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

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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

Ooh, which beans, Shove ? I think I'm doing Blue Lake french beans this year - I normally do Cosse Violette but fancy a change... With good old Achievement runners at home.

No borlotti I think this year though.

I'm still deciding! I got a load of really interesting ones from chuck when I bought a load of seeds off her - including some heritage ones that I'll try to do at home to avoid too much cross-pollination. I'll definitely be doing my trusty line of borlottis on top of whatever pole beans I decide on! Still eating my way through last summer's crop... they keep for ages.

Afternoon!
welcome moonlight - they look terraced those beds- lovely that its all ready to go! And looks nice and sunny too - approx where are you ( nosey me...)
Only advice that I truly give out is - grow what you like to eat :)
Grouchy - asparagus doesn't need loads of room, but does need a great big dollop of patience and persistance , but in truth, to get anything like a decent amount to cut for a meal, I would say the minimum is 9-12 crowns , I have 9 planted in a bed of 2m x 1m , and another bed I inherited of about 15 crowns in a 2m x 2m bed.
I have sown Good King Henry that I got from Chuck - fingers crossed there too!
I'm not growing borlotti this year - I had such a whopping harvest last year, my freezer still has loads - I am making hummus from them at the moment, in the vain attempt to use some up! Not growing as many runner beans either , but I do love my Cosse Violet french beans , so will still grow plenty ( though I still have bags of those in the freezer- they have to last until the new season harvest begins)
I ended up having not such a long time at the plot , (I have been doing a big spring weed in the garden) , but went and had a lovely half an hour in the sun, picking sprouting brocolli. and breaking news - after seeing IlPorcupinos asparagus, I went and had a look at mine - 5 stalks, just peeking out of the ground :)
DH thinks we may start to get broccoli poisoning, so most of todays picking is going to be made into soup, along with shallots, potatoes and blue cheese

I'm loving all this talk of allotments - I've never known anyone with an allotment before that wasn't somebody on TV! I can't actually think of any near where I live, either.

Question: do you use allotments because your garden isn't suitable for veg, or do you just prefer to have only flowers etc in your garden and veg elsewhere?

It's because we don't live on farms and have as much land as you!

My garden is not tiny, but not big. But I 'need' lawn for the kiddos and to sit out in, so I don't have as much room as I'd like. I have a corner at home for fruit and veg, the corner has my shed plus 3 raised beds and room for pots (of blueberries now, and of lots and lots of tomatoes in the summer). NO BALLGAMES are allowed in the vicinity! And a pear tree, 4 quince and a hazel. And lots of blackcurrants of varying ages. And herbs. And my arches. Oh and a tayberry out front. Yeah, I'm sneaking in more fruit and veg everywhere...

So, basically it's about room.

I don't think our garden is very spacious, but I guess we have the added advantage (well, depends how you look at it!) of not having children, so can dedicate most of the space to veggies. I hadn't thought about ball games etc!

Another question - I keep seeing this coming up on Pinterest when searching for ideas - is it a good guide to follow?

I do have a rather biggish garden , and at home I have an apple tree/pear tree/raspberries, jostaberry a red gooseberry , a greenhouse for tomatoes ,cucumbers, salads etc . I always had grown a wigwam or two in the beds for french and runner beans, but for me , its growing enough veg to be as near self sufficient as possible , while doing it organically too. It did wait until DH and I were near retirement though, so - we could devote enough time to it. - well me, anyway :) I now love it. It has changed how we eat too - its all seasonal, no buying stuff that has been flown in or travelled miles. I pick the same day if possible to eat too - that makes an amazing difference to just about everything. And I also grow varieties that taste good, but are probably not big cropping enough to be commercially viable.

That is where I would like to be as well book I think - I couldn't believe how much money we saved last summer when I gave up work and had the time to forage veg from MIL's garden, and it was all so much tastier and lasted longer. I'm hoping we will be able to grow the basics that we use daily (lettuce/carrots/potatoes etc) in our garden, and then beg, steal and borrow off MIL's crops if we run out of space

My allotment is my only real outside space - at home I have a teensy balcony and very small concrete yard but no soil anywhere. Luckily my plot is less than 5 minutes walk away, and next to a large park as well, so it's really not a big deal for me (or ddog who loves trotting off to the park ). I guess that's why I'm making the plot more pretty/gardeny than the average allotment.

What I hadn't anticipated is the social aspect of the allotment site though. Everyone is welcoming and supportive, freely giving advice, help and the odd plant, I now know lots of people to say hello to in the street as well which makes me feel right at home here.

I am in Worcester book, lots of nice soil with plenty of sunshine.

