Allotment/Veg Patch - Thread 7 - The Harvesters Arms

[bookbook]

Well, it's been an interesting summer, to say the least.
We are now heading into the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness :)
Everyone welcome to join in and ask for advice , share their woes and just enjoy growing!
previous thread here

Thanks Chuck - would it work in a pot?

Glad you're safe chuck. We had multiple areas of localised flooding in Sheffield yesterday. It was bad enough on suburban streets - I can't even imagine what what the big roads were like. Props for massive bravery in venturing out.

igardener - aargh, it's so FRUSTRATING when a post gets lost! Agree with you completely about the smell of celeriac - it manages somehow to have both earth notes and high fennely herbal notes in a combination that is pleasant instead of just weird. I grew it last year and found that it relishes lots of water. I also found, having planted too many, that I couldn't give it away - a lot people really don't like it. I find that strange - I love a celeriac puree, especially with a bit of smoked garlic in it.

book - I haven't grown it, but I have eaten Good King Henry while camping. In Suffolk, we call it Fat Hen and it grows everywhere in the very sandy east like a weed, which I think must mean it likes fairly well drained soil. It was, to be frank, not very nice. However, I fear my cooking of it may have been partly to blame for that - it tasted really bitter and horrible, and I think you are probably supposed to prepare it in ways that draw out those flavours before just shoving it in the pot. But I can't imagine it ever tasting really delicious. The texture is also slightly... furry. Again, that might have been my cooking, though.

I miss spotted. I hope she finds her way back to us one day, even if she's not plotting any more. If you are reading this, we are sending you a collective Earthy Hug (TM Allotment Thread).

Hi all. Popping back in again for a quick update. I think I'm feeling what Monty described in the November Gardener's World: a tiredness, almost depressive feeling about the garden. I am possibly coming out of it though.

Also wondering why it took me so long to work out I could get my small children to rip up paper for the compost bin! What a nice way to keep them amused for 5 minutes half an hour.

I've just had some minor surgery so am not allowed to do too much at the minute, but my next major job is to finally get my new border garden dug. Before that I should be able to get in some gentle pruning.

Hope everyone's surviving the miserable weather. It's already colder here than we had last year.

Grouuuuuuuchy - It's lovely to have an update from you! You poor thing, though, surgery and this weather is enough to pull anyone down. Please be gentle with yourself as you recover. You've had a lot on lately! .

I hesitate to ask this because with everything you've been coping with, I don't think it would be unusual to feel low. But just in case: do you often find yourself feeling a bit down in the dumps this time of year? I ask because I regularly become grouchy and tired in November - and it was only when I was in my 20s that I found out it's because I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. I have to take lots of vitamin D and park myself in front of a light box for a couple of hours a day to cope! (It really does help - even people who don't have it get a bit 'picked up' by my ultra-high lumens light).

for you! Perhaps you can spend time doing mind gardening - planning that border in your imagination before you execute it in reality!

Evening!
A rather DGS centric day today, so no chance of anything meaningful work wise done :)
And it was still drizzly and dark until late afternoon. Hopefully I will get to the plot tomorrow.
Well shove - I think that may just put the kibosh on Good King Henry - furry - mm not sure I like the sound of that!
And I totally second the hugs to Spotted - I have spied her on a couple of threads, so hope all is well, even if not all in the garden plot is rosy .
Grouchy - lovely to see you :) and take care - the recovery is the most important bit of any operation in my view. It makes all the difference.
My DH suffers from SAD too - it is really quite obvious to me. He doesn't have a light box as such, but we do have a daylight reading lamp which is used every day, and it does make a lot of difference.
And I am feeling this winter could be a bad one , though I have no idea why, it just seems to be coming worse in waves...

Hi shove. I usually love Autumn and Winter because of the food and the clothes. I think it's just that it has been a very full on year with all those personal difficulties, plus looking after my three little lovelies. Hopefully will feel better soon. DH has been affected by SAD in the past and had one of those lightboxes but we had to get rid as it gave me migraines (& we lived in a tiny flat at the time). Thankfully he seems to be fine now. I like to tell him that I'm his sunshine.

books Yes, I'm discovering I'm bad at the recovery bit and push myself too hard so trying to hold back.

