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....

fingers crossed for good results, both exam and plot inspection.

Hooray for feeling good about the exam, WhoKnows.

Evening!
Grouchy -it is the best feeling in the world, to go and pick and eat soon things you yourself have grown, and enjoyed doing :).
WhoKnows - - you are already a winner - you have managed to germinate carrots- so no need to sweat about a measly plot inspection, or exam results!
teacup - first time for me re carrots in plugs. The ones I was given last year, there were between 4 and 8 germinated seedlings in each plug, and I just planted the plug as it was. They seemed quite happy that way. They were protected under enviromesh, so that helped.
Only managed to pop down to pick some spring greens for tea, and a quick check up for wind damage (none) and water the courgettes, as we have had no rain . They were doing fine too. Other news- I have some tiny broad beans set and the annuals i planted haven't been slugged - Result :)

Everything I come onto this thread I love reading updates from people. I mentally make a note to respond, to ask a question or to cheer someone along but forget by the time I reach the end. Then today I wrote a long post and lost it!

Anyway, my update:
I was wondering why my peas and beans were not germinating so I dug them up and found nowt. Nothing. Nada. I'm hoping it's pigeons and not mice. So replacement Ted some French beans and peas. More type says it's too late but...whatever. I've done it anyway.

My cucumbers are looking very sorrowful. I think I planted them out too early. My tomatoes are just stagnant. They're just messing with me, teasing, saying "we know how much you want us to do well above anything else so we're going to really drag this out. Just because we can. "

My beetroot are 1-2 inch high only after 8 weeks in the soil. My carrots too.

Courgette that I sowed directly are also nowhere to be seen. And not a single spinach showing either.

How fantastic is that.

*Every time, that is. Not everything.

luloo - I find May a discouraging time. In my head, I think everything should be really far on, but it's actually only the very beginning of the season for many veg (perhaps the balmy south-west would be an exception). I find myself feeling genuinely a bit upset about it - then June comes and things suddenly rocket on.

It's been exceptionally cold quite late this year, and it's gone cold again, so we don't have the easiest conditions out there either. I suspect the mild winter slugplosion, combined with the fact that leaf break has been a bit later than it has been recently stressing all the creatures that depend on caterpillars, may be to blame for the increasing depredations this year. (I've struggled with peas and beans for the first time).

If you still have little plants, you're doing well! Hang in!

Well done whoknows - hope you had a big ole glass of wine to relax and celebrate. I'm always just knackered after exams. It got worse as I got older as well!!

Morning!
aww Lulooo - its rotten , isn't it? I sow nearly everything at home in pots/plugs so I can plant out. My direct sowing skills are truly horrendous!. Cucumber plant - outside? you are in West Yorkshire if I remember - I bet its still too cold , unless you have given them some protection? One of my neighbours on the plot covers her early stuff with those enormous water bottles from a water dispenser, with the bottom cut out. - if they are holding on , it should warm up soon. Again- I tried with some outside a few years ago, but with no real success. I have bitten the bullet, and grow them in a greenhouse now. You do have time from peas and beans - I still have another row of peas to sow, hopefully this week :)

I was more knackered the night before, went out to get supplies of chocolate about 8pm and felt as though I might fall asleep walking round the shop. Then of course I was wide awake till 3am. But I was fine in the morning and in that "tired but alert" mode for the rest of the day. Nipped out to the pub with DH for a restorative beer later, DCs are old enough to be left for a while now. Slept like a log last night.

Luloo, that sounded like a bit of a tale of woe. Shove is right, it's still early in the growing season. I've never had any luck direct sowing in my allotment apart from in the raised bed, I think the clay soil really doesn't help. I've used plug plants from garden centres to catch up again when I've lost seedlings / had non-germinating seeds, is that a possibility?

Mental note to self - buy climbing French bean seeds today and sow tonight before it gets too late!!

