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....

I've found a plant food for citrus trees in pots that specifically mentions pale leaves so hopefully that will save my plant. It used to be so lovely and glossy.

The thing I find really hard about yellowing leaves is that they can be caused both by too little of something, and by too much! It makes it infuriatingly hard to know what to do.

This site suggests that they can get too much boron and too much salt as well as suffering from loads of micronutritional problems: edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ch142

Hopefully someone who knows more will be along to help!

Ah, wait a second - you moved it to a bigger pot. Did this start then? If so, what about soil pH issues? Could it be that the new compost is too alkaline?

It started before I moved it to the bigger pot; that was my first attempt to fix it.

I think from that great link you gave it looks like a mix between manganese and iron deficiency (it started off looking almost identical to the manganese photo).

Grouchy - just a quick thought - you probably know , but do you water with tap water? It is best with rainwater I think

Books I had no idea about that so thanks. I am a complete rookie! We're in Scotland so the tap water is lovely but that might be worth a try.

Afternoon!
I shouldn't worry Grouchy - I am still learning after 40 years, there is always more you don't know than do!
Had a busy morning. Nice weather at last ,no wind , so DH and I dug out the under performing gooseberry and redcurrant out of the fruit cage. They were in for the duration, boy it took a lot of effort. Then pruned quite hard a blackcurrant and gooseberry left by the old tenant at the top of the plot - they hadn't been touched for about 4 years, so they are now looking in much better shape, I am not too worried about big crops off them this year. They were just so congested, it had to be done.
Now just need to move the other gooseberry up to the other end of the plot, cuprinol all the posts, check all the net , plant my new white currant , and the fruit cage will be sorted......
Dug up some leeks for tea, then dropped in to get some aubergine seeds.
(I am wondering how long it is before the others turn up)

Afternoon all,

I have finally planted some seeds (tomato and sweet pea), so they are on the living room windowsill in an incubator. It's nice spending time in the potting shed again after a winter of just using it as a storage space, I have a radio out there and always take a cuppa. I even got round to phoning up the potting shed people to arrange form them to come out and fix the leaking vents (which haven't leaked too much lately, but having to keep buckets on the floor is a nuisance.

Close shave earlier in the week, I found a letter saying "please pay your allotment rent by 29th Feb or we will give it to someone else" , well if they will send them out mid-December of course people are going to forget in the Christmas rush. All paid and sorted now - i suspect from the time it takes them to re-populate abandoned plot I could probably have got away with it for a few more months yet.

Can I join in please? I'm a total novice and have never grown a thing before. I moved to a new house toward the end of last year and have an amazing garden which has plenty of growing space. I think. There are 3 veg patches, two about 6ft x 6ft and one about 6ft x 12ft. Then there is what I think might have been a cold frame, maybe 4ft x 7ft wooden/Perspex sides but no top at the moment. Plus a few unused overgrown borders I can use.

How much realistically can I expect to grow in that space? Am I being over-ambitious to try lots of things? I wondered if strawberries would grow in the lad cold frame thing and I could cover it with netting? If I grow autumn fruiting raspberries, will I need a fruit cage? Also, do I need to improve the soil with anything?

I also have 3 apple trees and a huge pear tree, a gardener is coming tomorrow and Saturday to do a huge sort out an she's going to prune them back which he says will make them healthier but affect the fruit. They were covered last year, so will they still produce a fair amount of fruit?

Sorry for all the questions, I have many and I'm very excited.

Oh, also, I don't have a greenhouse, where can I grow seeds? I have a possible place inside but it's freezing cold, almost outside temperatures, so I assume no good?

Hi Life. We're in very similar situations (i.e. complete novices!), although my garden is new. It's quite exciting making plans for what to grow.

I'm growing seeds on my kitchen and lounge windowsills, which seems to be working nicely.

I had a gardening consultant in to help me work out what to grow. In my 4ft x 24ft plot I'll be growing about 20 different things. It's broken up into 10 sections by sleepers and we think that two kinds of plant per segment should work well. There are also 3 apples trees espaliered against the fence which is the back of that plot. Hope that helps give you an idea of what you could do.

