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

Welcome on board, cat. Your fruits sound wonderful. I'm in Melbourne and have a veggie patch. Allotments do not exist here.

The slow worms look fab. I must say that if I saw anything snakey in my garden I'd be on the 'phone to the ranger to get rid. There are two grades of venomous snakes in Victoria: moderately venomous and extremely venomous. :o

Blackcurrants - are not like raspberries. If you cut it all back then there are no stems to fruit. With Blackcurrants, you need to remove 1/3 of the stems; usually the oldest ones - leaving lots of new growth to fruit on.

Just popping by to say hello, gardening has not been top of my todo list for ages unfortunately but I missed you all. Hoping to get cracking a bit more as thd evenings get lighter.

Waves to whoknows and welcome to cat!

It's freezing today! A really hard frost out. I'm hoping it's killed off some slugs

It would have been a nice day to get up to the plot today, but I've had things to do at home and the DCs have friends round. I definitely haven't got the gardening mojo going at the moment, we are thinking about putting our house on the market and next door have just slapped in a planning application for a huge extension which will overshadow us and be a massive nuisance during construction, so I'm mulling all that over. However some seed catalogues have arrived in the post today so I am going to look at those later and see if I can get myself going again.

I've spent most of the week painting and fitting out my new shed.

It's been cold, windy but today I actually got warmish - enough to take my fleece off. Wahoo!

I'm loving the shed so far. I have built a workbench in there so I can do my woodwork. I am working my way through the old tester pots. It's starting to fill up already.

The best thing of course is the view from the shed...my garden with winding path down to the canal.

Lovely Doreen, blue is such a fabulous colour and nice to have such a view. My shed just looks out into next door's very plain garden.

What fabulous view, Doreen

Doreen - that's stunning! The shed and the view. Where are you - potteries somewhere?
I love all the colours of the woods.

Right all. My seed fingers are a-twitching. I've not sown owt other than broad beans (the 2nd sowing has yet to show their faces), and a few flowers. Do I bring out the heated prop? Do I do some chillies? I think I may this weekend... Has anyone else started toms? (Shove said she has)

Oh no, WhoKnows - that uncertain feeling is a bit rubbish, isn't it?
When might they start the extension if all goes to plan? Which it won't.

Have you seen any exciting seeds?

That is just glorious Doreen - what an amazing place to have a garden. And I love the bright colours in your shed too!

Whoknows - gosh, big decisions ahead! It can be quite unsettling when it feels like everything is up in the air like that. I think everyone has a different coping strategy, but mine would definitely be seed planting!! I hope that you can get some kind of resolution/decision from the planning process soon - I guess if you object, they may be able to get them to tone it down a bit??

Where are you - potteries somewhere?

South Derbyshire. I've taken a day off the shed as I had some paperwork to sort out.

Talking of itching to get seeds sown; I have done some today. A month late due to that damned virus but still.

Rose de Roscoff onions, Cupani Sweetpeas, Kohl Rabi, Kale [determined to eat kale all next winter], Early May Peas, and Lau's Lettuce which is from an old seed swap and I will need to save my own seeds for future use now - and for my teaching classes Radish, peas, lettuce and beetroot and yes the first two are in the heated prop as I really need them by next Thursday - no hope but it's worth a try. The green house looks much better with some fresh seed trays out.

Oh and some Chillis.

I've just done my first seeds of the season today: sweetpeas, tomatoes and some yellow pansies. Just in seed trays and left in the kitchen.

I went to the spring flower and potato show at the Royal horticultural halls on Tuesday. I couldn't resist and bought some giant alium bulbs and some Jerusalem artichokes (never tried them before) but my sister recons they are tasty.
Went to the allotment today and saw my lovely robins filled up the fat ball feeder and prepared a place to put my plastic green house. It is one of the ones that easily blow away so had to plan carefully. When I got home it had been delivered, just hope it isn't too difficult to put together.

The kale I grew last year is still going and the kavolo Nero is picking up since I surrounded it with wood chips to stop the slugs and snails.

Hope this sunny weather keeps up as I want to put the greenhouse up on Sunday.

I grew cavolo nero too, caz -delicious! It fed me all winter, but I got bored of it the other day, and it had started to bolt to I uncovered it. And in a couple of days, the pigeons had stripped it back to green skeletons for me. Er, thanks, pigeons! I will def sow some more. PS I never said welcome to you, and that I am very jealous of your slow worms. I've never actually seen a slow worm in my life, despite spending all my childhood, and now lits of my mid 30s, outside. Maybe this year I'll see one?!

I've not made it to the plot this weekend. I had hoped to slope off for a bit and dig put my compost heap, spread it, and start a new one, but it was too windy. But I did manage to get a few seeds sown, with the dregs of last year's compost. I did some coriander, chards and perpetual spinach, and potted on some blackcurrant cuttings. My 2nd sowing of broadbeans aren't yet up, and (per this thread), they were sown 11 days ago. They're outside but under cover, so I know mice have not had them, but maybe it's just been too cold. Ah well.