Afternoon!
Busy at plot this morning - I managed to get planted out some savoy/brokali/dwarf sunflowers/borage .
I then thought I had time to do some weeding , and went to have a look at the end of the plot- oh dear. i knew next doors were fighting ground elder, and I have been keeping an eye on it. We have a plan too! But I have been busy this week, so wanted to just go and dig up anything I saw. Well, an hour later.. Not much in leaves, but the roots were everywhere. So I have dug and dug a full bag of roots out, dug over again to check to see if I had missed anything, flattened and covered with 2 layers of weed membrane, bricked it down. But I can see some heading for the boundary, to the row of lavender and rosemary . The lady whose plot it is has been ( politely) less than vigilant . :(

Oh no, booky ground elder is a beast. Not good.

No gardening for me today, although I did just pop to the plot to see if any of my newly-planted stuff was still alive. Actually it all seems to be, although I think that 1 courgette and my sunflowers are probably terminal cases. And there are a few blue tinges on some tomatoes, but they should recover. And if not, I have more... It was very very boggy though, and is still quite cold. Warmer tomorrow, apparently.

Thats life Spotted - just will have to try and keep it at bay ( the plan is to have a sort of firewall of weed membrane and an area I can spot it if it pops up , and then plant a couple of gooseberries in more weed membrane and bark, or mulch.
I am having to get rid of a big strawberry bed as soon as they have fruited I think- (I do have another new one planted up). But look at these- they will be beauties with a bit of sun , sometime quite soon :)

Hello there! I am a complete newbie. Just taken on half a plot. It is completely over grown, nothing in the ground that I can see. It is completely covered in couch grass, which I have come to hate already. Have strimmed the whole lot, and dug one bed which I have put some bits and bobs in. Also have a shed, which is now home to a travel cot that my one year old hangs out in whilst I dig.
The only thing growing is a strip of raspberries. They have just come into flower so I am assuming they are summer fruiting. Is this right? Also I spent two days getting rid of the weeds between the canes (couch, sticky grass, bindweed and nettles). How can I keep weeds down between established fruit canes?

Welcome Bellende :)
I'm afraid with couch and bindweed, its mostly patience.That and mulch..
I had the same problem with raspberry canes and weeds when I first had my plot. I left them the first year, just tried to keep the weeds under control.After they had fruited, and lost the leaves, I dug them up, cleaned off the roots, and replanted them in another spot. That allowed me to dig down and get the weeds out over that winter and following spring ( bindweed disappears in winter, you think you have got rid of it, and come spring, it all pops out again)
When it is as bad as you describe, others have had success in covering with something like cardboard or weed membrane, and planting stuff through it. Courgettes and squashes are a good way to go - they cover a lot of ground !

Did anyone else see Gardeners World? The lady from RHS showing us how to grow from seed admitted that Harlow Carr doing the same thing - the sweetcorn did not germinate and had to resow. There is hope for us all....

Hi Bellende, I took over my plot three years ago in a similar state. My raspberry canes are in a strip of solid grass which I've never really got on top of, I strimmer round the outsides, and reach in between them to pull out grass as it grows long. I have bindweed as well as couch, but I don't mind the bindweed (I've had it for as long as I can remember at home too) - I just pull it out wherever I see it, I know it will come back but if you keep pulling it out it keeps it under control and it is very easy to spot.

I spent a relaxed hour up at the plot tonight and got my sweetcorn in, I need to do a bit of planning now as to what will go where in the rest of the plot. Oh and my first broad bean pods have appeared on the batch of plants that were mangled by aphids, so they obviously aren't completely dead. All around me are plots with considerably larger, really healthy looking broad bean plants, I don't know how they do it.

Oh no Book - that is frustrating for you! And such a lot of digging to do.

Do you think there's a chance your neighbour might get on top of it (or that your allotment owners could have a gentle word - this is sort of what they are there for, right?) If not, that barrier should really do the trick. They don't have to be terribly deep for ground elder I think? (Unlike some bamboos)... In the meantime, it's edible isn't it?!!

bellende - the bottom of my raspberry canes is currently covered with 2 inches of spent hops. They smell awful, but they are really helping to keep the weeds down in an area where weeding is tricky!

