Allotment /Veg patch thread 4 "Lettuce and Peppers and Pears OH MY!"

[agoodbook]

as per Cupcakes :)
come and join in the harvest !

previous thread here
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/2386388-The-2015-Allotment-Veg-Patch-Thread-Part-3-already?msgid=55842529

ah, but warm rain AsTime :)

Enough rain to wash away the entire plot by the looks of things, all the streets were flooded. Bet the weeds have loved it!

I'm about to go down and do some weeding so I can plant my overwintering onion seed. I am a bit scared about how wet it is.
Damn, I was really looking forward to a nice bank holiday weekend tackling the allotment and the weather is depressingly foul.
The slugs are attacking my tomatoes (mainly the nice juicy ripe ones) and I'm wondering whether to give in a bit and strip a load off and ripen at home so the slugs don't get them. What do you think? The last three years I have left them on the vine until the end of September before giving in (admittedly hot London summers). What do you think? Is anyone else giving in and stripping the tomato plants yet?

Afternoon!
oh ethel - sympathies Mine are in the greenhouse, and I did use slug pellets. It is just so incredibly annoying. So I cant advise on stripping, though every year I tend to do this to the last green ones, so they ripen, but not usually til the end of September. To be honest, if they are attacking them badly, I would be inclined to take at least some of them off, just so you get to eat some!
I have had a great morning down at the plot- up here in East Yorkshire it has been beautiful for the last 2 days! So I went and planted out my spring greens and spring cabbages- it is supposed to rain all day tomorrow, so they will get a good water, and at least my slugs have lost out - they had just found them, and were starting to munch - dratted things.
I also picked my first cauliflower - at least 2 look as if they are not going to make a curd,-( they look as if there is no centre ), but the others are coming along now.
Also picked peas and yet more beans - the rain is going to help them, as if they need it!

Afternoon!
A real wash out day,glad I got stuff done yesterday. So this morning I spent some time chopping leaves off tomato plants, and generally tidying them up. I picked all the ripe ones, so its pasta sauce making this afternoon, as I have a few courgettes and french beans to use up.
It really is autumn , isn't it. Was going to go brambling today, but its still raining...

Urgh, it's been raining heavily here since Saturday morning so I've not been to plot. It's cold too, so does that mean that blight is less likely? Certainly it feel v v autumnal now.

I did venture into the garden though and picked loads of runner beans, yet more toms (sorry Shove ! ), chillies which have finally turned red, and blackberries from the hedgerow behind my garden, which I am eating in a crumble with donated apples as I type!

It's such a good year for brambles again, that they're just rotting on the stems unbothered by iris or humans. And rotting quickly, given the damp.

I know I am so pissed off about the rain. I had planned on spending most of this bank holiday down at the allotment, tidying up and getting beds ready for allium sets and soft fruit planting but it has rained so much I haven't been able to get down there yet today. And if I do I imagine half the plot will come back with me on my boots as the soil will be so sticky.

Plus, yes autumn soft fruit is just rotting in this. Yeuch!

I've been away for two weeks, see you've all changed your names which is going to confuse me!

Managed to get over to the plot yesterday when we picked blackberries and beans and carrot and beetroot. Pouring today. Lots of weeds and slugs. I culled some but I'm sure there are loads more out today. I've been making a blackberry and apple crumble for tea and also blackberry coulis. There are more ripening so may have a go at making a bramble jelly.

Cedar, hallooo! Been anywhere nice! Am loving your bramble plans. My crumble was delish, IIDSSM.

ethel (and anyone else?) as you've been rained off, come and talk to me about rasps. I may ave mentioned that 2016 will be my Year of Soft Fruit Bounty. Mostly, hopefully, through expanding my blackcurrant and raspberry at the plot, and my other things getting more mature. What prep are you doing for soft fruit?

