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 elephant - I listen to GQT on a Sunday , so this afternoon , I will be chained to the radio !

Its dank here today, and it has been raining overnight, so no plot today, but I think I am going to sow broad beans and sweet peas in the greenhouse.

Oooh! Sorry, could that be classified as a spoiler? .

Not at all - will make me more attentive

Afternoon everyone. I haven't posted on here before but I read regularly and love picking up lots of tips. So much knowledge and experience to learn from - thank you all for sharing.

I've had my half-plot allotment for about 18 months now - just about got it cleared and paths laid etc so I'm hoping for a good year. (Last year I was away for 6 weeks in May-June - I never managed to catch up on myself again after that everything was growing so quickly!)

Anyway, I digress. The previous tenant planted three rows of raspberries - last year they cropped prolifically from July to end of September. The problem is I have no idea what variety they are or whether they are autumn or summer fruiting. Two rows look to be the same variety - the third row is different - crops a week or two later but also finishes sooner too.

As I started harvesting in early July, I assumed that at least two of the rows were summer fruiting. Come September, I pruned down the canes that had finished fruiting. However, lots of canes were still producing fruit so I left them. I haven't done any cutting down since but when I look at them now, all the canes that are there are ones that have already fruited - ie it doesn't look as though there are any new canes for the fruit to grow on this year.

Does that mean that they're actually autumn-fruiting plants trying to trick me?

Am I right in thinking that any canes that have already fruited won't do so again and that I should cut them down?

Really worried that if I treat them as autumn-fruiting and cut them all down soon, I'll end up with no fruit this year!!

Gosh, sorry that was so long.

Afternoon!
welcome TippyHaha :)
Ah, its hard to make up 6 weeks of weeding and sorting in May :)
mmm - there is a fine line on summer/autumn raspberries no doubt about it.
Did you leave any new canes to tie in when you chopped out the fruiting canes, or did they all fruit?
I personally would take the gamble, and treat the later fruiting ones as autumn , and chop them down to the ground at the end of February. But that's me- I have lots of raspberrries !

Thanks bookbook.

I definitely didn't cut down any new canes and most of the plants have no new canes at all. So I think you're right - I'll take a gamble and cut them all down next month.

Even if I don't get any raspberries this year, at least I'll know for going forward. And I've still got loads in the freezer plus enough jam for another year or two at least!

Just nipping in quickly to say: I would guess that anything fruiting before August is far more likely to be a summer fruiter than an autumn one. That's classic summer season - I associate autumn rasps with late August/September more.

My guess is that you may have had two crops in one year, either via continuous fruiting on old wood or via the new canes coming into fruit a bit too 'early'. (There should still be flowers left for next year, though). Some of the canes are very long bearing now!

The lowest risk strategy may be to leave them be. That way, if the July fruiters are summer raspberries as I suspect they are, you still get a crop; and if they're autumn fruiters then they'll send up new shoots anyway on which to fruit, but not as vigorously (you'll just be picking in a bit of a thorny thicket!).

A glut of raspberries is a very nice problem to have. I LOVE raspberry jam - so easy and so rewarding.

Thanks shove

Great advice. I think I almost certainly had two crops last year - I didn't know that was possible but I couldn't believe how long I was harvesting them - they just kept coming! Not that I,m complaining!

Was tempted to chop them all down so that I'd at least know what I've got for future years but I'm going to reverse my decision and let all the canes stay this time round!

good plan! - I am thinking shove has the right of it :)

I'm working on the clear FACT that a year without raspberries is a sad year

book - I realise I didn't answer your question about the viburnum. Apologies! The last few days I've been a bit feverish and have not been at all focused! In the end, after some agonising, I sprayed it the two affected bushes with pyrethrum, which is organic (derived from chrysanthemums I think) but still pretty evil. I was fairly careful to check for other insects before each squirt, but I am sure I still did some damage to some goodies as well as the baddies. If I continue with it, I will need to do so again at the correct point in the life cycle - late April/May this year. I should then be able to see how effective it has been. I don't mind a few nibbled leaves (very few plants in my garden are perfect) but I do mind the kind of total shredding these little blighters get up to. If it doesn't work, I think I may have to replace the viburnums. I have four of them - V. opulus, V. tinus 'Eve Price', V. x burkwoodii 'Anne Russell' and V. × bodnantense 'Dawn'. The opulus and the bodnantense are the worst affected, with the tinus not far behind - the burkwoodii seems fairly strong, however.

