Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 5 - The Diggers Rest !

[bookbook]

Thanks to teacuphalfempty for supplying the title .
so, its the 1st of March, the meteorological spring is here, and it's all systems go for the coming growing season. Let's hope for a good one -no pests and diseases, enough rain overnight and plenty of sunshine. Well, we can dream....

Hi, hoping to join in the allotment chat...
Got my allotment last year and it's taken a lot of sorting and clearing but we are finally planting stuff.

Quick question, my broad beans have not germinated... it's been 2 weeks and nothing
Any ideas what the problem could be?

Evening!
welcome FrameyMcFrame :) well, if you have had the chance to skim read any of the previous posts, you will find a lot of broad bean angst..... Have you direct sown? Mine did not germinate twice, so I sowed them in pots at home instead, and they came up fine, but absolutely no sign of the others... Whereabouts are you - North/South/East/West ?- I put mine down to the dry, cannot really say the cold, as I normally sow mine at the end of October with no problems. Lots of problems with peas as well. But its good isn't it, to start planting after all the hard work!
Lulooo - mmm, don't know if net is going to have the intrinsic strength by itself, but as part of something else? - possibly... won't know unless you try- maybe someone else has had a go at this - I just let mine go beserk over the ground, but I have a big plot!
Biddypop - a bit of sowing problems everywhere - I have popped a few more runners in pots, as I do like to have a few spare. A few seem to have come up blind, but they are last years, so I suppose i should expect a few not to come up.
Well, after a morning just doing little things at home - such as checking every single brassica pot/plug for the dratted slugs ,and rearranging where I am keeping them ( you just climb up and slither across metal wire shelves you devils ). I finally got to the plot this afternoon. Finally took the net of my purple sprouting plants , cut everything I could off them ( which was more than I thought) and I have left them to the mercy of nature, and pigeons..... It meant I could start to clear around them , so got a wigwam up and planted out the sweet peas. Planted perpetual spinach, and dug up the forest of old perpetual spinach which was doing a very good job of bolting. Got 2 more wigwams up ready for beans next week, but we ran out of the stuff used to tie the tops, ( lack of marital communication there!) so another 4 wigwams to create sharpish.

should have said wet, not dry - did it ever stop raining early on? :)

Sending an urgently needed breeding pair of salamanders to books house by drone

bookbook, what if I tie string inbetween? Do you think that would work? Hmm. Maybe I need to think of something stronger.
My plots not too big. Well, it doesn't feel big. Maybe I'm being greedy. There's lots of bits I can't use yet for various reasons. Perhaps a couple of butternut squash may be too big for my plot. Will have to rethink.

Evening!
yes pretty please teacup - can they cope with Yorkshire weather? it gets almost warm every now and then..
Lulooo - decided to go and have a google, as I haven't grown them myself this way, and saw this - maybe I was being too pessimistic?getbusygardening.com/squash-arch-update

getbusygardening.com/squash-arch-update/

I grew squash up those cheap arches, Luloo. I'm not sure if netting would be strong enough, and you'd need to fix it to the arch at so many points to prevent it from being dragged off. I used string - lots of it! It worked, but my squashes - ie the actual fruit - was only little.

So, today is my Day of Planting Out. Except it's raining, and rain is forecast all day. I think I may brave it anyway, as I am running put of room in the garden, on the Tables of Hardening Off. And it's meant to get cold briefly tues/weds I think. But I might go ahead anyway. Def french beans, some courgettes, and possibly sweetcorn. And the last of my broadies. I may even risk a tomato. And I will possibly install my arches, although I might need a hand for that.

I have a question too. On my allotment broad beans and peas, something is nibbling at the leaves, in a very regular manner. The leaves are behind a wire barricade. Something is scalloping the edges, but teeny tiny cuts/bites. What is it? Not a leaf - cutter bee, as the holes are tiny - maybe 1 mm or 1.5mm across?

Spotted do you think there were tiny because they were grown up the arch?
I was wondering if it makes a difference to squashes if they're training up vertically compared to when they're allowed to ramble along the floor without needing support.

morning!-
dashing off shortly, so a quick one Spotted sounds like pea weevils. They attack the young leaves near the ground ( I usually get a bit of damage) but it doesn't usually kill them, and once they get properly growing up I don't usually have any more problems.
Lulooo - trouble is every year the weather is different! So its hard sometimes to pin down the problem

No, Luloo I chose little varieties as I was worried that big ones would pull the arch down!

Pea weevils, hey booky Well, they are very neat workers. Thanks!

I have that too zebra - first time ever! I think book is right that it's weevils.

No mysterious holes dug in the garden last night, so still don't know what's doing that, but we did get a visit from this lovely beastie.

In haste, but just wanted to share my delight at seeing fantastic mr fox. :)

I'm a bit on the fence regarding mrs and mr fox.
on one hand I get really excited seeing them and t-rexing them away on the other hand I'm a bit nervous about them in the garden when the dc are out playing. and of course the deposits and the digging...

I love your fox, Shove ! He is so cheeky. I live on the edge of a very small town, and I hardly ever see a fox now, not like when I lived in the big smoke. In fact it's the talk of a street if a fox is seen or smelt. I wonder if the hopes were his. Have you kept the camera on? Any badgers yet?