Also, how/when do I move rasps? I have a few each of autumn and summer, but i might leave my summer in situ and move my autumn, to be joined by more. I can support by summer ones better, and here's plenty of shady room for autumn ones too. But what do I do to move them, do you know? Googling isn't much help. Do I just wait until they're dormant, and dig up what I think are the autumn ones (they've not crossed... yet) to a manured patch?

And for the summers, I know I cut them down after harvesting, but do I need to move the new summer canes to give them all more room, or do I just leave where they are?

I'm just back from 12 days away too, but it is raining too hard to go up to the allotment (I might anyway in a minute). Tons of blackberries in the garden though . I'm freezing them as I pick them, DS is the main consumer of them in our house and he loves eating them frozen.

welcome back cedar and AsTime !
Spotted - you do know rasps are thugs? , they dont need encouraging!
summer fruiting -cut down the canes that have fruited to the ground, keep the best new 6 canes off each root (tie them in if you so wish) and cut out the rest.
Autumn fruiting - dig up after they have fruited and died down - late autumn/early winter and plant where you want them. Cut them down in February -ish, before they show any signs of regrowth. I made a nice big trench for mine, filled it with compost/rotted manure and left them to it. They are amazingly tough.
I have to have a serious move around of fruit at the plot - I have a little tayberry ( doing really well since I potted it up) to plant and I am going to need space for some summer raspberries, as it does look as if mine at home are full of virus sadly - great crop this year, and will leave them be until I have seen what happens next year, but no where else I can move them to in my garden without major upheaval

Thanks bookbook

• my plot was in an awful state .

Runner beans and sweetcorn all blown over
2 out of 4 courgettes covered in mildew (and all having produced more sodding marrows)
Tomatoes all completely rotted away (plants not just fruit)
Potato tops all rotted away and the ground taken over by grass
Grass about a foot long everywhere
Weeds everywhere
Compost bin blown over into next door's plot (which I suspect they have abandoned).

On the plus side I was able to harvest my first head of celery, a decent bunch of carrots and a handful of runner beans. I am not going to have much free time to do anything up there in the next week or so either.

That's annoying AsTimeGoesBy about the veggies and the compost bin. My runner beans were looking very wonky - I tried to wedge them back upright again.

We went to Guernsey which was lovely if a bit rainy.

I need to do something with my fruit bushes. I shoved a couple of loganberry plants in randomly earlier in the year. I need to move them. Hopefully the rain will mean I can get a fork in where I want to plant them.

oh no AsTime - that must have been a real gale. :( Hopefully the beans may be salvageable, if not the sweetcorn. Potatoes will be there under ground, so they should be fine. I think you have had a heck of a lot of rain down there.

The beans will be ok, some of the canes snapped but not the stems. The corn also did not snap off so might be ok. I need to get the spuds out quickly now before grass completely takes over, it was me that covered it in card and compost and planted through if you remember, I don't want it to all revert back.

We had the birdbath and mini greenhouse (which was fairly heavily weighted) go over at home too. Never mind.

The Channel Islands are on my wish list of places to go Cedar, we were in Scotland and it makes a change for it to be drier there than here (Hants).

Oh yes AsTime - of course! fingers crossed on the corn and beans then. I remember mine all being blown over about 3 years ago , and they mostly survived, (some had had their roots pulled out).

Cedar all the rain is making life a lot easier on digging- thats as long as its not too wet of course!

I, too, was looking forward to a session at the allotment yesterday! I just about managed to dodge the rain to pick some more veg - but not to do anything more meaningful. I desperately need to get in a session as the thistles are germinating everywhere there is any space.

My peas are now over, too, so I need to clear their bed for winter brassicas!

evening!
weeds shove - I have so many.....
I watered my greenhouse plants tonight, and I shut the window and door - its positively chilly .
Now - question, I have one precious aubergine . Its long and thin and a pale-ish purple How do I know when its ready to pick . I thought they went fat and dark purple, but it seems to have stopped growing ( maybe too cold now?)

bookbook - It is distinctly chilly out there, isn't it? I went out for a (very slow) bike ride in a long sleeve top yesterday and I was positively chilly at the top of hills.

