Allotment/Veg Patch - Thread 7 - The Harvesters Arms

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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

Huh, I typed quince so many times there, that I managed to chuff up typing quince2fig's nn !

for zebra
so sorry for your loss

Hi zebra very sorry to hear about your dad.

oh Spotted - so sorry to hear that news. Life deals some rotten hands . If it helps a little bit - my Dad still helps me ( in my head ) and he has been dead a long time. I feel so connected to him in the garden , and I hope , when you are up to garden again, so will you
I have had DGS - came after lunch yesterday and , left about 3 today, so no plot. Just had to have a calm time with a damp flannel on the forehead when he went. - he doesn't stop.
goodenough - don't forget- its very easy to grow asparagus from seed too! An extra couple of years to wait mind, but could bulk up any crowns you buy :)

Spotted

Spotted sorry to hear your news. Dads definitely = tomatoes. My Dad and my Mum's Dad.
I just thought I would share some bargain basement stuff with you. I am always a sucker for the maltreated plants. I bought these yesterday for a total of £2.34 from Tesco. I wish I had taken a photo of their original state. These photos are from 1 hour after watering last night and today. I have quite a few 'Tete a tete' in the garden which I have bought as house plants and then put into the garden. Can anyone identify the other bulbs coming up please?

Good Morning!
elephant - I love a bargain - the death shelf is always fun to browse around :) Is that the one pot with emerging leaves? If so - could they be more , later. daffodils? I am truly rubbish though, and can't quite see well enough.
Well, grey and coolish here. Went off to the plot intending an hour of digging up weed infested grass turf to get an area to plant out. Decided to pop to the horticultural shop to pick up some seed potatoes . Erm - 45 minutes later ( the one on duty didn't turn up, so I stayed until they did) ambled back, only to meet plot holder 2 away who wanted a chat. I have taken up the sum total of about 4' x 2' . Ah well - maybe it was planned- it will let my back ease in to working out a bit more :) More time tomorrow hopefully!

I'm going to a garden centre later to get a pot for dc's 'bonsai'.
will def have a look at the 'shelf of doom'

I have managed to clear half a bed this morning so I am off to get my seed potatoes in a bit. The weather here is unseasonably warm so I have learnt another valuable lesson today - take a bottle of water to the plot.

I bought my seed potatoes. I was told by a friendly plot owner that blight had been a problem last year so I went for 'Casablanca'. I was little perplexed by instruction number 3 on the back of the sack . I hope these potatoes have so many I's eyes that one has escaped onto the label

Morning!
elephant - emergencies -we have a few of them!
It has been beautiful down at the plot. Sun shining, a bit of breeze, but 12º !
I have planted a bag of 'Jermor" shallots that came unexpectedly ( I thought I had cancelled that order )
Dug out some more grass, then harvested some of my favourite leeks, and a small, slightly moth eaten savoy .
Had lots of conversations - it was busy down there today :)

Zebra, I am so sorry for your loss. My own dad passed away last Autumn, so I may know some of how you are feeling. He was no gardener though, but his father was a champion tomato grower. I can still remember the smell of them in his greenhouse over 40 years ago! He grew lovely sweet peas too. I am a complete beginner, and have also killed my small fig plant.

Cath, my quince tree was bought from a plant nursery about 4 years ago, and didn't fruit at all until last year. There is rather a limited variety of uses for quinces! I can't remember the variety, but it was an overgrown specimen at about 10 feet tall - the only quince there. I had trouble getting it even in a Volvo estate and ended up with several volunteers in the car park all trying to move seats and shove it in. The blossom is not out yet, but is beautiful.
Oh and I am still rat- free - hurrah!!!

I'll post pictures of the fruit when they turn up to see if I should eat them! I do get loads of crabapples and I've never done anything with them so I'm determined to make jelly this year. DH is busy making a new deck under a big tree at the bottom of the garden so really I need to take the kids out and about but really I just want to potter about outside. Yesterday was beautiful and I did lots of putting horse poo down and weed matting. I've got a random problem in that the pH treatment for our well water is slightly out of whack and water is coming in at 9 which is within limits for drinking but I don't think my tomatoes are going to like it. I'm using the water butts at the moment but I'm pushing for it to be sorted for summer.

Afternoon
I have just sown my sweet peas in the greenhouse.
Been listening to GQT as well as failing in tree id ( multi tasking ! ) and heard a little bit about quinces - it seems you cut them in half , bake and drizzle with honey :)

Spotted , so sorry.

spotted - So very sorry for your loss. Your Dad sounds like he was a lovely fella. Sending you so much love through the virtual wires.

Spotted - so sorry for your loss. I still think of my granda every time I pick a tomato or pod a pea.

