Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 9 - Spring is sprung, its getting really busy!

[bookbook]

Well, the last thread filled up quickly - maybe due to the horrid weather . Its time to battle slugs, snails and weeds !
Last Thread HERE

Yes same here Grouchy - glad I got a huge amount of weeding done yesterday before the rain. I feel as though the garden can just be monitored for a bit now - the last of the little plants have gone out, I've thinned out the lettuce and everything else is just steadily growing nicely without much input. Just in time for the rain today!

I can't believe how quick everything is growing. I sent a picture to my mum on the 9th May, and sent another this morning. I've attached the two photos here. How has everything got so huge in less than a month?! I'm becoming a huge fan of this gardening lark.

Ps, Gnome if a farmer says it's a farm, it's a farm.

The farm motion has duly been passed .

So, my rain finally came yesterday - just as I was on the plot putting in my beans. The ground was so dry that I had had to water the mud just to be able to shove in the canes! But in the canes went, along with the yellowing beans. I hope they pick up!

Given I had time, I also decided to fill fill a couple of trugs with the free manure. It is literally the 1st time that any anything like that has appeared on our site, so no one quite believed it was there for the taking. But apparently it was. Then someone lent me their barrow and thus I ended up shovelling free shit into into a borrowed barrow with a broken spade, in the pouring rain. Sounds bleak but it was actually a nice afternoon!

And today the lovely rain is still here, and it is much needed.

TheSpottedZebra your shit shoveling sounds positively Catherine Cookson! All you needed was a dastardly squire and you would have the whole plot!

GinGeum that is some impressive growth in just a month.

No rain here yet but we are forecast some this evening. It did rain the other night but it can't have been much as there was nothing collected in the random pots outside the house.

Managed a good day yesterday planted out borlotti beans and pumpkins, squash and fennel. Fast running out of room and have no idea where I'm going to put the leeks. Choice is come down to dry horrid bed where I had some last year or dig more of overgrown bed that we've inherited so that I can plant them there. I am leaning more towards overgrown bed.

Peas are growing this year but no sign of flowers yet. My sweet peas are still sulking at the bottom of the canes whereas next door has actually picked flowers! First flowers on one runner bean plant.

Really windy here today, hope plants don't get too bashed around.

it's howling here as well.
I needed an emergency dash outside to tie up the toms some more.

Calm before the storm here, very muggy, black clouds, lots of rain forecast.

Got my courgettes, pumpkins and French marigold in at the plot yesterday, plus did tidying and strimming as plot inspections are imminent and I'm still paranoid after getting the letter last year. My wildlflower patch is full of seedlings but I can't tell if they are weeds or seeds - me entire patch gets covered in seedlings of speedwell at this time of year. My nasturtiums have germinated and my sweet peas are the same as yours *Cedar), just lying at the bottom of their canes, despite having been out for at least a month now.

I have done the "pumpkins on the compost heap" thing - a huge pile of horrible perennial weeds covered in black membrane then my big garden sieve nestling in the top full of compost and the plants in it, hoping they will root down into the heap while the sieve contains the compost. And that in a year or two I will have compost under there. I have started my next heap next to it, I have room for three in succession in a row.

Glad it's not just my sweet peas sitting around not doing a lot!

My sweet peas are basically sleeping too.

What the feck should I do with this! I was only working up here last night.
Pretty freaked out. Foxes?

Need my cat did that to ours when I tried the cardboard method on our garden. Thanks to him, we had to dig up the whole sodding lot of grass because we couldn't keep the cardboard covering it.

(At least I'm assuming you're referring to the ripped cardboard?!)

I'd report that Need and in the meantime don't touch it.

One of the allotment management team was here so I asked her if I'd been watching too many crime dramas. My plot is rightnext to a car park so she thought someone could have chucked it over the fence. She agreed we should report it just in case. We've taken it to the allotment hut/shop, and they've called the community police officers who they have contact with. Didn't like the look or smell of the brown stuff on the blade.

good for you for reporting.
at an allotment near me a weapons cache was discovered.
the thugs removed lower planks of some raised beds and put an assortment of knives and machetes in there. :o

:o was supposed to be

Sorry for being dim Need - I thought that was a gardening tool!

A weapons cache?

I do actually use a kitchen knife on the allotment - a serrated one is my favourite. I also have some old forks, which are excellent for teasing out roots from pot bound plants, and twanging up weeds with rosette type roots. And I use a bread knife for cutting turf at home.

Cheap, me.

Gnome Arf at Catherine Cookson!

The rain has set in here. Now I am not sure if I closed the tap on the newly installed water butt.

Pics of the meadow (there's some strawberries under there somewhere). Plus beds 1&2 which have onions, and have been invaded by sneaky chard which self seeds everywhere, and poppies that I can't bring myself to big up as they're so pretty. Bed 2 will also have courgettes which are still toughening up at home. Last pic is bed 4 which is sort of double width. I've managed to dig over about half now ready to put in - don't laugh - potatoes. I know it's so late but they're all chitted on my bedroom windowcill, I'm stubbornly determined to give them a go.

NeedMoreTea sorry, I know it's not really a laughing matter but I did have a at the idea of foxes carrying knives!

They would have to be urban foxes wouldn't they. You know a bit street-wise.

Weapons cache??? I may need a sit down.

book I do have non pvc strawberries but they are in much wetter soil and not the same type so it is a dismal control really.

Weather is grim here, sideways rain, but have been at work so at least I'm not missing anything and the new seeds need it.