Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 6 - Weed 'em and Reap!

[bookbook]

Thanks WhoKnowsWhereThe Time GOes for the title of the new thread.
So, we head into summer, praying for sun, gentle rain and no slugs
Everyone welcome to join in and share joys and woes and advice, given freely!
Previous thread here
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/2582241-Allotment-Veg-Patch-Thread-5-The-Diggers-Rest?pg=1

Evening!
'What a Scorcher" ! , but hope everyone is okay near the storms. No rain, or sign of here .
Spotted - I think you have other blackcurrants? I would cut it back hard, spray with the washing up liquid, feed and water, keep a close eye. The little pests always go for the weakest .
But, but! you already have the star for first broad beans - I was hoping I was doing so well having tomatoes set...!
BiddyPop - I am afraid thats me with shopping lists ( never plants funnily though... ) Go out for a specific thing, come back with all sorts, but not what I went for ( I'm blaming old age)
Afternoon at plot means totally done for now :)
watered just about everything. Planted out another block of leeks, then savoys, sprouting broccoli, kale...
DH strimmed all the messy bits. Took all the non compost stuff to the waste trailer. We sorted nearly all the nets - double checked fruit cage/brassica cage for gaps - the cabbage whites were out in force today. one strawberry bed still needs netting , and a last bit of cover for the loganberries - the blackbirds managed to snaffle most of them last year, and it looks like we may get a nice crop this year, fingers crossed.

Muggy as anything here all day, I was sweating buckets after half an hour at the plot at 9 am and the same after another hour at 5pm, it's still very close now. However I got my cucumbers and some cosmos plants planted out, did yet more digging/weeding and the hour just flew by. At home I have potted on a strip of chard seedlings that I bought from the garden centre, just separated them all out and put into large-ish cells to give them a chance to develop separate root systems before planting out.

Oh and talking of DHs and strimming Book - my DH has just arrived home and I need to have words about the fact that he has strimmed straight through the main stalk of my second favourite clematis .

oh no WhoKnows :( mine strimmed about 4 stalks of unopened peonies that are planted on the side of the shed, next to a buddleia and some border geraniums, but they were badly overhanging the grass, as ther is only a narrow bed there.
It was too hot for me today -my face is rather 'glowy' as I forgot to put suncream on it :)

Hi, lurker coming out of the woodwork here, can I join in? I've been enjoying following everyone's allotment progress. I'm a relatively novice gardener - moved last year into a house with a smallish and very neglected garden, spent the winter clearing and now have (among other things) a 12ftx8ft veg patch and various fruit bushes in the flower borders. It's rather clay-ey soil and riddled with bindweed, but on the plus side I don't have ground elder and it's not too sluggy.
I thought I had as much veg on the go as I could cope with and then yesterday my neighbour presented me with a cucumber plant - I think it's an indoor one and I don't have a greenhouse, so I have tucked it away in big pot in a sheltered corner of the patio (south facing and I live in the southwest) and am hoping for the best.

Welcome FionaJT - lovely to have you join us on here :).
A lot of cucumbers are outdoor varieties, so I think you should be okay there - they do scramble everywhere though - I end up in my greenhouse trying to find places for them to go !
Am jealous of the not too sluggy ! I chopped 2 enormous ones up today, lurking underneath a pot in my 'messy' area. They would have fed a family of thrushes for a week ( I hope they have actually - I chop them in two and chuck them on the bird feeding area !)

Welcome Fiona - I planted some cucumbers underneath my climbing beans today, I thought that as the beans climbed upwards the cucumbers could scramble underneath them and out of the way. Might shade them too much though, I put some on their own too so I can compare which do better. I've only ever tried growing them once before and the plants got slugged, so I have slipped some slug pellets around them this time and covered them with straw (I feel that birds are less likely to ingest them that way).

Chucking slugs under the bird feeder is a great idea Book. DH is suitably contrite about the clematis, he did have the grace to look very sorry indeed when I told him what had happened. I will go out and see if there are any un-severed stems tomorrow, unfortunately I planted it a long long time ago so it's roots are grassed over and inaccessible and there are a lot of brambles intertwined with it, it's not going to be easy to replace.

Hello fiona am also a newbie and like you have my first garden and also my first allotment. It is a steep learning curve but it feels good to be tackling something new. Will you get a fruit crop this year?

I have drawn out the plan for the allotment half plot. So, far left long strp of raspberry canes running almost full lenghth of plot. Far right shed/heaps/butt and three square beds for the more permanent things (flowers, lots and lots of rhubarb, blong beds in the middle to rotate crops through (spinach, tomatoes, broccoli cavolo nero, sweetcorn, leeks). Does that sound like a plan? Am I missing anything?

