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

missed that post while typing Spotted - the rhubarb is obviously enjoying itself - mine have lots of dead/dying leaves which need to be pulled off, then a rest. My thug starts putting out new shoots through the snow in February , but the other two varieties are later.
But it's horrible weather, but due to get a bit better this week so you have time!

Spottedzebra it was delish, though very rich.
Bookbook where do you live if you can count on snow in Feb?
Ive never overwintered broad beans or garlic before. Do I not need to worry if they havent come up yet? My onions and shallots were up really quickly when I planted in October.

Hi ethelb - East Yorkshire, on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds, near York :)
We get snow a little bit off and on between now and January, but most comes early February any time until March. It hasn't been too bad the last 2-3 years. Never usually too deep - anything from 1- 3" , but 3 or 4 years ago, we had about 6-8" one time. Its more hit and miss these days. We used to get snowed in every winter when we first came here 35 years ago. I suspect shove gets more though- she's up on the Pennines!
My shallots are well up, no garlic yet . Last year it was January when I saw the broad beans were up - though the mice found them as well!

Morning!
Been a bit distracted with other stuff the last couple of days, so no plotting.
But - will be off there shortly to get a bit done, and i have a delivery of manure coming, so have to be there.
At least the bitter weather has gone for a few days !

afternoon!
what a lovely day for the end of November.
Managed to do a bit weeding, dug up the dahlias - think I may try to keep those for net year. And harvested spinach - oh, and did a lot of manure shifting :) Farmer came and did a lovely job of tipping it in the bin, but a lot to move to tidy it up, and then cover.
Bin before and after!

Nothing to report here as I haven't even been up to have a look at the plot. We had snow last Saturday morning which settled but then disappeared. Which is very early for the South East. But it has got warm again so I may get time to go and plant up my fruit bushes.

ethelb I don't think you need to worry about your garlic not being up yet. I think mine took weeks to come up last year but I didn't plant it until December and the bulbs were already trying to shoot in the packet.

We did have beans and sweetcorn for dinner the other night plus potatoes and onions all from the plot. So it is worth doing and I felt slightly smug.

Where do you all store your potatoes? We had ours in the shed but it was a bit damp so we've moved them into the understairs cupboard as we don't have a garage. I think they're going to be too warm in there and I'm thinking about the loft (which won't be the most convenient place ever). How do the rest of you manage it?

Hi-
cedar - no potatoes to store here - I don't grow many, and I am rubbish at them, so they get eaten up quickly.
I think its Doreen who grows a lot - can't totally remember, but I think she recommended boxes in a shed. When I do have a few, I have hessian sacks in the garage, popped into an apple box, as long as it doesn't get too cold. Definitely too warm under the stairs I would have thought. Can you get hold of those big brown paper sacks at the greengrocers? It may be worth asking if you can have the empty ones.
Off to pick up my plum and gage today, so I am hoping its nice tomorrow so they can get planted up :)

That's really good looking manure. No straw! Is it rotted down?

Im looking forward to going down quickly tomorrow to (day off but to do Self employed stuff) to dig up some more jerusalem artichokes to palm off on people over thanksgiving. I cut the stems down last week to make a lasagne bed on a particularly poor draining patch of ground.

Im already plotting a trip to a local allotment shop a fellow lottie holder told me about recently, to order my seed potatoes. Its 85p a lb which isn't bad! So geekily excited by the prospect of an allotment shop.

ethelb - its actually very fresh,really steaming! and no, not too much straw, but there is some. Just need to tidy it into a nice shape so it can be covered. Its not for use until next year, so plenty of time for it to rot down :)
And an allotment shop - I love ours, though its only open on weekend mornings - I am going to be volunteering in it next spring I think :)
The lasagne plan is coming together for you obviously
I have had a lovely couple of hours at my favourite nursery, picking up my plants - I did buy a white currant, but had to stop myself with the extensive selection of overwintering stuff on show ( though I did buy some bulbs for my garden ) and browsed everywhere. I would like a fig I think, but goodness knows where I would put it

Hello! Well, I've still not done any gardening. I've got some time carved out tomorrow to hopefully get my rasps and jostaberry in the ground, and I had hoped that the other bare root rasps that I'd ordered would arrive... but of course they haven't. They were dispatched days ago. And that there is why I hate ordering stuff in!