DH and I walked to the plot last night to water - it's about 1.5 miles away - only to discover when I arrived that we had left the keys at home. So we went to the pub instead, and it rained overnight - double win!!

Here in Melbourne it's been steadily, softly raining all day (good) but keeping me out of the garden (bad).

From the window I can see the broad beans are doing well. The buggering snails ate my snow peas, and the sudden cold of winter seems to have slowed down the new seed germinating. Garlic, lettuce, chard and daikon are all doing well. When the rain actually stops I'll put in some new lettuce seedlings, along with daikon, something that grows all year round here.

Shove - I have been thinking about putting bark chippings around my raspberry canes, but they are at the back of my plot at the top of a little bank above a path and I think I would have to put in retaining planks raised bed style.

Thanks for the advice peeps. The rain and cold are making me feel substantially less guilty about not being further on. Bark chipping might work for the canes. I think I will see what kind of crop we get and then decide what to do. Mind you I was in the garden yesterday and all the bees had stopped. I saw four or five just sitting on flowers not moving. I think it is too cold for them!

who knows - yes, you need a retaining thingy to stop them going everywhere (especially if using hops, which are quite light and liable to blow around the place creating an almighty mess if you're not careful). I have a wooden box round mine - like a raised bed but with a mulch instead of raised soil inside it! I made it out of the wood that came off the eaves of my house when the guttering was redone.

Bark looks quite nice, though, so I guess it wouldn't matter so much??

I think I could get away with just a back retainer, my plot slopes gently down to the raspberries at the back, then there is a drop of about a foot to the path.

Morning!
I forgot to say Belleende -firstly - only grow what you like to eat and then the mantra of all plotters - -it's a marathon, not a sprint , so take it a bit at a time, and don't panic. If you have the chance, clear a smallish area at a time , and plant something straight away. Better to have some sort of crop, rather than another load of weeds.
Its going to be weed membrane and bark all at the top end of the plot near where the elder is, so I can keep a close eye.The lady is lovely, but has an slightly odd idea of what needs to be done. She has warned everyone, and told them she has sprayed it ( she has!) but told some novices that it had gone, on the next plot. They wondered what I was doing, and I explained, and showed them the elder marching across to their plot. I gave her a load of weed membrane to cover over the worst bit, but she insisted on leaving open bits where her potatoes where planted - no point there then..... I will have a word at the next meeting - we do have one of the members of the committee who is in charge of that sort of thing. We may need a plan in force. I feel as if she thinks she has done her bit, and thats it, it will be gone. Ah well , onwards and upwards :)

I've been at my allotment for less than a year and opposite me are 6 plots that are completely overgrown and neglected. 3 belong to one person and 3 to another. I've never seen them on site and I think they'd been missing in action for the past 3 years.
Anyway, a couple of days ago I went down to see one of them had hired some cheap labour to put up a 6 foot high eyesore of a fence made from old doors, broken fence panels and bits of rotten wood in front of his 3 plots. I introduced myself and had a chat and was told he'd been served with an eviction notice. He was very pissed off about it, saying there's lots of people with neglected plots and they're picking on him. I kind of did that hypocritical, polite thing of nodding and fake agreeing that I do when I'm too coward to speak my mind, (no Muhammad Ali here) when really inside I was thinking it was well deserved.
Next day the rotavator came out which was even more promising, but his ground was so solid and uneven the blades were barely able to cut through. And it is a mammoth of a plot.
Then finally, the day before yesterday he got a friend (a grave digger) to come with a digger and dig up the whole plot. It was just so fascinating to see the transformation before my eyes as it went from a wild wasteland to a flattened, dug over plot in a matter of one day.
He's probably warded off the eviction notice now and will probably be awol for a few more years now, by which time the roots of his millions of uprooted weeds will have grown into a billion weeds but at least it's something for now.
Anyway, that enough gossip about the neighbours. I've decided to cover up my outdoor cucumbers with a polytunnel in the hope that things might improve. I'm going to resow some stuff today so I have at least something other than strawberries at the end of the growing season. Maybe some lettuce, spinach and the every reliable, ever useful fenugreek and coriander.