Tomorrow I think I'll make an exciting visit to Wilko and B&Q to stock up on composts, so that my seed sowing can start in earnest soon...

Ooh - has anyone tried that thing where you paint a few pebbles bright red, and stick them around your strawberries, so that thieving birds get a peckful of pebble not fruit?

Does it work to protect the crop, and, er, does it hurt the bird?

Hello everybody!

DH and I have an allotment - we have had a plot for about nine years - eight in our old plot and just under one year in our present plot. We have stayed on the same site but moved to flatter easier plot (I am unsteady due to breaking my neck years and years ago so I fell over a lot! )

We had to start all over again but because we had experience we knew exactly what we wanted out of our plot. Instead of making small beds we have left the plot mostly open - this allows DH to get 'roger' the rotavator out and give the plot a good 'rodgering'.... I know.... It's not funny really.

We have a shed, a table and chair area where we have our stove and where we can make and eat bacon butties and make tea, we have a green house too. There are three raised beds that are about a meters square and three quarters of metre high. We grow carrots in these.

We are planning on putting a strawberry patch at the other end of the plot next to the compost hoppers and the access road

And that is me really ....

Hi everyone, been down to the allotment and put up my plastic greenhouse.

Easier said than done the instructions consisted of one diagram!!!

The first attempt I had about 8 unaccountable bits, then I re figured and had put together frame with the correct amount of pieces but the wrong pieces. Made a coffee and sat looking at it and changed around some of the joints and hey presto it worked. Next bit getting the cover on when the wind is blowing but somehow I managed.

Next how to secure it so it doesn't end up next door. Concrete slabs and some metal hooks. Hope it wont blow away in the night.I am going to check on it tomorrow (fingers crossed).

Fed the robins and tried to get some photos but they were being very camera shy today.
zebra do you have to cover cavlo nero I just have mine growing naked

Hi everyone.

Lovely photo, Doreen. The bright colours look great.

Your allotment looks huge, Stories!

DH picked up some seed potting mix stuff today so hopefully I can get DD1 to help me plant some sweet pea, parsley and basil seeds tomorrow. I think she'll enjoy that. Will leave them on the kitchen windowsill, which gets a lot of sun (when it's out...)

PILs are up at the end of the month so I'm hoping to get FIL's help with planting a few blackcurrants. I've got bad SPD so I can't work a spade right now.

Welcome Wonderous, that's nice to be able to have a better plot on the same site.

Well, I haven't been up to mine this weekend, but I have made a bit of a start at home. Bought a couple of packs of seeds, onion sets and potatoes and a new trowel yesterday, then decluttered my shed (it seems to have mysteriously filled up with cardboard boxes over the winter), sorted out my seeds and got the potatoes chitting. My shed is leaking , it was new last year and has greenhouse vents in the roof, they both let drops of water in when it's raining heavily, so I'm going to have to phone the supplier up. I have buckets under them, but they are right where you need to walk down the middle, so in the way and easy to kick out of place.

Still poring over seed catalogues, I need tomatoes, sweet peas and carrots as a minimum.

Quick delurk here.... Finally got to the allotment today. Somewhat embarrassing they have mown half the pitch - I assume the grass and weeds were annoying them.... However I moved some of the strawberries out from under the raspberries (previous tenant placed them). Into the one spot which is in good condition still (10 bags of horse manure).

So to the rest of the pitch. I was too ambitious last year. Should I just do potatoes and onions ? The soil is awful but I don't have an easy solution to this (no manure this time of year). I could cover an area with cardboard to suppress weeds ?

caz - hahahahaha! They're a nightmare those diagrams! Well done for getting it sorted!

Wow, wondrous - your plot is enormous. I am It's going to be wonderful when it's all done!

didireallysay - definitely weedsheet/cover the areas you're not using. It just saves you a world of hassle, and allows you to focus on bringing the bits that you are using right without fighting that constant battle on the other side! You can gradually uncover it as and when you're ready. It really helped me to divide the job up in my mind when I first got my site: I could 'see' the areas more and come up with a plan.

I planted crap tons of seeds yesterday. Three trays of different aquilegias, delphiniums, stock, nectaroscordia some heat-lovers like chilli peppers, sweet peppers, tomatoes and then the first tranche of succession-sown veggies: cauliflower, kohl rabi, hispi cabbage, celery. Oh, and celeriac.

I'm finding that seed I've collected myself has a much greater germination rate than seed I've bought. I am completely amazed by this. Anyone else have the same experience?

DidI - yes, my plot is mostly covered in cardboard at the moment, it doesn't look great but it does help keep things under control. If you stick a layer of organic material over it even better as it all rots down together and stops the card blowing away. When I don't have compost (I haven't got car access, so it is tricky) I take all my empty milk bottles up there, half fill them with water and use them to weight down the card.

Last year I covered a few sq m of grass with card and compost about now, left it for about a month to get really soaked, then cut holes through it with a bulb planter and planted potatoes through, the grass did keep growing through but it was manageable, I got a good crop of spuds and at the end of the season I dug out all the grass roots so I have a decent bed there now.