I've also got broadbeans that are shooting up now, so I really ought to get them out too. They're hardened off ok, but it suddenly occurred to me that it's getting chilly now, so I hope they're ok to be planted onto the wintery ground!

Afternoon!
Spotted - I don't think you will have any problem with your broad beans - you can continue sowing into the ground now. I would maybe put some protection over them for the winter incase the temperature really plummets.
Well, I have been down at the plot this morning with DH - the weather forecast is looking a bit grim - (wind and rain) so we got the plum and gage planted and finished tidying up the manure pile , its all covered and weighted down for winter.

So the frost killed off all the nasturtiums this week. Boo.

And it also killed off the best salvia ever - Honeydew melon sage. But is is a tender perennial so it might be back if I can dig it up and pop it with the lemon verbena.

Evening all,

Yes, my nasturtiums all got zapped by frost last weekend. Celery survived though. Also yes to potatoes in boxes in my shed, I'm using banana boxes draped in black weed membrane, thank you too whoever it was suggested that.

Only recent activity for me has been putting down leaf mould and cardboard.

Celery is perfectly hardy so is fine outdoors all winter. Same as parsley.

My Oca are flopped though, once they flop you have to leave them 4-6 weeks to double in size as they absorb all the starch back into the tubers so don't need harvesting until Christmad day.

Ah, wasn't sure about the celery, I've never grown it before and wondered if the water in the stems would freeze and turn them to mush.

Well, my raspberries finally arrived late yesterday and so this morning I dashed off to the plot to get them, some other raspberries and a jostaberry planted out.

The dashing ended there, as it took me ages! I have clarty clay, and it's been so wet that it's heavy already, and there they were going was quite full of tree roots from the boundary. And some more bindweed, and a bit of couch too. And it rained. And I needed to also move some currants. But I did it, and came back wearing half the allotment on my boots. It took hours, and I am aching so much! The ground is so bad that it wasn't really diggable - I was more shoving mud out of the way, and getting it all stuck to everything else. And my thighs are aching as I had to spend ages crouching, as I prised lumps of mud off my spade and trowel, and sorted through them. And I kept on slipping on my board.

Still, it is done. And I have learnt that it's not a great idea for me to buy bare rooted things over the Internet, as I can't control when they'll arrive and hence when they need to go in. But 2016 Year of Fruit is all systems go...

and my broadbeans plantlets and garlic still remain unplanted

Ooh I have a question - I have rhubarb to divide, but it's sprouting furiously again. Should I wait until it's all brown and dormant again before I set to it with my spade?

You are brave, I'd have chucked them in a bucket and gone indoors. I had to pop some huge cardboard boxes to mine today and that was as much as I could muster in the horrid weather.

That's very kind of you to say, Doreen.
But I think we all know that I'm not brave, I'm just an idiot.

Evening!
Spotted - you need a medal for sheer perseverance . Its been cold, windy and wet today (I went to an open air Christmas market at Chatsworth, it was bitter)
I potted up the bare rooted raspberries that I was given, mostly due to the fact that I haven't figured out where they are going yet.
mm- rhubarb - the thug at home is giving it a go to again, but I do have to dig it up to split. I am just going to do it as soon as possible , and make sure it gets planted quickly, and mulched well.
the frost took down all my flowers last week. I rescued dahlias to dry out in the greenhouse.
Just hoping its nice enough to get to the plot to pick some fresh veg for tea tomorrow :)

Checking in from Melbourne, Australia where, after a cold, dry winter, we're having a hot dry, spring.