It definitely feels like this is going to be a long, cold Winter. We're predicted a high of 2C on Thursday and it's not even December yet.

Hi all. Out of action all day due to the lurgy. Bleugh.

Fat hen is part of the beetroot family, whereas good king henry is not. Cant remember which. Fat hen is an annual, whereas GKH is perennial. Fat hen is used all around the world for a spinach substitute but it does nothing for me either! GKH would work in a pot, i just remember nearly losing the will to live digging it out of the herb garden at Ryton a few years back and couldnt believe how deep those roots went. My hearty recommendation, stick to chard.

Hopefully getting better for tomorrow, as i have a meeting with my old (nice) for coffee and cake, so i need to be nearly dying to cancel coffee and cake.

Chuck - there are a lot of germs around no doubt, hope it clears soon.( If this was my dear long departed MIL it would be due to having been on public transport to include things such as planes, trains, buses, doctors waiting rooms in fact anywhere you have to sit next to other people )
Oh, so I may just swing back to trying GKH then , and find a big pot . On the programme they also called it Norwich Spinach. I do grow perpetual spinach and chard, but was interested in it being a perennial.
Grouchy - oh yes the food - had everyone to tea tonight, so I just had to make apple crumble and custard. It wasn't anything but comfort food - we really didn't need it......

Yes i think i got this on the plane. Pah.

Oooh, I didn't know they were different - thanks chuck! In that case, I have yet to try Good King Henry. I like the name 'Norwich Spinach' book

Get well soon chuck. Hope you're better this morning and can have your cake!

Morning!
The sun has came out
I whizzed down to the plot ( well, actually dragged myself there ..) and was so glad i did. Managed to sort out some of the compost heap. The asparagus is now mulched, and I still have quite a lot of compost in the bin, so I can't just put back the non rotted stuff as I usually do. So I will have to have a think about that.
Other than that it is still too wet to do any of the other bits , but I had a good look around. The netting around the brassica cage had pulled loose after the wind on Monday, so spent a bit of time doing a rather poor job of attaching it to the chicken wire next to it, rather than going into the cage and doing it properly. , but only pigeons are the problem now, not white cabbage butterflies ( hopefully!)

Guess what I just found in the Hardy Plant Society seed list? Good King Henry!! If you're a member book you could request it as part of your 25-packet allocation!

It's raining AGAIN here today .

I am sat here, having just posted on the trifle thread ( love a trifle here :))
Thanks shove - for that it's in the Kings catalogue too, which is why I was musing, putting together another smaller seed order . ( Not a member, but sounds intriguing - will google later :))
Rain again ? :( it's lovely here - washing flapping in the breeze, and about to help DH by gallantly standing on the bottom rungs of a ladder while he puts up new lights outside to help fing the shed and bins in the dark. I get all the best jobs!

fing? - find - not that they are lost,!

Hello,
Have never ventured to the gardening section before- however heard this morning we are top of the allotment list and there is one ready for us !!! (Although we can't go and see it for a couple of weeks so have no idea what state it's in...)

Excitement is being drowned out by worry at the moment - what if this turns out to be a huge disaster?

I'm googling like crazy - any tips from the pro's here on getting started? I've made a list of things we like to eat and are easy to grow.
When you buy seeds does it matter where you get your seeds from - previously when I've grown stuff in the garden I've just got seeds from wilkinsons etc - do I need to go to a proper seed company to be most successful?

The site is very close to us so I'm a stay at home parent so time and getting there won't be an issue.

Beyond excited.... And any advice would be great and much appreciated.

golden - that's brilliant news! Congratulations!!

The first thing to say is: please don't worry! I remember when I started to grow veg, it was all very confusing. I tried to make charts and timetables of what needed to be done when, and ended up feeling a bit overwhelmed and muddled. Actually, when it comes to doing it, however, it makes more sense and things just fall into place. It's a bit like the difference between trying to work out a dance move from a book, versus watching and imitating someone doing it.

Tips? Get lots and lots of horse manure (free from a friendly local stables)!!