(To be clear, I sprayed them with pyrethrum in the summer, not recently!)

Ah shove -still not well :( . Take care .
I listened to the GQT and Pippa Greenwood said to bin them , as she doesn't like Viburnum! It may be it comes to that for us, ( it is an old, very gnarly many stemmed bush tbh) but fingers crossed for you :)
No plot today , firstly busy out and about, then rain...
No plot tomorrow either as have DGS , and probably no plot Wednesday roll on Thursday !

Yes, I fear it may come to that book. I'm particularly upset about the guelder rose, because it was given to me as a tiny cutting by my father and has moved from garden to garden with me so it feels like losing a bit of a connection with the past. Silly, I know. If I can't grow it any more, I need to accept that and welcome new plants into my life. I have wanted a winter-flowering cherry for some time, after all .

Did you hear the GQT piece on privacy, from the lady in Brighton who had a garden that overlooked others? I thought it was a very odd segment and it helped to crystallize some of the feelings I have about this issue. I know that come the spring, we will have poster after poster coming into the forum and asking about screening. I feel really conflicted about this. On the one hand, I absolutely see (and feel) the need for some private outdoor space. On the other, I also believe that walling ourselves up completely -whether that's behind gates or behind leylandii - does isolate us and cut us off from the community around us (and may also be, in some dense urban areas, a practically quixotic quest these days). I've just read a book called Domestic Fortress about the way that wealthy people are increasingly using architecture to wall themselves off from the outside world, so I guess that's in my thoughts too! Anyway I thought the question was quite an interesting and thought-provoking one about how we use plants to invite and to exclude other people, and was a bit disappointed when it only got flippant answers.

Morning!
fog and dreary here this morning, but due to go out anyway. But I do need to pop and harvest some veg this afternoon.
shove - I too have conflicting thoughts on privacy in gardens. It was interesting that the panel came across flippantly, probably because we all have those thoughts. Is it because todays life is so crammed with people and noise, that the garden needs to be a haven, and that includes excluding others? I suppose there has to be a level of screening ( I did have a boss 40 years who was a nudist at home....luckily I was never invited round ) . Most new gardens are so small, maybe that is a more pertinent point?

Blimey, it's been SUCH a dark week here! Today it doesn't even feel like it has got light! The sky is so dark and it's drizzling continuously.

And YY book - I hear you on both the need for one's own space, and the impossibility now of achieving that in some places. My garden is quite overlooked - unavoidably so - so I don't think I feel it as an intrusion as much as someone who is more used to their own space. My life isn't that interesting that the neighbours are going to be craning their necks to see what I'm up to!

so dreary, I agree shove
I have popped down this afternoon to pick sprouts and broccoli, but the last couple of days I have been freezer raiding green beans, roasted courgettes and borlotti beans ( did you here that Spain is flooded, and there is a shortage of courgettes and salads ?)
I am hoping to get an hour or so in tomorrow to get the brassica cage tidy , but everything is dripping. And I have had to put down some slug pellets around the perennial cauliflower plants, the blighters have been having a go I am spending some time knitting instead in the gloom
But I am off onTuesday (fingers crossed for some sun ), so running around doing a lot of bits and pieces so I'm all ready to go.

Oh book I shall miss you on the forum while you are away! I hope you have a lovely time - with plenty of relaxation, great food, and brightness!

Have a lovely time on your holiday bookbook. Hopefully the sun will shine. Did you freeze your borlotti beans fresh - the whole bean pod like runners rather than just the beans? We grew them last year for the first time and dried them - it was only a small harvest, enough to make one lot of soup. I hadn't thought about freezing them.

