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

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 put manure on as I bought a load from the place I worked at recently, but after getting hit with amilopyralid several years ago, I hadn't used it in years. But yes, that's exactly the sort of thing that happens. Plus if you get the spores you can grow mushrooms as well, including an edible mushroom that also helps the veg that it grows alongside. mushroombox.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=32

Don't get me started on woodchip/fungii - it was going to be my next schools project at the place I was working at to show how animals, plants and fungii interact and can't really exist without each other...sigh.

If you really want to go hardcore on woodchip youtube, try this.

Jean Pain - woodchip guru.

Evening!
(Lego bits are tiny these days...)
All well here , so lovely to catch up with the posts.
WhoKnows - that sounds a bit rubbish about the Seed catalogues - it seems you will always get some jobsworth doing it. ( Honest gov - not me!) At our site , the catalogues are available in the little shop we have, and yes it is a paper order to be fair, you just pop it back in with the right money though. And we have had our main order in, but putting another together as we speak for late comers. They are then delivered to your door by the seed man when they arrive.
Cedar - snap with the celery - I popped that on upthread. And poor thing - a boozy lunch with friends !
Now onto woodchips - being a long time since my science qualifications, my mind is trying to remember about nitrogen depeletion. I realise that as a mulch, its only on the surface, but doesn't that have any effect? Is that why everything went beserk on the second year? Fascinating .
And that then brings me on to mushrooms. Mine failed completely. Did everything as asked and nothing at all. The bin is on the naughty step
( behind the shed) , while wild mushrooms are doing well in the grass ! shove - don't you have the logs packed with mushroom spawn? How have they done?

OH MY GOD I HAD TOTALLY FORGOTTEN ABOUT MY MUSHROOM LOG!!!

I do have one! It is by my shed!

The nitrogen depletion thing: I wonder about this. It's something I've looked into before, and not been able to find a straightforward answer that didn't involve reading loads and loads of scientific papers! One of the reasons I was asking about adding manure is that I seem to remember from biology that some of the early stages of wood decomposition require nitrogen from external sources (this is one of the effects of climate change, right? Nitrogen from pollution causing wood to break down more rapidly?). Anyway, in a plot bed, I can imagine horse poo would provide plenty of extra N, hence my question about that!! I'm guessing that in later phases, nitrogen is released by bacteria & mycorrhizal associations - but the grown of fungi also has other nutrient benefits?? Does that sound right?

This is also why I'm thinking about getting right into the middle of that wood chip pile, where the stuff has been hot and has already rotted a bit...

whoknows - oh dear, that's so frustrating for you about the seeds. As someone naturally avoidant, I completely understand the desire to bypass the whole system! My Dad's allotment has a fierce man who does all the seed orders - my Dad was very proud of the fact that his form got held up as a shining example of how to do it right. Swot.

cedar - boozy lunch

Morning!
I do so hope after that, there are mushrooms proliferating shove .
I am away gadding over the weekend, so no plot. I know I ought to go today, but having been out unexpectedly yesterday, I really have other stuff more imperative , and I am actually sat here feeling rather lazy.

Hope you had a lovely time out and about book!

We had sun yesterday morning! ACTUAL SUN! I raced down to the plot in a state of high glee. I planted up a brand new fruit bed with 2 jostaberries, 12 'snow white' strawberries and some new autumn raspberry canes. I took the top off the fruit cage and dug out the old diseased autumn raspberries. I even managed to squeeze in a bit of weeding towards lunch, but by this stage the clouds were back and lowering. Just about made it home in time before it started to spit with rain.

My Yacon has been harvested! I was dubious about what I would get, because the plant didn't look that happy. I got it from the garden centre for a quid in the rotten section, and planted it out far too late in July. It only grew to about 4 ft and didn't flower. However, when I lifted it, there were whopping amounts of ground apples underneath - nearly 4 kilos worth! If this is what an unhappy plant produces, what on earth can one in full flow do? I have stored the crown in some compost for the winter and will definitely give it another outing next year. The tubers are quite nice - really juicy like a cross between a savoury melon, pear and fennel. You can cook them or eat them raw, so you could happily put them in fruit salad, or stir fry them - but I reckon their supreme use might be ina waldorf salad. They'd be perfect!

Morning!
sun ? shove :) And yes I recognise the need to get as much done as possible ! The yacon sounds intriguing , and productive.
I have had a very full on lovely weekend with my two daughters at the Bakewell Farmers market , Christmas market at Chatsworth, and then followed by a trip to Meadowhall yesterday ( I actually typed Meadowhell first , which to me is not far wrong on a weekend just before Christmas ...) along with films, giggling and food. I need a rest now
And I now need some good exercise to get myself going. So I have a half dug out compost bin calling me....

Look what I found in my stash

Unopened. And if anyone wants it, I am happy to send it to you. I have stamps.

I think you might just have made book's day, chuck!

