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

Poured with rain down here in the South east today. No chance to get to the allotment. We'll be there tomorrow one way or another because it will be the last chance to pick beans before we're off on holiday. My friend will be watering for me - although it rained so much today she won't need to do much for a while!

Hopefully the slugs won't be munching on too much. They decimated my pots in the back garden the other day which had lettuces (bolted) and French beans. I let them get on with it as I knew they'd pretty much finished. I'll be annoyed if they're doing similar damage in the allotment. I have put down slug pellets and it does seem to help. Next year I think I'll try the copper rings.

Happy holiday Cedar :)
Are slugs particularly bad this year -too mild a winter maybe.? I certainly don't remember them being this bad. Though they are much worse here at home than at my plot - maybe the NDN's flinging of slug pellets around has been to my benefit. I have never killed a slug or snail before, first time with slug pellets , so I am going to be looking carefully tomorrow!
thank you for the offer of your DS spotted it sounds like a bargain!.
Finally started to rain, thank goodness, (except I forgot to pick raspberries , darn it)
WhiKnows - cannot remember if your tomatoes are inside or outside- are they getting germinated - could you shake the flowers gently?

They're outside and planted in groups, only planted out about 3 weeks ago though. Never had this problem before, but always planted out much sooner.

Morning!
ah well, fingers crossed WhoKnows, you may just get a late crop.
Well, its barely rained here at all, its just damp in the air, with occasional mizzle Supposedly some rain now this afternoon. I bet it all went to shove
I have been to prick out and managed to get all the spring cabbages done, but ran out of compost for the spring greens. A trip out this afternoon beckons !
And coffee time meant some brain work. Trying to sort out the plan for next year.- It will all be different when it comes to it, but its done! Apart from a little corner , which will be flowers again I think

Hello
Hope everyone is okay :)
Not nearly enough rain after all - was weeding this morning
and its like dust just under the surface.
Lots of harvesting though - french beans/runners/peas and courgettes
I tapped all my sweetcorn, just to help.
Tomatoes in full flow. The pellets have done their thing. I found a dead snail
:( I feel incredibly guilty.
Summer raspberries are just about over - another week and the autumn ones will be starting!
And finished pricking out spring greens now I have more compost :)

I've had the first giant, "i'm not sure if I can carry this back to the house" harvest. I am going to have to find something to do with seven large courgettes tonight.

My tomatoes are also doing extremely well. Almost two well. Two stems groaning with unripe fruit snapped under the weight of the them when I was harvesting ripe toms from them this afternoon I'm a bit put out to be honest. I have snadwiched them back together as quickly as possible.

The huge downpours this week also have swelled some of the ripe fruit to bursting. It must be the sudden load of water on them that has cause the strain on the stems too.

Courgette and cheese muffins are nice.

cougettes freeze well for soups/stews.

courgette 'boats' filled with mince+rice and topped the parmesan cheese are a favourite here.

Ethel, I had that experience yesterday too, too much to carry back. I had my strimmer and normal allotment bag (has seeds, labels, water bottle, phone, keys) plus my first potatoes, about 7 huge courgettes, a bunch of carrots and about 2kg of runner beans from my friend's plot, which I'm looking after for a couple of weeks. She wanted me to pick them to keep them cropping, she has masses. Luckily it's only about 1/4 mile. We also have blackberries ripening faster than wecan est them at home, so I'm freezing those.

So, this morning I made runner bean chutney. 9 jars. Which was only about half the beans. I like chutney, but 9 jars is an awful lot.

I've never tried freezing courgettes, assumed they'd go mushy, do I need to chop and blanch them? Not that I've got much freezer space.

Had a really good weeding session yesterday, we had rain most days last week ending with a real downpour on Friday so the soil is lovely and soft, I un-netted my brassicas to get all the thistles out from in between them and these huge tap roots were lifting out almost effortlessly.

Oh and finally, a few tiny green tomatoes!

they go mushy when freezing but are fine for stews/pasta sauce/soup.
I don't bother blanching them, just wash and cut up in bitesize chunks.

evening
ethel - sympathies with the tomato vine snapping.
WhoKnows - setting tomatoes, and rain - joy!
My go to recipes for courgettes
chocolate courgette brownies
courgette /tomato and potato bake -( briam)
cheese and courgette muffins
pasta ( tomato) sauce
minestrone(ish) soup
I open freeze runner and french beans - I dont blanch them, just do them little and often, and then tip into a big bag when frozen. I also add them chopped quite small to pasta sauce , along with courgettes....

goodbook - Oh no! I feel guilty for stealing your rain. We had it torrentially here on Friday, real bucketloads of it. I thought I might be able to brave it to get some potting on done, but just the trip down to the greenhouse drenched me.