Rhubarb troubles here, too. I moved our rhubarb to a more sheltered spot where it was doing well until trashed by the dog jumping up and down on it in an effort to get at the blackbirds nesting in the potato vine above it. A little fence has restored semblance of order and am giving the rhubarb some TLC. The blackbirds have taken themselves and their bloated Jabba the Hutt-style offspring elsewhere.

Our two veggie beds have rocket, daikon, leeks spring onions, lettuce, Lebanese aubergines, chard and chillies. The beds are also full of tomato seedlings from the compost heap. And verbena bonariensis which seeds like mad but is easy to pull out. The tomatoes are weeded except for a couple we let rip. :o All other tomatoes are in containers. I'm trying two ways this year: one in polystyrene self-watering boxes, and one in big plant pots, but each pot inside another to keep the roots cool. We'll see.

Also giving telegraph cucumbers a go, as well as black climbing and dwarf green beans.

Everything mulched to hell with pea straw against the sun, and satay sticks against the echtcat.

Evening!
welcome echt
It will be lovely to have you tell us the differences! I don't think we are likely to have problems with sun in the same way though.... :)
Do you have to water a lot, and are there many substitutes for favourite vegetables ? I am asking as one of my best friends lives in Australia - (just moved to Adelaide) and I am not allowed to send her cucumber seeds. She loved the flavour of them when she was over here, but there are strict rules I think.
Some things seem to thrive on neglect, but never the ones you really want!
I managed an hour this morning at the plot to harvest veggies - sprouts/leeks/savoy cabbage and the last of the chioggia beetroot. No rain, but started to get rather gusty -( I looked like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards by the time I had finished) . Once again put bench in shed, and watched sadly as someones plastic sheeting flapped like mad, then escaped not to be seen again. It was pretty claggy, and its been raining on and off all afternoon but not as bad as I thought it was going to be thank goodness.

Good evening!

It's lovely to hear from the opposite side of the world and the opposite season, just as we're splatting into winter proper, you've got a lovely spring and hopefully a good summer too, echt. Daikon, hey? That's an idea, I really like eating that, maybe I should try growing it? But having g said that, I've not even managed a little radish so maybe I'd best not get ideas above my station.

So today's garden-related news (given that it was hammering it down all day), is that I used my last home-grown tomato. But the silver lining is that a quick check back on this thread shows me that it was picked... 21st Sept. So it kept quite well! Black Cherry was the last tomato standing. They weren't as delicious in the end as the fresh ones obviously, but they were every bit as good as shop-bought, refrigerated tomatoes.

bookbook, Adelaide is even drier than Victoria on the whole. Bushfires going on at the moment, too. We use raised beds for veggies, to help with watering, also rake through water-retaining granules twice a year. We still don't have water tank but may need to change on this. Pea straw mulch, though last year, growing completely rubbish pumpkin provided the best shade for plants.:o At the height of summer we have to rig up shade cloth onto stakes some days.

Zebra the daikon was planted because it grows from seed to harvest in 6-9 weeks, also grows all year round here, so giving it a go. DH likes to cook Japanese-style, so daikon works, though when grated, flaming hell, the brassica pong is a shocker, though it tastes OK.

Afternoon!
thanks echt - I will pass on those tips, though she has been gardening near Perth for a few years before moving :)
Spotted - that is exactly why I like growing my own. Once you have eaten the things you grow, you realise that most of what you buy is grown for looks, not taste.
I have had 2 intense hours at the plot this morning. it stopped raining yesterday afternoon, and its a bit windy and dry today, so here the soil has got to diggable from claggy - thank you chalk! I chopped down one load of asparagus stems - nearly flattened with the wind on Sunday, and finished another big area digging and weeding. Dug up some leeks
priority list now -the old strawberry bed to dig up, weed in the fruit cage and dig up 3 fruit bushes