Also, Meadowhell on a weekend before Christmas - oof. You're a stronger woman than I am! I do my best to avoid it at all costs, but if I ever absolutely HAVE to go, I insist on being there when it is open and running to the store I need and out again as fast as my legs will go. I do not like shopping when there is no sky inbetween shops! It freaks me out!

chuck - how do you keep your seeds? Mine are in a box and I can't find anything I need because they are not organised. There has to be a better way! I have fantasies of buying an old library card index and storing them alphabetically...

Afternoon!
ooh Chuck - I will message you! :)
I managed to get a little bit done this morning. Somewhat slowly though - an hours normal work took an hour and a half, taking it steady. I cleared up the 'root' bed, and pulled all the odd size beetroot ( I like to pull them all the same size for cooking purposes, but they ones left are very diverse !) . Picked sprouting broccoli . Then did a couple of wheelbarrows out of the compost bin onto the newly cleared bit. It looked a bit black, started to spit with rain, and I decided that was enough...
All my seeds are kept in a second hand wooden bread box. Inside I have a plastic box in the middle . In the plastic box are all the seeds for the greenhouse, in alphabetical order. Then on one side, I have all the other vegetable seeds in alphabetical order, and on the other a mess of opened packet of flower seeds...... But I suspect my hoard of seeds is rather small in comparison to most!

chuck - how do you keep your seeds?

Well, I have had so many systems but when sowing for home only, I go through and take out things that I want to sow this season, and note in my diary what I need to sow and when, and then once a week I sow the ones on that week's list. Alphabetically doesn't work for me, if anything I would separate them by month of first sowing. One of my best years, I took ALL the seeds for each month, tipped into a cup and split into however many weeks there were that month and bagged and dated each one, and I religiously sowed the full bag every week. They all grew fantastically and I had one of the best growing years ever.

I think you might just have made book's day, chuck!

Think yourself lucky they didn't get caught up in your lucky dip.

I've just been to take the last of the seeds to a friend for the community garden he works at, he is a chef in a pub and i met up with a chum beforehand...and they were playing my record collection which made my day. So - all the extra seeds are now gone. I have space in my dining room again!

That sounds like a miles better way to categorise them.. I may have to re - sort mine :) Maybe you need something like this ?

On a more sensible note for shove nice , but small?

Hooray for your music chuck - you clearly have excellent taste1! I like the by-month sowing system! That's genius.

Book - I definitely need something big. Must. Have. Room. For. Expansion!

Keep meaning to say - those thermals you posted are gorgeous! So elegant. They make my base-layer-from-Aldi look distinctly tomboyish as well!

Yacon. I've never heard of that before. Quick google to see what it looked. Sounds interesting and good to have a surprising success.

I keep my seeds in an old shoe box. There's not a proper system though. Which is why some seeds don't get planted at all because I miss the timing. Must do better next year! Chuck your system for organising really makes sense.

We make it up to the plot on Sunday and had a good hack at the part we've just take on. We cut down and removed one buddleia and cut back a second one, just leaving the stump to get out another time. Cut down brambles. Have identified raspberries coming up all over the place. These are choked by grass which has grown up over them. There is also a holly and and oak sapling which will have to come out. And there are two largish bushes which have no leaves but I think may be old currant bushes, possibly. We'll have to wait and see what happens in the spring with those. Then we harvested some leeks, beetroot and spinach from our first plot. It was a good couple of hours work from the three of us. DD often gets bored of the plot these days but she enjoys hacking away at things.

Oh, and meant to add - thanks to this thread, and mainly book's recommendation, I made my first ever bubble & squeak last night, a veggie version with all allotment veg. It is YUM! I actually like cabbage cooked this way. Which is good because I seem to have planted rather a lot of them... not sure quite why I thought I was going to be feeding an army on cabbage over winter.

Oooh, x-post with cedar - It's so wonderful that you're finding all these 'submerged' plants - bet those raspberries race away now you've freed them. And great that you've found something your DD enjoys. She'll be learning so much going up with you!

I think she learnt that some of the thorns on a blackberry are vicious!

Shove you've reminded me that I should do something with the cabbages that I've been ignoring but noticed they've staged a bit of a comeback after being eaten earlier in the year.

We've actually had a proper frost down here today. On the ground and everything. That should get rid of a slug or two!

Evening!
Well, a cold night last night, and it didn't really warm up much. And due a harder frost tonight, so I totally agree - I so hope the slugs get frozen.
I had a busy day looking after DGS, though did pop out to the garden to belatedly put my DD's olive tree into the greenhouse, gathered up every last rooted cutting and huddled them together on the west facing wall and then moved my big old bay tree ( in a pot ) under the porch for protection. Better late than never...!
I shall take my bow to shove - I do love those thermals, but always try to buy them in the sale if I possibly can. And glad you like bubble and squeak - it's one of our favourites, and so quick. Mine is basically vegetarian too - fried in olive oil, with just about any cooked vegetable added to the mashed potato ( though brassicas are best ) and with a poached egg on top. :)
Sounds like you are making inroads already Cedar - truly unkempt with buddleias, holly and oak! The raspberries will love it though when it's cleared, though they are almost as thuggish as brambles, really.

Evening all. Huge apologies for having dropped off the thread for so long. Life in general has been very busy although I've still been popping up to the plot.