I'd like to know about raspberries too. DH and the children would adore fresh raspberries but I've never seen them growing. Are they difficult?

Evening!
WhoKnows lucky escape on rent! And leaks do need fixing - it's not good for wood to be constantly wet, and it is much nicer to work in if its snuff dry inside :)
welcome "Life . lovely sounding garden! There is a very good book by the RHS called 'Grow Your Own Veg' by Carol Klein, which shows a plot developed at Harlow Carr garden, the total area of growing is 3m x 3m divided up into two plots. It may be worth seeing if your local library has it ? But yes, you can certainly grow plenty in that space. And 3 apples and a pear tree - lucky you! Depending on how much pruning is done, and what varieties of apples, yo may find that you don't get much of a harvest, but it will benefit you in coming years.
Seeds just need plenty of light, and a bit of warmth, they really want to sprout ( mostly!) so some water and compost and a windowsill will be fine. You have started at a really nice time in the year.
You will not need a fruit cage for raspberries. They are one of the easiest fruits to grow , just give them a good spot and they will romp away. Just check your varieties for Summer/Autumn fruit
Strawberries - again don't need to be in a cold frame. They do need plenty of light, but netting will be a good idea when they fruit - blackbirds adore them as do people, and slugs :)
My main advice, as everyone on here knows I give. Grow what you like to eat!

Thank you. The old cold frame thing is next to the pear tree, so may be a bit shady for strawberries in summer. I was just going to use it as an extra veg bed as I don't know what else to do with it.

Annoyingly, the gardener isn't coming until Monday now. He is apparently popping in on Sunday to discuss plans as I'm working all day Monday and Tuesday. Apparently there's a problem with his van, which I understand, but he was originally meant to come Monday and he's not cheap. I chose him as although he was about 30% more than the other guy I was quoted by, I felt he would be better and more reliable. I'm sure it'll be fine by Monday, I'd just hoped to spend Sunday digging fertiliser/compost in and getting everything ready, but maybe I'm jumping the gun.

I went to dobbies today and they actually have a great selection of seeds and quite a few different seedlings, which I might go for for some things instead of seeds. They also have little seed tray propagator things that can fit on my kitchen windowsill.

Grouchy, did you create your bed yourself? It sounds lovely! What are you planning on growing?

What a beautiful day! Sadly haven't had time for any gardening, but I did pop up to the allotment on the way to picking up DD from school and harvested a red cabbage and some white sprouting broccoli and spent 10 mins basking on my garden bench

evening!
a beautiful day indeed!
I had to go and look after DGS unexpectedly, so no plot- its always the way
Hopefully tomorrow I will get there :)
Life no problem with digging and improving the veg plots on Sunday, they will need doing regardless, and the sooner , the better, ready to plant. Seedlings are a good idea, and there are usually veg plants to buy in a few weeks time in a lot of places.

Well, I went back out to the potting shed in the end and planted some broad beans, I've never had any luck planting straight into the ground so thought I'd get them started indoors. It's lovely now it's staying light a bit later into the evenings.

Ah, thank you for all the sympathy for my Dickensian affliction, aka my chilblains! I am so very retro.

Well, I too had lovely weather this afternoon so I managed to get outside and get some garden jobs done, plus I found a sunnier/warmer spot for my little grow house, so it got moved. So hopefully some of my sown seeds will spring into life, if they've not rotted away. I do have something germinated, but I don't always label things so I'm not utterly sure what. It's possibly parsley. I don't label things in the free, either. And I usually remember what they are...

And I sowed tomatoes! Yip, I fired up the propagator and sowed a few of most of my tomato varieties, and some peppers, and some aubergines. The aubs came to nothing last year for me, alas, but they were ok the year before. I'll keep them warmer this year.

Afternoon!
and another glorious spring day, but still no plot .
I have sown my aubergines though- same here Spotted as they didn't do well last year ( first year of trying, and think I left the sowing a bit late).
finished tidying the greenhouse ready for the influx, erected the little mini greenhouse and moved things into there to give me more space.