Went to the allotment yesterday to drop off some kitchen scraps, thought the compost bin looked a little wet so thought I'd turn it, removed the Dalek and thought 'that is moving more than I would expect' and out ran a huge rat. My lottie neighbour got a spade to bash it but it ran off across the road.

I repotted my parsley and sowed more sweet peas as a mouse has taken the last batch and overnight, they have been back! So with my final seeds I am going to sow into a kitchen roll and put them into a sandwich bag to germinate. Little blighters.

On the subject of Quinces, the spiky ones used as ornamentals are edible, they just take longer to cook and they are harder to chop. but they are often the most easy to forage for as people think they are not edible. which means they are often in municiple car parks and I always note down when I see them and if I am in the area around October time I'll go and see if any are ripe and fallen and scarf them. I love a quince jelly.

I have [OMG] 7 quince plants, 2 are 'proper' quinces [Cydonia], two I grew from 'Giant Chinese Quince' seed [which is a huge tree but still Chaenoemoles] from foraged dropped fruits, one from French Quince seed sent to me by an anonymous sender, one from when I left an organic teaching job - my leaving present, and one I bought first and have been growing into an espalier. I am donating all the others that I have still in pots to a community garden - as I am giving all my spares away this year [now that I am not doing alot of teaching any more].

I must say the allotment trip was refreshing, just to do some work in the warmish weather was lovely. I have loads of rooted onion sets [left over from one of my courses last year] that really do need to go in soon so I guess next weekend I will be there for a good session. Soon we will have some time in the evenings to pop over, which is my favourite time to go.

I'm sorry to hear about your dad Zebra

You may think that savoy is small and moth eaten Book but you should have seen my cabbages last year. More holes than honiton lace.

We get a UK grown veg box delivered during the winter months because we don't get enough veg from our garden, and the savoys they've been sending us over the past few weeks are really quite spectacular. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's dinner of garlic rubbed savoy "steaks" to go with a mushroom & cheese pie from the freezer.

I LOVE the shelf of doom in the garden centre! So many finds there (including a lovely selection of ferns last year). I've never really thought about buying supermarket plants before (although did buy some cheap peat free compost from Aldi last year which was OK). I am definitely going to take a look next time I'm at the shops. Great tip about feeling through the bags to get the condition of bulbs, cheers

Hi all I'm a long term lurker and very occasional poster. Have a veggie bed which is pretty happy generally but would like more brassicas and would like tips on how to get/ make a brassica cage?

The subtext to this is that I've tried over and over again and hey always seem to get booodg munched so I'm obviously not doing it right! Purple sprouting broccoli currently being devoured by pigeons and who knows what else

furbys - I do it a very simple way because I am lazy.

1. Buy a length of alkathene pipe from a plumbers merchant
2. Saw into lengths that will give you the right width of hoops over your bed
3. Saw a cane into short pieces
4. Push cane pieces into ground and put pipe over the top to make a hoop on sticks
5. Sling netting over and put bricks/rocks/milk containers filled with water round the edge to weigh it down.

Pigeons will eat ANYTHING that is out this time of year - guess there's not much food about. If you net the brassicas, they will come back when the weather gets warmer, though they might be a few days later than they would otherwise have been.

Afternoon!
Chuck - will you have to be careful , now you don't garden/dig every day? I am taking it in small doses of digging to get my back stretched again, and its only been 3 weeks .
Welcome Furbys :) pigeons are truly a menace. I have learnt by experience what works for me . ( First year - no cage or net = no sprouting broccoli Second year - net draped over canes = pigeons sitting on top of the sprouting broccoli and pecking through the net. So basically - have canes/wood stakes/poles /hoops around the brassicas - Big net over everything. Leave a space between them and the net so the pigeons cant peck through the sides. . Have the net high enough above the top of the plants so they can't get to them. Don't leave any gaps they can get through, so brick /pin net to ground. Keep net tight so it doesn't droop - they will just push it in. (oh, and have someway of getting in to pick!) . You just have to persuade them to go elsewhere for greens . You can buy beautiful ( and expensive) brassica cages , so maybe look to see how they are made. Mine have always been a bit Heath Robinson with what we have available !
I organised to go to the plot today ( no DGS as they are away on holiday) . I ran around this morning getting essential work done. Popped down after lunch to carry on digging up grass. Half an hour - it's going well -then rain , and more rain. So I went and hurriedly picked some perpetual spinach for tea, threw in the towel and came home :)

I spent so long typing, shove got in first, with much more straight forward instructions! Hope you are feeling better :)

Thanks for the tips! Is your net so thin that cabbage whites can't get through in summer? Had sprouts decimated by those little feckers as well when using normal gauge net.