Also another couch question. I am leaving paths around the beds, but they are still full of couch which I think will just grow back into the beds. Do I need to dig the whole lot and then put in paths or are there cunning methods to keep the couch in the paths and out of the beds? I am looking forward to the day when I have become knowledgeable enough to answer some questions on here instead of pestering you all.

Whoknows your committee sound difficult. I hate the changing goal posts. And what is a high turnover of plot holders going to achieve in the long run anyway?
We have allotment rep politics ishooos at the mo and it really takes away some of the enjoyment for a lot of good plot holders.

Hello to newcomers, from another recent one.
Thanks for all the opinions on glyphosate; I was feeling a bit less guilty until I read shove's post which kind of confirmed my fears. Apparently will no longer be licensed for public use as of next year ...
Think I will use up the bottle on the horrid front garden weeds and keep well away from the edibles!

Just went out for a late night water after putting dcs to bed - just finished and has started to rain. Hoping for a thunderstorm later so I can watch it out the window cosily. My favourite weather.

Oh, oh, I have joined the CHARD love. Just tried some which I planted late last year but has only just taken off. It's delicious, even nicer than spinach which was formerly my very favourite veg. More of an earthy flavour and keeps more texture, and the lovely stalks too. I am now going to plant a forest of white and rainbow chard.
I braised stems in butter and drop of white wine, then added sliced leaves and home- made Tom sauce. Finished with an egg poached in pan and lots of Parmesan. Deeee-licious.

Bell - ask as many questions as you like, I've learned lots on this thread because of questions from other people. I have kept grassy paths and had constant reinvasion of couch but I figure that it will creep in from the edges and the bits behind compost bin etc anyway. I have spent a lot of time pondering the path issue and looking at other people's plots for ideas, but I don't want hard edging or gravel paths. I am gradually reducing the ratio of path to plot each year though (in my third year now and over half the plot was solid couch when I started) by covering sections in card/compost/black membrane.

Thunder is rolling around in the distance here.

I think putting some kind of hard edging would help keep the couch grass out of the beds for a while but it will spread back. Ideally I think you'd dig the whole lot then decide where your paths are. However as its June I'd see how you get on this summer and then you can dig over in the autumn. If you get those strips of black membrane stuff you can put over your paths which should help to kill it off as well. I think it's just one of those tedious jobs where eventually the weeding will get rid of it.

Hadn't thought of membraning the paths. I think I will hard edge (we have lots of slate kindly left by the previous owners of our house behind the shed). Might use that. Then membrane the paths around beds that aren't planted.
Sorted!

Morning!

Bellende I went for the option of digging out the paths, as I found I was getting loads of couch in the beds. Well, I've done the big paths, i still have more to do, really. I also found that keeping the grass on the paths betwixt the beds was a hassle, as the ground isn't very flat and it was a faff getting a mower across. And also my plot is full of frogs, and I really fear mowing or strumming frogs. I dug the couch put my hand except really I just piled up the weedy clods and now ignore them then covered the now slightly lower path with newspaper, cardboard and cheapo lidl bark chips. It seems to work ok, and was v v cheap. And I can move things around easily should I wish. This is where I think that I'd have used spray 1st, if I used weedkiller at all.

quince O fellow chard LOVER. That dish sounds delicious!

booky yes I do have other blackcurrants. Quite a few, but they're mostly still babies and toddlers so I won't be rivalling your harvest any time soon, alas. I think I'm resigned to the fact that that one won't be feeding me this year, but I really don't want it to impact or infect anything else, so a plan of action is needed. Hmm... Secateurs out i think.

So, yesterday was v v v rainy. And stormy. And it's still v humid here now so inthink we may have more rain today. I've not yet done slug patrol, but I fear for my sunflower. It's singular now, as I've list one of 4 good plants per day, and I expect the last one will be no longer of this world.

I also have quite a few seedlings/plants - ok cucurbits and tomatoes - that I need to do something with. All this rain and sitting about in water is washing all the nutrients out of the compost. And they also need potting on/planting out anyway. I need to just make a concerted effort to get everything planted out, given away, or composted. And soon. And I also have my cavolo nero, and my broccoli raab, that has been too long in too small trays so I need to do something with them asap.

Morning!
WhoKnows - it may, just may throw up new growth, so fingers crossed for you.
paths and couch just go hand in hand. I gave up on paths between my plot as it was just a constant battle to stop it invading. I noticed this year one of my plot neighbours has thrown in the trowel on them too. They have replaced all the grass paths between their beds with membrane and flags.
No rain here - am praying for some - I was planting yesterday in stones and dust.
The slugs are trying out revenge tactics here. Mostly okay, but I went out this morning, and they had decimated the last of my kale plants - luckily I had planted all the bigger ones yesterday!