Seeds - I haven't found a vast difference between different manufacturers of seeds. Stuff from Poundland that is 6 packets for a quid seems to work just as well as posh Italian stuff in fancy packets. However, what DOES make a big difference is varieties. The RHS do a scheme where they give an 'award of garden merit' to certain varieties of veg seed, and these tend to have a combination of decent disease-resistance, a decent yield, and a decent taste. They're a good option when you are starting out, because crops that are faffy can be discouraging at the start. Grow things that will do well in your conditions - if you're on sandy soil in the baked East, you may need to choose different crops/varieties from someone like me who is on heavy clay in a part of the country where it is continually raining. (We haven't seen the sun at all this week - it hasn't stopped since Sunday).

What else? Well, if something can eat your crops, the chances are it will. Expect to be under attack from mice, slugs, pigeons, and all kinds of insects. Clever use of mesh and deterrents can, however, keep most things off! (We are all fairly organic, I think, on this thread).

Final tip - take it easy at the start - even a half plot is a lot to bring into cultivation if it's in a bit of a state. Weedsheeting or cardboard + mulch over the whole area will stop you having to battle constantly against unwanted plants, and then you can work on a bit at a time. Setting areas to fruit is a job that can be done over winter - most fruit's really easy to grow and tasty and satisfying so well worth doing.

And enjoy!!

Morning!
Welcome Golden great and exciting news :)
The waiting is the worst bit now!
I have to dash, as I have to be off for some unplanned babysitting .
shove has covered a lot of stuff there, and yes to taking it steady - its a marathon not a sprint :) so I will just add a few other things.
When you go to see the plot, have a few questions about
Water supply
ease of access ( to get the manure, compost etc to where you need it)
Measure it - a great big tape needed- really helps with planning.
Where does the sun come from ( mmm maybe a bit tricky doing that at the moment, but someone will know.)
Seeds - I buy from all sorts of places, Wilkos are great for well priced gardening equipment. It may be worth asking if the site is allied to the National Allotment Society as you can buy a better range and cheaper seeds through them ( The catalogues are out and about now and come from Kings Seeds), but not every site is.
Relax and enjoy!

Welcome Golden, how exciting! Can't add much more to what the others have said. I buy seeds randomly all over the place but I do try and choose varieties carefully, from recommendations etc. I would say get yourself a decent notebook and jot down useful nuggets of information as you come across them, I do this with things I read on here, I also listen to Gardener's Question Time and follow BBC Gardener's World on FB. It's also useful to have a little diary of what you planted when, then if you get to the end of the year and think you should have done something sooner or whatever you will know for next year.

As for Kings Seeds chance would be a fine thing. We can supposedly get them through our allotment society, but the login thing doesn't work, the chair is a jobsworth who I don't like approaching unless I'm really stuck, you can do it by paper if you are prepared to get the catalogue from someone's house and return your form within a fortnight ending mid-October but I CBA.

Welcome Golden My main advice would be to only grow things that you actually like to eat. There's nothing worse than having a success with something that none of you much like. It's the reason why we don't grow courgettes even though they seem to do well round here.

Nothing much to report here. We managed to get to the plot for a quick look on Saturday. This would have been the perfect day for allotmenting but we had a friend over for a long boozy lunch instead. So just a quick look and a pick of some autumn fruiting raspberries that are on our new half. Managed to pick a couple of handfuls which DD and I ate straight away as I hadn't bought anything to carry them in. Then on Sunday it poured with rain so no chance then either.

We grew celery this year for the first time. It did well up to the point when the stalks should start swelling up. All we've got is lot of weedy little stalks. I did water quite a lot but it's possible that our lovely clay soil is not the best growing conditions for it.

I need to pick my seeds for next year. I'm thinking of trying an old fashioned variety of squash which is stripey (can't recall the name) as well as crown prince. The butternut squashes did nothing for me this year. Also am going to grow more borlotti as realise that to get enough to save up you need to grow more than 6 plants. Of course I'll have more space to do all this Assuming we can get it cleared.

