is lovely and sunny but really windy, and I'm potting a few strawb runners. And I have just seen a Red Kite circling overhead. Most odd! I knew that we had them 10ish miles away, in the countryside, but we're right in suburbia here, albeit it with lots of green spaces.

Yesterday I snapped a pic of my biggest fruit on BenSquash -behold . I don't have giant fingers, so it's not actually that big. But I still treasure it. Picked a couple of courgettes too, v v tiny still and I am being mean and hogging them for myself. And I think we've reached self-sufficiency in tomatoes now -hurrah! Black Cherry has now also started to ripen, and Gardener's Delight are nearly there, so just waiting on Roma and Black Krim now... Picked some more sorrel too, I have a bit too much of that.

I've still not really figured out where my cabbage, cauli, broccoli and Brussels will go. The only bit of room I have is where I want to move soft fruit to, so the 1 place that I can't put things for winter! Do they not like being moved, have I remembered that right?

Morning all!

The rain has finally stopped! Hurrah! We had rain pretty much all of last week and then I was away all weekend so I've managed to get very little done. Hoping that DS will go to bed at a sensible time tonight so I can catch up!

Toms are really ramping up here - Sungold doing really well, closely followed by DS' freebie from the garden centre (no idea what it is - just a red cherry of some sort). Gardener's Delight and Money Maker absolutely LADEN with green toms, I feel a glut coming on!

Checked out my blackberry yesterday and that's covered in fruit too - it's going to be a bumper crop of those, too. Will have to stock up on jam jars.

Pumpkins are flowering but not setting. Cucumbers are doing really well (6 plants seems about right to keep us in cucumbers!). Need to pick some more gooseberries as they've ripe now. Beans are flying up the canes now that the slugs are leaving them alone.

D'you know, I've been gardening for over 20 years but I think I've learned more this year than I have ever before, what with the tips and discussion on this thread and the motivation it's given me to try new things. I'm trying to see my "failures" as good lessons for next year!

I did absolutely nothing in my plot this weekend! Really must get down there tonight and sort things out before the weeds take off.

I did, however, have a day trip to Todmorden, where they have the 'incredible edible' initiative to turn spaces in the town into community vegetable gardens. I wasn't sure what to expect, but what I found was some lovely little plots that had been planted up with lavender, fruit trees, herbs, strawberries and a few veg plants too. A lot of shops also have planters outside with crops in them.

I think one of the inspiring things about it was that none of the plots were in absolutely brilliant fettle. There were weeds. There were trees that needed tending. Yet it all worked, and the fact that it wasn't perfect made it feel surprisingly achievable. I left feeling that I might just bung spare plants into an area of monoculture grass verge near me, and see what happens!

Afternoon!
shove - that meadow looks beautiful
Rooster - hello again!
I took my sister in law down to the plot this morning, before she left- it was absolutely gorgeous and we picked things for her to take with her - perpetual spinach/kale/calabrese/beetroot/courgettes/new potatoes, some globe artichokes and a green pepper .And she helped me pick gooseberries, so thats done.
I haven't been there since Thursday, and its incredibly weedy, so after a bit of housework , I thought I would head down there and get some serious weeding done. Its tipping down with rain now Hopefully it will stop soon, as the weeds are ganging up on me , but I wont have to water tonight, at least :)

Picture from the plot this evening, showing my rather sad looking fruit cage and my rather happier looking potatoes. (Yes I am still peed off with the fruit cage after it took so bleeding long to do and then looked so ugly at the end).

I cleared my first early peas today and managed to save loads of seeds. On the downside, I have no idea what I'm going to put in the bed now! Overwintering brassicas?

I have four carrots. Given that these are the first four I have ever been able to grow, I consider them a victory. They are probably the most expensive carrots ever grown in Sheffield since I have now been through three packets of seed.

Evening!
shove - your plot looks wonderful, and the fruit cage is miles more attractive than mine - positively jealous! If you haven't any overwintering brassicas, then definitely - purple sprouting broccoli is my favourite ,though you may need to buy plants. I am just about to sow my first succession spring greens this week, to plant out in about 4/5 weeks
I did manage to get a fair bit done late this afternoon - dug over and weeded the area for my new strawberry bed ( was spinach and broad beans ) and planted the last of the runners kept from last year.
And made my gooseberry jam this evening :)

Evenin' All !

Shove, I second the wonderful looking plot comment! It's soooooo neat! And you've been away!

Just a quick plot visit from me today, with DS. We harvested 6 tomatoes, and 2 teeny courgettes, after much discussion about which course could stay on the plants to hopefully grow. And we snuck in a meagre raspberry each too. He was v pleased with his haul, which was great, as it's still slim pickings (most ripe tomatoes are at home). But just as we were going, a p,or neighbour offered us a ton of gooseberries, which I needed to pick myself, and 'some blackcurrants'. Readers, he gave me a whole bin bag of branches laden with blackcurrants. Not only have I picked soooooo many currants, I also have loads of material to take cuttings from tomorrow.

