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....

Spotted I wonder how long it will take Mr Cleverclogs Gove to realise his mistake about the soil?
Grouchy you sound very busy. Hope it's not too much longer until your new arrival shows up.
Cupcakes I'm also hesitating about leaving things outside overnight at the moment. Dining room table is a mini jungle!

Just come back from a slug search at the plot. It's rained very gently on and off all afternoon. Found quite a few in various places. Particularly over the shallots interestingly enough. I hadn't really thought of them as getting much slug damage. Didn't spot any on the onions or garlic either sides of them, just on the shallots. There were quite a few around the potatoes as I'd expect and also near one lot of beans. DD helped me to massacre them.

We're off to the garden centre tomorrow to get more slug bait, wool pellets, netting and plant food. (And maybe a few plants as well)

evening again!
I have just been out to put plants in greenhouse. Now not worried about the cold, but had to pour the water out of the trays I have them stood in!
my little weather station is showing 20.8 mm rainfall since about 2 this afternoon, and its still raining. Its going to be bit claggy tomorrow...
poor Cupcakes , its hard when its your Mum , is she not receptive to trying new things?
Cedar - what is it with slugs/snails? I was commiserating with a near plot neighbour - my asparagus is fine so far, hers is being decimated by slugs. Same varieties, next plot but one to me, so not exactly far!
Didn't someone do some research on how far slugs and snails travel...? On the radio, for an amateur scientist thing? Will have to go and look now :)

Hi everyone. I have just found this thread and wanted to pop in and say hello.

My husband and I have a little veg patch at the top of the garden and my Dad bought me a greenhouse for my 40th birthday - my sister thinks that is the saddest gift ever.

I live in Guernsey so we tend to get reasonable weather :)

anyone elses plants stalling?
my tomatos are still tiny, haven't grown much since I potted them on and put them outside a couple weeks ago.

I got a shopping trolly for my 40th. now that's sad :o

welcome FriendofDorothy - a bit warmer than here in Yorkshire, though at the moment its warmish rain ! What do you grow?
GreenMarker - my tomatoes are doing okay, but they are in the greenhouse. Veg plants hardening off outside have only just got going this week. Annual flowers are just toddling along - not really 'growing' IYKWIM , but healthy enough- they have been outside a couple of weeks.
I got a lilac wheelbarrow for my birthday a few years ago- I got a few ????? but I love it!

At the moment in the veg patch I have sugar-snap peas, French beans, runner beans, cucumber, courgettes, raspberries, blackcurrants, loganberries and strawberries on the go. I also have a plum and apple tree.

In the greenhouse I have a few tomato plants that will stay in there and 4 bush tom plants that will come outside soon, oh and a chilli.

So far anyway :)

Welcome to all the new people . I can't even remember what I got for my 40th .

Shove - hope you survived the beer/train adventure. We live close to a steam railway that does real ale trains, they are hugely popular (we live in sight of the line and you see packed trains going past on those nights). I like beer but I prefer my feet to be on solid ground it I'm honest.

Spotted - how annoying. However I can see how it happens, our garden is on chalk and is freely draining. When I got my allotment, which is only about 300m away as the crow flies but up a hill it was something of a shock to find it was solid clay. Apparently even the other end of the site is more chalk and less clay. He should mind his own business about the sweetcorn though. Luloo - I too would like to know the secret of easy clay digging!

Hardening off has started in earnest here. I am using a garden bench to perch all my trays on as I don't trust them not to attract slugs and snail if I put them on the ground, and the patio table is a long way from the greenhouse. I spent a productive 45 mins at the plot yesterday (i.e. didn't get chatting to anyone, I do spend far too much time chatting when I'm up there usually). Sowed spring onions and carrots directly into a raised beds, hoed between my onions and weeded the strawberry patch.

I have got a very healthy looking butternut squash plant grown from one we had in a veg box last year (which means no instructions). I've never grown one before - do they cover a lot of ground like pumpkins, hence the arch idea?

Also, I have made an error with my tomato choice. Because they are a cherry variety I assumed they would be tumblers, however they are growing very straight and tall (and I have thrown away the seed packet). Google tells me they can reach 2.4m in height, so I need to get some very sturdy posts in place before they can be planted out.

I feel like I should have been less ambiguous about the digging technique because now I've piqued all your interest and once I've posted, you'll all say 'duh! Obvious!'.
But for the sake of any other newbies like me without a clue: I initially started off digging with my fork and working the same spot a few time over, pulling the weeds out by hand. Or attempting to, at least. I tried to do one or half a bed at a time and by the time I'd finished, I was barely able to straighten up my back.
She told me to do it stages over 3 days. On the first day, dig the fork in deep, turn over a big clod of earth and lay it upside down to dry out. After a few days (assuming no rain) it's dried out. So on the second day of digging, bash the overturned clumps hard a few times with the back of a spade and it'll crumble apart. Most of the weeds have also dried out by this point so it's much easier. On the third day go over it again with a fork when it's more manageable and already broken apart. For any areas with lots of weed roots, throw a spade of soil into a plastic crate and give it a few shakes to sieve the soil out and leave the weeds.
It made life a lot easier for me and taught me to pace myself well when digging.