Interesting that it's been dull and dreary where you are as here (in the south) it's been sunny but very cold the last few days. Yesterday the lawn was still frosty in the middle of the day. Today it's another frosty clear morning. It's good to see the sun even though I am indoors working.

Dark here this week too. Have moved my work stuff back out to the garden room/office [which I had built for an office about 8 years ago but it was never really used as an office as I changed jobs], and it was so dark in there this week that I went to Ikea and - well, after buying a huge lovely new lamp unfortunately one of these heat lamp units along with the lights. Whoops.

:)

My chillis will be transplanted the next Fruit day and will be going straight under.

cedar - I'm sure book will be along to give you more expert culinary advice (my level is beans on toast) but I froze my borlottis the year before last, after depodding and blanching them for a short time. Last year I dried them. The advantage with freezing is that you don't have to rehydrate and boil them for ages - you can almost use them straight out of the packet. The disadvantage is that it's more faff and fuss.

chuck - ahahaha! I've never once been to Ikea and not emerged with an unintended purchase. I'm not normally someone who finds it difficult to resist buying things either, there's just something about Ikea that is lethal. They look rather good, those heat lamps....

Morning!
I have been trying to be good, and getting jobs done or underway before I open up MN , instead of opening MN and then running around when I have been on too long
Still dark and dreary, but I hear we may get a bit of frost ( and maybe snow for you shove tonight), then back to dreary. Haven't seen the sun at all for at least a week.
cedar - i podded mine and then open froze them, no blanching ( I have stopped blanching everything, just open freeze now) . They were picked when the pods had dried, but the beans were still plump IYSWIM ? I still give them a bit of a soak ( and the 15 minute boil) , but I found that they gave me a better texture than drying and resoaking in the recipes I use . But - a big caveat - I have a big freezer ( and a spare in the garage now :) ) .
It's a good job Ikea isn't nearer to me, that looks good.
Just wrestling on a new greenhouse here. Thinking on timings ( as it is going in the same space as the one I have) it may have to be October for assembly for least loss of useage . And can I fit an 8 x 10 . Decisions, decisions :)

book - NEW GREENHOUSE! How very exciting! The bigger the better, I reckon! I think, because you're so keen, you will use whatever space you have and then some! I bought one with a bit of extra height and it's been more useful than I would have guessed to have 'up' space as well as 'outward'!

Also, I bought really thick 4mm glass, which has been brilliant and really 'feels' so much safer - I know you have your DGS around and I'm guessing there may be ball games! Because we don't have little people around, I was really skeptical whether we needed it and whether it was worth the extra cost, but actually I am quite clumsy and I think I would have broken thinner panes already.

Depending on how tricky the design is, I reckon you and your DH will have it up in 2-3 days of reasonable but not back-breaking work. (It took us 2 and a bit days for a slightly smaller one, and we were working out way very methodically through some very comprehensive instructions for fear of making a mistake). So if you ordered it for a time when the weather isn't too bad, e.g. May, you could probably get it up and running without setting anything you're growing back too far?? We found that for ours, there was a considerable lead time on delivery of about 8-10 weeks in the spring, which really threw out all of our plans. I think a lot of people buy them when the weather gets better and there can be queues.

The one thing I really wish we'd bought before we did ours was one of those glass-lifter suction things that makes you look like a cat burglar in Mission Impossible. I reckon it would have been worth it, and not just because I could have fantasized about Tom Cruise tending my tomatoes.

yes - looking at the Rhino one , and the 4mm glass too. DH likes the idea of the aluminium frame/base thing . If I were not going away they have a special offer on for January too . I do like to look first, but can only find the place in Norfolk that has them. I was hoping the height up to the eaves may be a bit taller? It was whether I got a 6 x12 , or an 8 x 10 , but I think I fancy having the wider gap in the middle . I really like the look of the coloured frame too, but do I like it enough for the extra money !
Head bursts..... :)

Trouble with May shove , is that the one I have will already be bursting, and it's going to sit in the same basic spot, thats why we considered October as a possibility. Most things over, and still hopefully warm enough to not harm the overwintering stuff