Right, I planted out! A lovely few hours in the light drizzle, only a couple of others there. One was a brand new person who came over to say hello (fine), then told me that my corn was planted wrong, and said that he was looking forward to growing on chalk. I ignored his rudeness over my corn (ignored but not forgotten), but I did say that actually our soil is rather clayey (have I mentioned that? Much?) . He said it wasn't, it was chalk and that it would be a challenge to keep things watered. Erm, riiiigggghhht

I don't know how anyone could be so wrong, and so insistent. I have written him off as a fool. And he looks like Michael Gove.

So, back to nicer things, I planted out more broadies, some companion summer savory, borage, limnanthes, and my sweetcorn. I sort of don't mind if the corn doesn't make it. It's got too big to not be planted out, but it isn't in my top 5 veg, and I am not reclassifying it as a participant in #YoF. If it does, I will use the space for tomatoes or squash. Hence I planted it quite closely. And 3 courgettes went out too, but if they die, I have more. And I cut a lot of grass with a bread knife and weeded.

It's going to be quite cold I think on tues/weds so I am holding back on the tomatoes. For now...

Evening!
lovely picture off your trailcam shove - have you recovered the wonderful ale and train day?
Well, had some time (not much) at the plot this morning, am sorting out ready the last bit of netting for the brassica cage, and picked another cauliflower.
Only 1 snail! on a runner bean this morning , wire mesh shelves seem to have done the trick so far on the slug front. I had to smile though. I planted out the summer cabbages this week, and covered them with enviromesh . It was cut a bit wonky so didn't quite reach. So 1 lonely plant was left out, like a sacrificial lamb. Poor thing - stripped to the stalk today, everything under the mesh, just fine.
It has poured all afternoon, so stayed in and baked :)

I do type too slow... x post with you Spotted :)

I was thinking about you Shove, everything it started raining and wondering if you were still braving it. (I just assumed you were experiencing the same Yorkshore weather as me!)
I'm going to hold off planting out till next week as I haven't really hardened off properly yet. I feel very hesitant to let my little babies out overnight.

And yes, how preposterous of your new neighbour! How were you planting your sweetcorn though? And how did he suggest was the right way?
I get a few people giving me advice on the allotment too. But I'm a newbie so should probably take it all on. I have some advice that I think is a bit rubbish though. The previous owner of my plot told me to never water strawberries and to leave them be. My neighbour to the left keeps telling me me to spray everything with weedkiller and then set it all alight.
But there's been times when advice has been golden though. One of my neighbours taught me a really easy of digging my clay soil that made life so much easier. I've also picked up lots of other small tips like using sprouted potatoes from the kitchen instead of buying seed potatoes and covering the soil throughout winter etc. Stuff that might seem obvious to the more experienced gardener but is really valuable to me.

Erm... I think I meant Spotted who was planning in the rain. :)

Framey When I direct-sowed my broad beans they took about 3 weeks to germinate and now they're growing great guns (and have flowers). I'm in coastal central belt Scotland, though in a place that seems to get very few frosts.

Baby is due tomorrow (according to scan; Tuesday according to me) and I'm waddling about like Noah's Ark. DH and I went with the little ones to the gardening centre this morning - which was a mission - and got loads of compost, a few bags of mulch, sage and mint plants and two more hostas. Will hopefully get them all in the ground soon. Also got some vine eyes so I can support my broad beans as they're now beginning to tip over a little.

I'm much further South , so my rain probably isn't as cold as that Yorkshire rain! Which is good, as I'm right nesh.

My sweetcorn is in a block, it's just spaced a bit close. And the spaces aren't perfectly regular as I did it by eye, and I am slapdash naturalistic. And i sowed 24 toilet rolls but one failed to germinate so i had 23 plants. He didnt like that either. He suggested I brought a ruler to the plot or made my own so I can make it look better. Mate, you've just met me! Back off Gove!

I ask others loads of questions , and i don't mind unsolicited advice, as long as it's given nicely, but that was just criticism. Which I immediately discounted as he said we have chalk soil. Look at your shoes! That big build-up, that is not chalk.

Tomorrow, Kiwi And you're doing all that! You are made of Scottish granite, truly. Or, a kiwi stone if you'd prefer, but I don't know any. Best of luck for it all, in case we don't see you for a bit.

How are you dough your vine eyes? Have you got supports in place already?

I've tied in a few of my broadies to canes or sticks individually, where I've bunged them in with my nascent raspberries. But the others in a block (freeform!) just have a corner stick and string.

Doing. How are you doing your vine eyes.

hello, Grouchy - getting restless? - take care, and wish you well.
lulooo - most of my planting is being done next week. And I don't water my strawberries :)
well, Spotted we meet idiots in all walks of life, sadly there are a lot of them around.... Monty was on last night doing the posts in corners and string around his broad beans!
I grow 'The Sutton' which are shorter, and don't need support, ( well, they don't get any ! )

Zebra I am on your behalf. My mum's like that. Drives me potty. Every time she comes to my house she insists on inspecting my greenhouse. I never pass. And she gets very irate if I try different varieties of things. The black raspberry I'm considering is going to blow her Mind.

Not much to report here, I'm also afraid of putting anything out overnight. Greenhouse now looks like a jungle. Going to have to bite the bullet soon!

Luloo I need to know more about the magic clay digging technique!