Allotment/Veg Patch -Thread 8 - Its spring - time to get busy!

[bookbook]

Thought I had better get a new thread ready to roll!
It has been a long, soggy winter , but the clocks go back soon, we may see the sun , so it will be all go, go ,go
Everyone welcome, join us the celebrate and commiserate on the joys of vegetables
previous thread HERE

book I have ordered some perennial caulis!

I'm quite glad we've had this weird week of weather, for purely selfish reasons. I would have planted lots of things out last weekend otherwise. We've got another Labrador staying with us today until Monday, and as I watched him and GinDog create a black and brown tornado of legs and tails through the back garden, I was ever so grateful there was hardly anything planted to ruin

Gin - hope you are not as underwhelmed with the tiny plants as shove and I were ! They did get going eventually though!

Awww to the labrador tornado

Well the weather has reached me today. It's been freezing, with intermittent giant hail/lovely (but chilly) sun. The last of the tulips have been well and truly wrecked, what with the hail shredding the leaves and the wind ripping the petals off. The garden is suddenly looking a lot duller.

Fingers crossed that my fruit blossoms were not too badly impacted.

I've done no gardening. I've left my growhouse seedlings alone, and the inside ones are still happily tucked up inside. Windowsill and table space is at an all time low, and things ( ok so 90% tomato, 8% courgette) are in desperate need of potting on or even pricking out. That will have to wait until the weather improves a bit.

I love the words bookbook uses. She wrote 'shemozzle' a few days back which I had to look up and fell in love with. Such a apt sound for the meaning it conveys.

And yes, nithering indeed.

we had snow, hail and thunder. I'm glad I left the plants under fleece.

on the plus side the sweet woodruff syrup/cordial turned out great. really fragrant.

Too unpredictable to head down today. I did however dig up another bed yesterday morning in preparation for more potatoes and also sew some sweetcorn and sunflowers indoors. I have some flowers in pots looking a bit sad so I might plant them out in my garden tomorrow - browning leaves etc.

Not long to wait Zebra , one more cold night and then hopefully things are looking warmer again.
Have spread four sacks of well rotted cow manure over a couple of beds. We are going to do a third bed with alpaca poo. The plan is to put similar crops in and compare the results. Basically I have spent the evening shovelling shit.

books That nematode recipe is intriguing. Now I just need to find some slugs and then I can try it. The nematodes I bought seem to have done the trick.

That's interesting about the neighbouring plots Pestilentialone. Are you interested in taking on the neighbouring plot? I think you said you would need to get a digger if so.

One of the plots we took on hadnt ever been cultivated as an allotment. To get it started we hired a mini-digger for a day. Really glad we did as it made short work of breaking the ground up ready for digging then rotavating.

Gnome DH had a chat with allotment officer and was informed there are 17 people on the waiting list. They have just sold off one of the allotment sites (which are all scattered about in groups of 4 or 8 plots) and new houses are being built. How long people are on the list has nothing to do with how long you wait. The more you nag the quicker you get . It is a bit of a sham.
Think we will stick to our one plot. Is nice to see some work being done on the fences though.
Our plot backs onto the community football field, which has been sold to a property developer. There seems to be a theme here. In the last fifteen years they (the council) have sold off nearly all the bigger sites.
The local country club offered the council some land for new allotments, after two years of being messed about, they retracted the offer.

That is sad about the land being sold off Pestilentialone. Sometimes allotment land is just too tempting and a quick, easy buck for the council. If the empty plots arent taken up quickly it might still be worth applying for one. As much as anything this would mean the land would look busy and cultivated.

We are lucky that our fields are privately owned (members are shareholders in the company which owns the land). The main risk for us would be a compulsory purchase order.

Hello checking in, wearing tights again- outrageous. Cold but sunny here with about 30 secs of hail. Released an army of ladybird larvae on a rosebush overwhelmed by greenfly. Fascinating and a bit grim. DH actually offered to help- first time ever he shows an interest in plants and it's for a massacre. Various things need sorting in the greenhouse like potting on basil but I'm back at work so nothing will happen before the weekend. Find this thread very soothing after a long day!

Well last night was the coldest we've had this week! Here's hoping that's the end of the cold snap.

Gin what a beautiful photograph!

Morning!
lovely photo Gin :)
no plot today as I'm rater busy.
Its not nearly so cold, so may try to find 5 minutes to pop down and check over all is okay

We had a bit of frost last night - DH had to scrape the car windscreen this morning. We also had hail/rain yesterday - first real rain we've had for weeks. Reminder that it is only April and was typical April showers weather (which we've mostly missed this year).

I might pop over the plot later and see how things are doing. From the seeds/potatoes I planted nothing much was happening on Saturday when I was last there so hopefully they've decided to wait and not get frosted!

On the seeds at home front my runner beans, sweet peas and leeks are all through (planted just over a week ago). First fennel is through today and no sign of the squashes just yet. I've held off planting french beans as yet because last year I made a note that I planted them too soon and they all grew leggy when it was too cold to plant out. I plan to sow some at the weekend.

We had a frost last night, not properly hard but the grass was a bit crunchy. I've had a 12 hour stomach bug the night before last which totally wiped me out yesterday, I'm feeling much better today but a bit weak and feeble so no plot but might sow some more seeds at home.

Pestilential - that's a shame about plots being sold off, I worry about it for ours as we are also getting new houses rammed in everywhere. I think the limited road access might be the clincher for ours, the access is only just wide enough for a car.

Oh no Wh0 - glad to hear you're on the mend though!

I have been following this thread for a while. I have had an allotment for about 3 years, and this year we are finally doing a bit more than throwing anything in it and hope it grows whilst desperately clearing new parts of the plot (half plot, not cultivated in a number of years from what we cna understand). Therefore, we are trying to be a bit more organised, and sorting out problems, which is why I have decided to post for your wise wisdom.

We have always done really well with radishes. However, the leaves in the allotment always have loads of tiny holes in them. Does anyone know what this is (is it the flea beetle?) and more importantly what can we do to get rid of the holes? Or is it even necessary to get rid of the holes. Thanks!

Welcome to the thread justmetwice . It does sound like flea beetle as we have similar on our radishes. If it's not making any difference to the crop I don't think it matters too much. I think I remember reading that you can grown radishes as a trap crop - so the beetles are on the radishes and so leave alone cabbages, etc. Otherwise you can try putting insect mesh over them.

Whoknows stomach bugs are awful! Take it easy today.

I'm up in the north east but we've not really had any proper frost, just cold winds and sleet. I'm on the coast so that might have saved us. Having said that, I've not been down to the allotment to see how things are. I was a bit concerned about the strawberries which had started to flower. I'm heading down tomorrow so will see.

Does anyone do No Dig? I've been reading bits about it for a while and watched Charles Downing on Gardeners World last week. I'd be interested to hear people's experience.

Charles Dowding, I mean.

good we are planning on doing No Dig out the front after watching his feature on GW last week. I'm sure someone said on here they've done some No Dig - I can't remember who now!

I'm on the NE coast too goodenoughal! My strawberries were OK yesterday and it's not been any colder today so you should be OK.

We are no dig in our raised beds goodenough. I didn't realise it had a name until I saw a feature on it online.

I've never tried any other methods in the raised beds, so I'm not sure how yields compare, but I feel that we get good crops. Other produce (tomatoes, peppers, other greenhouse plants) we grow in pots so no digging required.

We do lose a certain amount of produce to predation but we're happy to live with that except for the eating the entire strawberry crop last year