Is it too late to hope for an Indian summer, do you think? I remember last year, it was very mild even here up until the end of October, with days in the 20s even in the last week of that month. I recall it distinctly because I read loads of Facebook messages saying things like 'Phwoar - HEATWAVE!'. I was in the States, you see. Where it was raining .

I am fervently hoping we do see a little bit of good weather soon, as - AHEM, AHEM ANNOUNEMENT - one of my tomatoes has gone very slightly orange!! So I am just closing everything up and hoping a high pressure system from the right direction hits us soon...

Hurrah for the orange-ing tomato! Sending you ripening vibes, Shove !

It is SO autumnal, isn't it? I know I should be all happy at the beauty of the fall, but I'm not. It feels like the year has rushed past, and I want more warm sunny weather for my veggies.

In my plot news, I went up yesterday once I thought the downpours had ended, and misjudged it and got soaked. And it was very muddy so I got filthy too, and had those giant shoes of clay. Excitingly, some of my corn is possibly ready but most of it did not develop at all and it will be picked today for supper. And to counterbalance that, my second-biggest squash fell off the plant before my eyes. No idea why - it was fertilised, and not rotten or chomped.

Thank you for the rasp tips, booky. I want them to be thugs, I want them to multiply again and again, as long as they give me lovely fruit. I'm moving g other things around too, as currently most of my soft fruit is on one of my sunniest beds and it really does not need to be, so it's moving back to the shadier bit.

My tayberry also has really thrived this year after being planted out at home. It did nothing much in a pot for 18 months, but in the ground (even though the soil is predominantly rubble), it has really shot up and established well seemingly.

Zebra - I agree. I have found myself stomping around thinking things like 'No, no, no, no, no, it just CAN'T be autumn yet'. I feel like the year is trying to pull a fast one, and I am NOT HAVING IT! The summer hasn't been a total washout here, but the second half has been distinctly cooler than normal (and it is hardly Mediterranean normally). So we are owed some warmth!

Astime - wow, you must have had really high winds. I'm glad that a lot of the damage could be repaired, though I understand it's a bit heartbreaking to witness.

I might go out blackberrying tonight, inspired by Cedar!

Well, by jingo I missed all the drama! Went on holiday, got chucked off mumsnet, had to name change then arrived back at my plot to carnage. Weeds everywhere, caterpillars all over my brassicas effing pea moth infested peas it's been a difficult couple of weeks! I think my plot was hacked by the BAD PEOPLE FROM TINTERNET! I think the dad people also infected my peas with their maggoty selves. on the plus side I have been gifted a shed to go with my free greenhouse, yay! So at least at some point I will have a shed to hide from the rain. Summer has been a washout! Good to be back waves to shove! good book! zebra et al.

Afternoon!
welcome back Tinkle - plot carnage, just like AsTime - commiserations. But a shed as well as a greenhouse (hope you have all the photos safe!) is a real boon :)
And yes, the cabbage white have been in full flight this last two weeks. Hopefully the brassicas will survive - it's surprising how resilient they are.
Yes its autumn - though it was lovely and sunny this morning. I went brambling this afternoon ( still mainly red) and then to the plot to go and pick stuff, and hopefully attack the weeds. . Picked the runner beans - gallons of them , and so, soo many more to come. and french beans - Cobra are just about coming to the end, Cosse Violette are doing quite nicely still .Dug a humungous beetroot, and a sweetheart cabbage 2 courgettes and a near marrow. Just was eyeing up picking raspberries , and rain came. So we came home for a cup of coffee :)

tinkle - you're back! YAY! A lot of people have said that cabbage whites have been dreadful this year. I suppose it's a good thing for the butterflies, though!

book - that's quite a harvest!