I didn't have a garden at all before this so it has taken us by surprise as to how much time it all takes to sort out. We're lucky in that we have the nice lawn section with shrubs then steps up to the veg beds and then a wilderness above with fruit trees.

No need for an allotment just yet so will keep growing yummy veg ready for the freezer/dinners.

Phoenix I love the sound of that! So many gardens can be so screened off that lots of people don't Chat over the fences anymore - I imagine you get a lot of chat/company at an allotment.

Sometimes too much! It can get distracting when you are trying to get things done and you end up spending half an hour on someone else's plot chatting about tomato varieties!

I feel I should add that I take ddog to the park, not just cheerfully wave her off by herself as my previous post might have sounded - although I think she'd be quite happy with that approach, she knows the way!

Hello all. Just sitting down with wine in an end of week flop. Managed to drop the iron on DD1s school iPad last night and forget to dresss DD2 in red for Red Nose Day at school this morning leaving my friend who was dropping her off to hare around at 7.30am trying to sort it out. DH just walked in from 2 weeks away and is wrangling the kids. Catching up with allotment chat is so relaxing! We are so far off self sufficient. Essentially I don't have to buy cut flowers ever or salad in summer and for a few weeks we have handfuls of raspberries - but realistically that's about as far as it goes. I barely stay on top of the garden so I sort of covet an allotment and realistically know I wouldn't handle one. I like the sound of the beans over arches people have mentioned - trying to think where I could snurgle one in. Raddish are coming up and rocket. Need to pot up tomatoes this weekend- really hoping for warmer weather.
My peas are surviving in the raised bed but are very pale green which worries me a bit. I've got 4 with copper rings round and they are definitely less nibbled but the rings are so expensive!

My allotment is like a hobby. We have a small garden. Lots of fruit trees and a green house.

We did grow vegetables at home, but it wasn't a lot. We also had to stop potatoes as there wasn't space.

Evening!
I forgot to say Ickle - baby Ickle is lovely, all muddy! - a little bit of dirt is always a good thing for a strong immune system .
Cath - exhausted I bet - though nice you have DH back for a whole 2 weeks, not just the weekend. I always used to put my bean wigwams in the flower border - almost like fancy obelisk's - scarlet runners are very ornamental, and the cosse violette and french beans have lovely flowers. Could your peas have got cold shock /stress? Its been lovely during the day, but the nights have been pretty cold. My sweet peas often look vey anaemic when i first put them out, even though I harden them off .I usually give them a bit of foliar feed to help them along.
I will be honest - I do grow potatoes, but I will never be self sufficient in them - I think I am just feeding the slug population :) So I do a few , but its the one thing, along with carrots, that are the things I don't stress about as they are not an expensive thing to buy :)

I Have a fairly large garden with a veg patch at the end (strawberries, raspberries, sweetcorn, potatoes in pots ) but it's the social side of the allotment that appealed to me, as we are in a village and it's nice to get to know people.

We've just had to move our raised beds, and will start planting soon (although we've had a really heavy frost overnight so might need to wait a while longer).

Does anyone use bark or similar in their raised beds? After digging and preparing cats see our raised beds as a giant litter tray and looking at ways to discourage this, especially at this time of year when the soil is largely bare.

This was our setup last year, which I'm currently re-arranging.

We've got soft fruits on the other side of the garden.

That's lovely Tizwoz! I think I would probably net the beds to keep cats off, though there was a discussion, I think on here, about using bark as a mulch and when it breaks down it encourages mycelium in the soil which is great for the soil structure. It might have been Shove or Chuck talking about it.

Morning!
wow that is lovely looking !
I'm not sure much deters cats tbh, once they have adopted an area.
I think shove suggests things like prickly branch cuttings left on the surface . Could you use netting over hoops until plants get going?

We have used netting in the past, was just wondering if there were other options worth trying as netting makes it more work to just go out and do a small amount of weeding - we have sycamores nearby so pulling up sycamore seedlings is a daily activity.

Well, it's a glorious day out! I think I'm feeling strong enough to go and do some digging - injuries have been flaring up lately - having a lazy morning then I think I'll strap up various joints and head down to the plot.

Caught up with gardener's world, and Monty was planting his parsnips, with radishes in the same row to crop first whilst the parsnips are still growing. Lovely idea. Is anyone else putting parsnips in yet?

Ooh Phoenix you've just reminded me! I've been chatting parsnip seeds in damp kitchen roll and thought they weren't doing anything, but just had a look and they've sprouted! So that's my job for today, off to the plot with my tweezers to put them out!

Chitting obviously, not chatting!