Afternoon!
Hope everyone is having a lovely day.
Spent the morning at the plot, and got quite a bit done - not as much as I would like, because the weather brought out everybody and they all chatted.. :)
I have direct sown broad beans and peas under fleece, dug out half a bucket of couch grass and picked sprouting broccoli and kale.
And fingers crossed, I may, just may, be getting some polytunnel frame - not quite enough, but for the brassicas, we can space them a little less generously to stretch out the area under net.
Happy days!

Wahoo! Felt like the first day of spring today in SE Ldn. Went down to the plot late afternoon (i am LOVING the lighter evenings) and had a small bonfire and dug over a bed I wanted to get some last min onion sets into. It was wet heavy work and didnt get as far as planting. Oh well, at least I have weds off!
Rewarded myself with a v lovely Guinnes when I got home. Its still pretty chilly!

YAY! I got a weekend outside!

Planted some onions and some (optimistic) early carrots and beetroots at the allotment - and resowed peas, which were all consumed by some rodent or other and some later crop broad beans. Harvested celeriac, chard and kale - I'm preserving the kale by whizzing it up in a blender with a bit of water and then freezing it in silicon muffin trays. It takes seconds, and results in a kind of puck which I then shove in stir fries or stews or whatever. It's easier to eat that way too.

You know those trees at my allotment that I'm 'espaliering'? Only I hadn't managed to put in any support for them, so really 'mangling' would be a better term? Well, I FINALLY made a start on the staking and the wires. I've driven in and postcreted along one side. The stakes are about 180cm long and I'm driving them in 80cm or so then creting them - it turned out to be a much bigger job than I thought because I don't have a postdriver, only a mallet. They aren't the straightest post ever seen by womankind, but dammit they will have to do. Then I realised I didn't have enough wire so I'll have to wait til next weekend to finish it off.

Sowed a pile of March seeds in the greenhouse too: sweet peas, pak choi, more hispi cabbage and kohl rabi, parsley, dill, basil, leeks, beetroots, romanesco caulis. Also some cosmos, agastache, sunflower.

Oh, and I saw a bearded tit yesterday. (At a nature reserve, not the hipster variety).

Oh, and book - my plastic-greenhouse-within-a-glass-greenhouse plan is working so far for hardening off the very early tomatoes. I can feel that it's warmer under the cover than in the rest of the structure (which is warmer than outside). New thermometer arrives within the next couple of days so I should soon be able to tell you whether this is just my imagination!

I'm not risking frosty nights yet, though!

I love reading about the things you established gardeners are harvesting. Makes me excited for what we might get eventually (I know not to expect too much in the first year).

We bought a raspberry plant and a blueberry plant from Tesco yesterday. We're not predicted to have any frosts in the next two weeks so should I brave putting them outside or leave them in the pots till well after Easter? We're in SE Scotland and that lovely gardening page suggests we're going to get frosts right into May. We've not lived here for a year yet so I don't know how accurate that will be!

Raspberry - absolutely, that can go out now! I bet it does brilliantly where you are!

Blueberry - do you know which cultivar you have? Some are hardier than others. If it's not clear, I'd keep it somewhere a bit sheltered for a while. Doesn't have to be warm, just protected from the frost, so somewhere like a greenhouse or a shed with light overnight. Also, check whether you have the right soil - blueberries are acid-lovers. If you're on heavy clay, like me, they're best grown in pots where you can use ericaceous compost to give them the pH they need.

Thanks, shove. Will I need more than one raspberry? Have just noticed the blueberry (Reka variety - Kiwi!) says it's self-fertile but the raspberry doesn't mention it.

Our soil is pH neutral and slightly clay-y so a pot might be a good idea. Although info I find on it suggests that pots aren't a good idea. It's hardy and will tolerate light frosts (which is all we get) so I'll put it outside too. I could put it into a section in my garden and just add ericaceous compost to that one square and dig in some grit stuff.