She uses plastic commercial crates like these from local grocers to sieve the weeds out here and there.
This is a bed that I finished a few days ago.

You really need to mulch your clay soil, or as soon as it is planted up - the soil inbetween the plants goes solid and if it is really bad, it actually bakes hard and stops the plants from swelling. Eg swedes, onions etc.

Once your plants are planed, mulch in between with anything organic you can get your hands on. Shredded paper, straw, sawdust. Anything to keep the top surface from drying out.

No sign of the mystery beast digging the holes, but I did get a hidgepidge on the cam last night!

And yes, I survived the trains and ale... got back in reasonable enough tie to get to the pub and have a glass of whisky afterwards!! It was actually much easier than surviving the constant advice-giving some of you are having to put up with! For what it's worth, I get it too... from MIL, who doesn't allow the fact that she's NEVER ACTUALLY HAD A GREENHOUSE to get in the way with advising me on the running of mine. Last time she did it, she had no idea she was within 3 inches of being murdered with my metal watering can.

I don't mind getting advice - I have so, so much to learn in every department of gardening - but it's the utterly peremptory tone with which some people approach the subject that gets me. Particularly when it takes on a gendered, mansplainey tone that simply states things at you rather than being any kind of dialogue!! I am also on your behalf Zebra.

I am heartened by the understanding of my annoyance
He did also say that he had asparagus coming through - but it was actually horsetail. At least he believed me on that one (I think). It doesn't appear to have reached my plot yet. So that is v v good.

Doreen / anyone - re mulching clay, do you literally just plop the stuff on? I mowed yesterday and have saved my clippings to take to the compost. But would I be better just putting it around plants? Does it jot blow away? I'd hate to upset my tidy but lovely neighbours.

Ooh, I missed your comment about the hog, Shove - how lovely! Send it happy thoughts so it stays with you and eats your enemies.

Dorothy I think the only sad thing about getting a greenhouse for a 40th is that I don't think I'll be in a position to have one for mine. Still . And I want one.

Doreen - last year my onions didn't swell in my clay soil (each set was planted in a hole with compost in). But I always understood that you need to keep the neck of the bulb above ground to prevent rotting, so mulching could be a problem in that respect. What do you think? I dug in a load of rotted manure and planted each in a pocket of compost again this year but the surface is starting to dry out again.

I mulch my onions and have done for years. If you are unsure about mulching onions, just tickle the soil in between them when the clay starts to dry out. They need the spring rains to absorb the water to make them swell.

Doreen / anyone - re mulching clay, do you literally just plop the stuff on? I mowed yesterday and have saved my clippings to take to the compost. But would I be better just putting it around plants? Does it jot blow away? I'd hate to upset my tidy but lovely neighbours.

I have literally just mown my grass path and used the mowings to mulch my plants, onions included. Why would it upset your neighbours? In fact in my garden I don't even have a compost bin, I mow all my trimmings and weedings along with the lawn and just leave it around plants to rot down.

As it rots, it helps create mycelium which in turn is used by the plants to absorb nutrients. It is just the best thing to do with trimmings and mowings.

I will take some photos of my mulched onions and shallots later for you after I have got back from the allotment.

I hoe in between the rows which disturbs the surface, but obviously don't go right up to the bulbs (although GQT say you shouldn't hoe as it disturbs the roots). Perhaps I will add a layer of mulch as well then, I've got several bags of compost up at the plot I could use. I was quite late getting them out this year anyway so that won't have helped.

x-posted, thanks.

How's the community garden job going Doreen?

How's the community garden job going Doreen?

Well, lets just say it has good things and bad things. When you go to a place that is still being run as if it was the 70s, it can get a tad frustrating.

But I do have a huge garden to manage which I am already changing to use more organic principles, and a nursery that I sell tons of plants through, and one of the long term volunteers told me last week I was like part of the furniture already. So it can't be all bad.

I just came back in from tidying up the garden. planted out the sweetcorn (around the corgette). and strained the comfrey juice. I hope the neighbours to plan to bbq tonight 'cos it stinks
the rhubarb and pumpkin I mulched with the comfrey mud.

Well that went quickly - I'm going back this evening ! ! Grouchy - you might well have your new addition by the time I next see this thread - exciting.

I've checked the weather for next week - and pretty much as I get back, it'll start raining on and off for several days. Oh well . . .

Fingers crossed the slugs and snails have left me something

What can I use for mulching? I'll need lots of it. I don't have grass or sawdust.

It really makes sense what you say about clay. Last year, I planted in a small area of my allotment for the first time and beetroot, onion, fennel, onions, swede....basically anything growing underground didn't do well. I guess there was no room for it to expand in the clay soil?