I don't have a hope of catching up with the thread at the moment so will hopefully read through the pages later

Anyway I took delivery of some manure a few weeks ago - there was a huge skip-load, I managed about 10 barrows for my share, as I was really limited for storage space on my plot. I've managed to mulch and re-cover most of the beds now, and what's left is in a modular compost bin - am thinking of growing some squash on top next year??
A few of us quarter plotters also cleared out all of the rubbish from the communal shed & washed it out, it looks heaps better.

A big surprise was being offered a half plot - I've only had the quarter plot since the end of June. It must have meant that the committee think I'll manage the additional workload...but it's not the right time, I've invested so much in clearing the plot & don't want to hand it straight to someone else (especially after lugging all the manure onto it!). Hopefully I'll get a full season on the quarter plot & then another half plot will come up. I must admit I'd really love my own shed.

I was given a few bits and pieces from the shed clearance including some little bell cloches and some builders piping for making a tunnel, so I'm planning some early sowing next year, maybe dwarf broad beans.

I saw the posts about thermals, i've bought some 300 denier fleece-lined leggings from home bargains and they are absolutely brilliant under my allotment trousers. Cheap too, only £2.99. I also have some fleece-lined combat trousers from mountain warehouse which are really toasty. And aldi have some heavy-duty work gloves in at the moment with Thinsulate lining - so I'm well and truly stocked up for winter!

Ooooh timtam - that's lovely that you were offered an extra bit of room, gold star for you! But it sounds like your reasoning is wise. I would be loath to leave an area I'd just got clear and shipshape. Perhaps if you wait, you'll be able to get one that adjoins your existing area?

I must go to Aldi and get some of those lined gloves. My hands get freezing in winter!

And yes, the night before last was really cold here - and the frost didn't melt all day. I am hoping this means that all the slugs in the garden are deader than a doornail. It's warmer this morning though.

Morning!
I am sat here , looking at the hard frost outside. So no plot until maybe this afternoon, if it thaws enough.
timtam - lovely to hear from you, but it isn't anywhere near necessary to apologise! Lots just pop up now and then - everyone has so much to do in their lives. Interesting about being offered a half plot. I would go with shove's idea. Do speak to the committee/manager of the site. This is how it happened to me. I started with a quarter 'starter' plot - (meant to weed out the ones who were not going to put in the work.) I too got offered a half plot once it I was seen to be serious. I also refused after back breaking clearance and sorting it all out. I spoke to them about my reasons, and then was incredibly lucky that the quarter plot next to me was left to rack and ruin after 2 people said they wanted it and din't do any work on it. I was then told I could have it . Some of that may have been as another full plot became vacant, which was then broken up for quarter plots. At our site now they only offer half plots, as too many quarter plot holders felt the same as me, so it was a little self - defeating. Good luck - and how organised after all the heart ache earlier with the flooding :)

I was just about to reply to shove and then your post came through as well book. I don't think I'd be allowed to take on 2 adjoining quarter plots, the committee seem quite strict about using them as the "test" plots to see if people have the necessary commitment to move up to half plots. There's a waiting list of over 2 years so I think they like to move people off the list ASAP. Also all of my site's quarter plots now seem flood-prone, which wasn't so bad for me this year as I had no crops in, but would have been really gutting if I'd had lots of stuff ruined as would be the case next year - and there would be no chance of putting up a shed (sorry to keep going on about the shed!). But it seems pretty certain that i'll get another offer of a half plot at some point.

Shove the aldi gloves were in the work wear section of special offers along with all the tools, safety boots etc. There were men's and ladies' sizes which was great, as men's gloves aren't a good fit for me. So far I've worn them around the house and they are indeed warm

Probably a good idea to move eventually then timtam - forgot that bit of information. And we all like a shed ( though mine is rather messy , to say the least!)
It's interesting though. DH and I were on the waiting list for 5 years before we got our plot, and some people at the time had 2 or 3 historically. But they changed how it worked - first , doing the quarter plot thing, then moving on to the half plot, when that didn't quite work. Gradually all the old complete plots are now being turned to half plots, the waiting list has actually gone. There is just sufficient turnaround for there to be only 1 or 2 waiting for the next available empty plot to come up.

Oh gosh, yes, I forgot about the flood - or rather, I remembered it but didn't put two and two together.

In that case, I'd be quite torn. As you say, a weather event that utterly devastates everything you have worked towards would be pretty depressing if it happened on a regular basis. My BIL had a plot that was flood-prone, but the floods were seasonal in winter and quite predictable and he was also in the South West at the time, so really good soil and growing conditions the rest of the time - plus the rent was almost nothing. But if it comes unpredictably and potentially in summer, that's a whole different kettle of fish - quite literally if it's a bad flood .

Is the new plot better situated in any other way, e.g. has more light? I ask because one of my friends is doing a plot that is by a river and heavily overshadowed by trees. She really struggles to grow anything on it - and who wouldn't? But she blames herself for the constant series of failures instead of thinking that it might not be her fault (and in spite of me constantly telling her it isn't!) To be honest, it would be well worth her while moving to almost any other plot on her site.