I've been away with my parents this weekend - returned with a big bag of my Dad's saved broad bean seed for overwintering, which I swapped him for a bag of Meteor pea seeds. Hooray! I feel a weird sense of victory at not paying anything for my winter legumes!

Slugs... they are always horrendous in my garden (shade, north-facing), but this year hasn't been worse than others. However, I hear lots of people saying they have a really serious problem. I wonder if it is because in Sheffield we had a very hard couple of weeks in the winter where we had over a foot of snow settled on the ground. (The road where my allotment is located was on the news because a National Express bus broke down in the weather and everyone had to sleep in a church). But then, I think I might just be searching for a silver lining because I imagine you had snow too, goodbook?? So perhaps it is something else?

I hear you on the guilt of the pellets. But it really does reach a point where it's a matter of kill a few slugs or have nothing to harvest! I don't mind the odd shredded leaf, but when they kill all of the seedlings, it's a bit much!

I have been working on DH all weekend about a second allotment, but still no joy! It would be really helpful to have your square footage/metreage/yardage goodbook - twill add to my case I am sure! Part of his reasoning is the cost of allotments here. I think our rents are pretty steep - amongst the most expensive in the country - it'll be nearly £120 a year for my half plot when they turn on the water! My Dad has two half allotments and pays £40 for both!

Oh and hooray for bumper harvests!

I realise this sounds like an odd idea for using up courgettes (bordering on health freaky), but I promise it is actually quite nice. If you take some and peel them and then blend or juice them with fruit, they actually make nice smoothies. They come out sort of thick and creamy, and without the skin they are not very bitter so it doesn't taste like drinking veg at all!

I'm going to give briam a go very soon.

Ouch, £120! Mine is £25/year for about 10 by 7m. The plot next to mine (along the long side) is about to become vacant I think, chap has had two warning letters and still hasn't really done much with it, which has made me think idly about having two, but they don't allow it any more because it wouldn't be fair to those on the waiting list for their first one.

Slugs - we had no snow at all last year (well, about an inch one morning), and very few frosts (Hampshire) and they are really out in force. I have been using nematodes on the allotment which has really helped, but because I still have a lot of grassy areas and tend to leave piles of weeds to die/dry there is plenty of shelter for them and I've still got a few, not eaten much though. I am hoping my slow worms are eating them (found 10 slowworms under my slowworm shelter the other day).

At home though, bleugh! I haven't got many things to be eaten by them, so no real damage, but there are hundreds of slugs out at night, we've been going out to watch hedgehogs/meteors late at night and they are all over the lawn. Gross.

Yes, it's a lot of money. And a real shame because some old-timers are actually having to give it up because it's no longer so cost-effective for them, which is desperately sad . It puts it out of the reach of the people who benefit the most.

One option for us that I am weighing up would be to buy a private allotment as a long term investment. I have no idea what this would cost in our area, but there are some that are extremely close to our house, most of which seem to be in a state of some dereliction. I might investigate...

I'm going to try nematodes on my garden next year, thanks to your recommendation whoknows! It sounds like an ideal solution.

I often wish the slugs and snails would concentate on the lawn instead of my veg...
they seem to really like my carrots this year.

Oh and yes to courgettes in smoothies, though I don't peel them, they make pretty green flecks. My standard recipe is one small courgette, one small carrot, a lump of root ginger, orange juice to cover and blitz it. A few cubes of mango (we sometimes buy frozen) are a nice addition too.

Morning!
shove yes we did have snow , and heavy duty frosts , but not as bad as the year before. And it was a snail, not slugs, and I like snails.
wow - £120 a half plot is truly expensive - not for the half hearted, by any means, and not easy to make it economical to grow your own.
Ours is £20 per half plot and that measures 30m x 7.5. I now have 2, so I have 450 square metres for £40 a year . Not all growing stuff - we have to now have room to park a car :) I still have some grass to take up, 2 sheds, 3 humungous water butts, a big compost heap, a heap of rotted manure. ( both made with old palletts) The list of people waiting has gone, so I don't feel bad about it. Though bureaucracy means that I have one plot , and DH has the other! And if I find its too much, we can give one back up.

ooh- forgot to ask shove - is Meteor the overwintering pea you had success with this year?