I sowed a bit more yesterday - more broccoli raab, not quite got the hang of successional sowing yet. Also Chinese cabbage, chop suey greens, pak choi and tatsoi. Not really sure where it's all going to go, and I still haven't prepared the space for my brassicas. I'll need to dig up the last of the spuds, and potentially take out some non-growing courgettes.

Ooh, the frog was atop BenSquash again today - well, just under the plastic covering. That made me happy. And BenSquash had to be pegged in again as it is properly sprawling now.And I had to corral its ground-level brother, which has only grown a small bit, bit in the direction of my border with my v tidy, mower-loving neighbours.

I'm really regretting not growing courgettes now. I just never got around to it and none of the local garden centres had any plants. Hmph.

shove your plot looks wonderful! Puts mine to shame, that's for sure!

Picked another 3.5 lbs of gooseberries last night - that takes my total haul up to 5.5 lbs. Need to get some sugar and make some jam like good!

Re: currants - it had never occured to me to just snip off the branches and take them in like that! I've not been picking mine as I get stiff so quickly. Will have to do that.

Brassicas it is then, goodbook. I've not done PSB and I do have a pack of cheap Aldi seeds lying around...

My plot is only neat because I am having to hoe every bed every week in my battle against the bindweed! It's actually surprisingly a lot easier this way - I get em when they're tiny and I avoid having to fork up huge thistles or nettles that require gauntlets to handle! Also, I have landscaped it so that it is very low maintenance because I know I'm lazy and easily overwhelmed and it's the only way I can cope .

Zebra - how wonderful to get currants and gooseberries! People are so kind. As cupcakes says, it had never occurred to me to harvest them like that. I've probably mentioned this a billion one or two times before, but I am quite jealous of these established communities because our allotment site is new. Every plot was given to someone this time last year. I had a walk around last night after I'd finished with our plot, and I reckon only about a third are actually still being cultivated. Some people have done an absolute ton of work and spent a lot of money (new sheds, scaffolding board raised beds) and yet haven't put crops in. Others have planted one or two squares, which have then been abandoned so you have this rather sad mix of onions and weeds. Some are all over weeds, now higher than my head. Yet despite the fact that there's a big waiting list at nearby sites, the council don't seem to be getting in new tenants . It's beginning to reach the point where I wonder about the wisdom of going up there on my own because the site is quite isolated and now (due to the high weeds) my plot is hidden from view from the main path. My phone signal is only intermittent up there.

Shove your plot looks so neat and tidy. I think it will take a bit of time to get the allotment site established and some people will start off with a fit of enthusiasm and then give up. We took on our plot last year and it was overgrown with weeds. To one side of us is a plot which is being well looked after. To the other side someone did some work last year but has done nothing this year. To the bottom of us someone is working it but only very sporadically and I haven't ever seen them except once last summer shortly after we took on our plot. Our neighbour with the established plot nags the council about neglected plots and they have actually come and cut down all the grasses in the overgrown plots this year. The trouble is, they will collect a year's rent and then they have to try and persuade people to give them up again if they aren't actually cultivating them. They probably should be a bit tougher. Would you be able to get another plot or would it be onto a waiting list?

Shove it was wonderful: it was so, so kind. And lovely for DS to see some more successful, bountiful growing too, as most of mine is still fairly abstract - these are plants that I had hoped would produce courgettes, these tiny things we can hopefully eat in a few months time when they are bigger.... etc.
Poor you wrt to the isolated aspect. I am v lucky that I don't have that as a concern, at all. And the waste of untended plots would bother me too.

Luckily I am not working today, so I can go out and buy supplies, then get to the preservation. What on earth will I do with my goosegogs and blackcurrants? I reckon some crumble with the former, and freeze the rest. Then, maybe jam, cordial, freeze and.... something else with the blackcurrants. I'd love to are a curd but am concerned re raw-ish eggs so maybe I'll look for something along those lines. Any inspiration?

Evening!
Just be careful with blackcurrants - winter pruning gives best results as fruit comes on 1 and 2 year branches - summer pruning is for restricting growth and keeping the shape.
spotted - in our house, this weekend it is the time for a summer pudding - we have fresh raspberries/blackcurrants and redcurrants just waiting to be picked. The rest is frozen apart from raspberries :)
enjoy the jam making cupcakes !
shove - thats so sad to hear about your plots - it doesn't make for the lovely relaxing, stress free time it should be if you feel at all uneasy :(. Our plots are inspected regularly, and help is offered to those who seem to be struggling, but you can't make people do the work! Unfortunately, seeing someone like Monty Don dig and produce veg with seemingly little effort gives people a false sense of how much work is involved and some soon give up.