Not a drop of rain here yet I don't think, garden was dry as a bone when I went out to re-inspect my clematis . It looks as though all the stems were cut through, however there are some sections with leaves on that aren't wilting (the bulk of it suddenly wilting was what made me notice yesterday) so it may survive. It took a long time to establish in the first place though.

I have made a cardboard/black webbing path over grass down the middle of the plot at the moment to kill off about half the width of the existing path for digging over next spring. Where the grass is handy though is for me towing bags of compost around on my little trolley, I have old injuries that mean I shouldn't lift them and I now can't get across the middle of the plot with it as the wheels catch on the edge of the webbing, bark chips or gravel would stop it in it's tracks. But that's specific to me.

Oh no! Clematis disaster! Can you remember which kind it was whoknows? I'm hoping its one of those that will just mistake this for a heavy summer prune and spring back! How frustrating when you've spent all that time getting it exactly how you want it, too. It's so easy to do with power tools, though.

Afternoon!
well a quick trip to water again, and then away until tomorrow night.
Dithers about leaving greenhouse door open ......

I had my first lunch from the garden today, rocket and radish! Not that filling but lovely all the same.

The courgettes and beans that I sowed with my dc at half term are coming up. Unfortunately birds have started stripping my black currant bushes whille the fruit is still green. I will have to get some netting.

Ooh that sounds lovely, Ipanema

My good tomato news is that there is now fruit forming on Gardener's Delight and Golden Nugget.
My bad tomato news is that quite a few leaves have yellowed and have blotches on

Yes, my Blight Fear is setting in. It has rained LOADS and is really really hot and humid here. Has been so for a few days. Bugger.

NB I don't think it is blight. More likely nutrient deficiency caused by over watering (from the rain, and hanging around in standing water) and my last tomatoes needing to be potted out or re homed.

I found my borage seeds so have direct sown some of them. Hope it's not too late.

Worked out that my last mystery plant is a clematis so that has now been moved to my fenceline.

My raspberries and blueberries now have flowers, the strawberries are growing some good-looking berries and my roses now have flower buds. Exciting times!

Shove - it was a late flowering variety, not in bud yet, the sort with big pointy petals like the rays of the sun. It was in a bit too much shade to really prosper, it never got huge and took a few years to establish (I planted it not long after we moved here about 15 years ago), but the last few years it has flowered beautifully. DD is sad too.

Just a quick 20 minute plot visit today, just weeding and watering. Still only a few drops of rain.

WhoKnows- I will be interested to hear how your cucumbers do. I have planted an outdoor variety too in the veg patch and put it in a ridge of earth (a bit like the spuds) - I think it's supposed to trail down then?, But it is much smaller at the moment than the patio one. It would be nice if they are successful as it's something we eat a lot of.
Bell I am impressed that you have a new garden and an allotment! I was assuming I wouldn't get any fruit this year, but actually I have a gooseberry bush which has a lot of berries, and I have planted autumn raspberries (red and yellow) rather than summer ones so I am hoping to get something from them. I have also planted a blackcurrant, a redcurrant and a Victoria plum tree (on a dwarf rootstock) which are all still pretty small, and 2 different rhubarb varieties, one of which is a monster and 1 which has shrivelled to almost nothing. Can you tell I really like fruit!

I have some red strawberries at home - whoop whoop. Alpine ones but I'm not complaining. Giving them an extra day to go completely red and tomorrow I am snaffling them.

Anyway - at work one of my polytunnels has about 30 cucumber plants along the side and I have been making a net for them and I am about 3/4 of the way through the net and it is just too hot to finish it off. So I am going in to work tomorrow for 7:30 and getting it done before I do anything else tomorrow. Fact. I may even remember to take a picture of my huge net for you.

I watered the tomatoes today with our comfrey and nettle water and by golly it stinks. I spilt some on my jeans and I stank for the rest of the day.

We have been planting out for the last week and I have the huge bed to do tomorrow...there are about 50 courgettes and tomorrow I am hoping to cut the first fruits [it encourages the plant to start setting more]. I expect in about 4 weeks I will be sick to the back teeth of courgettes but hey ho. We get alot of stuff stolen from our site and the barricade of spiky courgettes around the outside will hopefully keep people from going onto the middle of the bed and taking the more expensive stuff. We can but try.

I need rain - it is so humid here.