Kumi to the idea of slug lawnmowers! If only!! What I find most disconcerting is the way that the really, really huge ones are attracted to the dome-shaped solar lights in the garden... they seem to festoon them at night. Eurgh.

whoknows - my peeling is clearly unnecessary! Hooray! I am always looking for ways to cut down on work in the kitchen!

goodbook - I don't think you should feel bad about having two plots - after all, most modern plots are really just one plot that has been subdivided. It makes a lot of sense for councils because for the majority of people with busy lives, a full-sized plot is a lot of ground to manage and a bit overwhelming! But for those like you who can manage it (and I am sure you will with aplomb), a full-size strip makes so much sense. Wasn't the standard allotment size initially worked out as the amount of land you'd need to feed a family and be reasonably self-sufficient?

Yep, Meteor was my overwintering pea last year. It is as tough as old boots as a plant - it bravely endured all of the snow and ice and flowered so early that I can only describe it as defiant. The peas were less sweet than my summer ones (Onward), but still really, really lovely - and filled that gap before other things get going.

Very envious of all of your cheap rents! The council say it's necessary to charge us so much because they're looking to develop new sites due to demand from new allotmenteers - and my site is new, as am I! So I feel like I can't really complain. I think if I'd been doing it years, though, I would feel most cheesed off. I am insulated from it at the moment because in the absence of the water being turned on, the rent is £50 a year, which is a bit cheaper.

evening!
and thank you shove for the vote of confidence - 'with aplomb" :) .
Sadly, truth is a to-do list as long as your arm , with 'weeding' at the bottom.
But , come September I will have more time, ( retiring eek! ) so there is hope
On rents - you would think therefore they would be putting in the water to get more people in and paying!
Meteor for peas then- I have quite a bit organised for overwintering
Did get there today , and dismantled a manure heap, on second plot , which was in totally the wrong place - now ready to dig over for overwintering shallots and garlic.
And picked more veg :)

goodbook - Blimey, given that you're already doing so amazingly, imagine how amazing your plot will look next year when you have more time! You'll be onto your THIRD allotment!! Either that, or greening up every space bit of grass verge near to your house.

My friend has just retired and she was really, really nervous about it - but she has been absolutely loving it and getting involved in all kinds of causes, events and gardens. (She makes me look so lazy!!)

I did another harvest last night - lots of beans on the way! I have started a courgette tally, to weigh the yield and add it all together so I can see what I get over the season. I don't really know why I'm doing this, except that it's fun and satisfying. I'm right at the start and this far I have 6 kg.

My near total failure at root crops continues with three of the stubbiest and most misshapen carrots you have ever seen . I have a picture on DH's phone which I will post later on!

Can I ask a question about overwintering brassicas? When do I put them in? I shoved in a few cabbage seedlings about 8 weeks ago thinking they'd do for October/November and they are almost ready. I've just planted in another load of tiny plants, but I think I might be too early for these to go through to next year? And now I rather fear I might drown in cabbage, which is not a good way to go. HALP!

evening!
well, it has rained all day here, so I will not have to worry about squashes or courgettes at least.
no 3rd allotment for me shove - I may just manage to get my garden in order, its taken a back seat this last year!
and yes to a lot of beans due - I'm looking at all the flowers on my beans, and I am slightly quailing!
I planted up my overwintering brassicas in June - kale/sprouts/savoys/cauliflowers and purple sprouting broccoli. Still time,
( just ?) I think to get some planted - maybe a bit late for sowing, possibly apart from kale.
I have too many cabbages as well ( though they are summer ones) - about to do a marathon coleslaw making tomorrow.
My tomatoes are suddenly all ripening, so its also pasta sauce making day tomorrow as well :)

just realised you have planted them !

The squash on squash mountain has started to fruit. It was a sole survivor from 4 seeds planted from a packet of mixed squash. So its a surprise squash.

Looks like it is Italian stripe. Bit disappointed..was hoping for a yellow or orange type. But on the plus side I have had very few courgette so this will stand in.

Does anyone know is it best to eat these small? How do you know when they are ready?