The thing with gardening and food growing is - sometimes the conditions just aren't right. And even the experts cannot grow certain things, no matter how good they make their soil. And what is good one year is often bad another. And some varieties will be good and others rubbish, even in the same soil and conditions. So grow fewer amounts of more things.

When you get your allotment, never leave the soil exposed to the air as that is when you get weeds which are the bane of every gardener's life [a weed is a particularly robust plant growing in the wrong place] so when you have prepared an area, cover it. I used cardboard for years and now use wood chip where I can. Don't dig it in, just mulch [cover the soil] with it.

And research what you want to grow before you grow it. Look at your soil, is it clay, sand or loamy? Had it got organic matter in it? Put a handful into a jam jar, fill with warm water, shake and then let it settle for 24 hours. you should be able to see the type of soil you have, visible grains at the bottom are sand/gravel, then above that will be silt and above that and possibly still in the water will be clay. Anything floating will be organic matter. Ideally there will be around equal amounts of each by volume. In mine, it is predominantly clay so I've had to add in organic matter by the bucketload which is why my allotment is covered in a large 10 inch mulch of woodchip this winter as i am now going all out to use known techniques to break it up and add organic matter to it.

in the spring, when you prep an area, and you are going to plant or sow it, leave it for a fortnight or 3 weeks and then all the weed seeds will sprout, hoe them off and then plant or sow. If you plant, mulch around your newly planted plants to keep weeds down, or wait until the seeds are up and them mulch around them. If you can't mulch, then waiting those 3 weeks will mean most of the weed seeds will be cleared and will keep the work down.

In a new allotment however you don't know what is in there so the first year is always going to be interesting. And hard work. Good luck.

I'm following your woodchip experiment with interest chuck. It's the one thing that IS actually available on our site, free of charge. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work astoundingly well - I guess it'll be a good long time breaking down.

Oh, and ages ago I remember I said I'd report back on my spent hop mulch on my fruit. It's been excellent. It's lasted much longer than I thought it would, kept the weeds down, and the soil moist. I'm going to see if the brewery can give me another lot for the winter!

The thing with wood chip, I may have already said this - is that it creates mycelium - which increases the nutrients that the plants take up.

We used 2 tonnes of woodchip when we first designed out garden, on the paths. Within 2 years it was nearly compost and when we decided to put mypex down and change it to slate, we piled the woodchip onto on of the veg beds whilst we did the path change. When that was done, I raked the woodchip around the rest of the beds, but the main stuff was left on that one bed. The increase in yield on that bed was phenomenal. I had put some new strawberries on it and they went crazy. All the veg I put in it around the strawbs grew larger and stronger and lasted longer into the year. It was very clear that the woodchip made a huge difference and I've been wanting to get woodchip on the allotment for years but never found the time to actually contact the local tree surgeons and ask.

Look at Back to Eden growing if you get time. On you tube there are lots of videos of people using it to change their soil structure.

Thank you so much- loads of useful info.

I'll keep lurking and will let you all know what state the plots in when I get to see it in a couple of weeks.

Interesting re the woodchip chuck. I wonder where I can get some from. I need to try to mulch more next year. Of course nothing keeps the blessed horsetail down.

Don't be too discouraged if it looks a bit of a mess when you view it Golden It doesn't take long for a plot to start looking overgrown if it's been neglected for a season. But it doesn't take too much work to start getting part of it back to something you can use. And this is a good time of year to start because you have time to put some prep in before the growing season starts. (I've just taken on an additional half plot which is overgrown so this is a pep talk for me too )

YES YES YES to what cedar says about not being discouraged by appearances. Everything looks sad this time of year. And sometimes a plot can look like a bramble-infested jungle but actually be OK once you get stuck in!

Chuck - that's so interesting about the mycelium. I remember when I moved into my last house, they had put a lot of chipped bark down on rather regimented beds where everything had been planted in rows (including daffs). It just sat there for a year or two but then all of a sudden decay started and it broke down quite quickly, causing an explosion of growth. Could that be the same kind of effect? The woodchip pile at the site is, I reckon, quite well rotted in the centre now, so maybe I can use some of that? Did you put manure on as well?

I have found that Back to Eden movie - looks fascinating - I will watch it as soon as I can!