Allotment?Veg Patch Thread 10 - Plotmenters busy into summer ! and loving James Wong

[bookbook]

Last thread has filled up so quickly! Thought I had better get one up and running before I get off to the plot.
Busy, busy people, just waiting for the harvests to start, fighting the bugs, slugs and weather :)
Last thread here
THREAD 9

Book I've just had my dinner, I was the only one to eat tonight so I ate my spinach as I didn't have to make it stretch . I had it with pasta, cheese and a tomato sauce. Absolutely delicious and simple. The spinach was the star. How easy it is to forget how food should taste.

You lot are lovely. Thank you so much for all of you encouragement everyone I've been at the plot most of the day, with a break for a couple of hours at lunchtime.

I'm getting there slowly. Today I have planted my small cauliflower seedlings and sown parsnips, peas, beetroot and radishes. I've also sown a packet of wild flowers which I hope will encourage the bees and butterflies, and will bring some colour to the plot. I still need to sort out my tomatoes that are getting a bit short on space on our kitchen worktop, so I'll try to get them in during the week.

I didn't manage to water anything earlier and I said that I would go back after dinner. We've eaten now and finally got the DC to bed, and we've just had a heavy, but very short, shower. Now the sun has come out again. I know it'll be hot this week, so I'm thinking about popping back for half an hour to water it properly.

I love seeing photos of everyone else's plot, it gives me lots of encouragement. I'm going to be brave and share a couple of photos of mine.... weeds and all!

Dolce - I do mine on my own too (4th year now). My DCs only show very occasional interest and DH none at all but will do the heavy lifting needed to get compost etc from the car. I really like being up there on my own, it's a little haven from real
life and I like chatting to the other plotters too. Sometimes it seems too much but little and often is the way.

Who asked about seed storage? I keep mine in an ice cream tub, upright, card index style. In the potting shed over the summer and in the house overwinter to stop them getting damp.

Just got back. Lots more strawberries. About 6 minths ago I succumbed to yet another MN inspired purchase, the Instant Pot multicooker. Made my first lot of yogurt in it last night, perfect with summer berries, think I'm going to be making it regularly as it was so easy.

Hi, we have had plot about 6 weeks now and gradually getting it clear - we have about 12 ft left that we have under tarpaulin.
We have runner and French beans, potatoes, onions, Brussels sprouts, all year cauliflower and cabbage and peas in as well as rhubarb, blackcurrents and gooseberries.
Most exciting, my ds tried then ate 3 strawberries from the plot. He is 16 and has complex disability and a new food is massive! He is really getting into the plot, digging and planting.

Evening!
welcome back Alternative - it sounds like your forest garden is finally getting sorted -do you still have the ducks?
elephant - that is my favourite way with spinach too - its tomorrow nights menu :) ( homemade tomato pasta sauce from last summer - I do love my freezer) . And so true about taste. I grow for flavour overall, and try to pick the same day and as late in the day as I can , it makes such a difference .
Newt -- lucky you !
I have just been given 15 cauliflower seedlings/plants - lovely ones too, but where on earth I am going to put them - the only space I truly have is earmarked for leeks, and the onions are not ready to lift yet ....will try and squeeze them in somewhere. Just bought some enviromesh today - the stuff I inherited has been so useful that I decided to get enough to do another two row of plants . Expensive, but wort every penny.
Dolce - but that is so good - yes could do with a hoe, but its really not that bad!
I mostly do mine by myself, only ask DH for heavy duty stuff. I love being there , but - I am now retired with more time . I was always chasing to keep up with weeds before that. Haven't caught up with some bits since I took over the other half of the plot, but slowly getting there . Slowly being the operative word :)
WhoKnows - does that other plot call to you? I know you are determined not to let the planners anywhere near. I love berries and yoghurt, but am lazy , and buy the vanilla flavoured one !

Evening all! I am kernackered, I'm off to bed.

This week's photos:

Looking amazing, Gnome.

Frouby You've done so much. Looks great.

The wind is causing a few issues at the moment. A bit worried some of my broad beans are going to be ripped out of the ground. I support them like Monty does but wonder whether I should put a few extra canes in while the winds are forecast. Not that I have any spare canes right now, mind you.

I need plant id :)

those plant came out of a pack of unspecified 'bee friendly self seeding annuals' the usual trio of marigold, nasturtium, borrage it aint...

Morning!
I am truly rubbish at id Yellow - I recognise both of them! Brain fade.
Yep Grouchy - very windy here too. One of the reasons I plant 'The Sutton' is due to them being somewhat short, so less wind damage.
Gnome - a picture of beauty
I have been and done my stint at the plot this morning , and have come home with a somewhat wild woman hair style .....
Planted up a few more caulis - really no room for any more.
Then did a load of weeding along path edges - the creeping buttercup is getting everywhere. Picked my baby leaf spinach ( had to hang on to it - it wanted to blow away. And as well as food I cut some peonies too - In truth, they are trying to lay on the ground, the wind is battering them around, so I decided to cut the leggy ones :)
No more plot til Wednesday.

Yellow I haven't got a clue, but my box of bee-attracting seeds has starflowers, cornflower, dill, marigold and lace phacelia. Could it be any of those?

thanks gin
none of those

Yellow Maybe aquilegia and allysum?

I've pulled out all of my bolted spinach plants and taken off the leaves. Now need to work out what to do with all of the spinach!

books How much space does PSB need? I could shift a few plants to the space I took the spinach from.

yellow wild antirrhinum (toad flax) and alyssum

Book thank you for the new thread!

Dolce your plot looks really good. I'm a solo plotter as well, mine was terrible when I took it on but one year on it's easier to keep it neat & tidy. I try to weed when they're little so they're easy to pull out.

Yellow could the second picture be candytuft?

I'm a bit disheartened after realising that most of my tomatoes have ALREADY got blight. And this is after spraying them with aspirin à la James Wong!
Also my little cucumber has completely wilted, the stem is ok so something has got its roots I think. My climbing French beans are being chewed off as soon as they break through the soil and my foxgloves completely collapsed in the high winds and rain we've had.
I picked some strawberries today as they're not coping well with the damp conditions. A lot of them are rotting on the plants and there's a lot of slug damage too.
I have one enormous one with a £2 coin next to it for scale! It'll probably be really watery, but still an impressive size.

I showed a few more French beans, I also put a few maincrop potatoes in where the first earlies failed to grow. My courgette has 2 flower buds but the slugs have chewed off the growing shoot, grrrr! So I need to plant another 1 or 2 of those too.

oh no timtam! what a disaster.

thank all, I had discounted those becausd they look so blousy, but the wild forms could be it.

Oh tim that is a bugger about blight

On the subject of tomatoes, can I cut off the branches lowest down on the plants? Some of the leaves are resting on the ground and I worry it's no good for them. Just checking this won't kill the plant though!

gin
yes you can. I cut off all foliage below the first truss when they start to flower (don't know if it was gw or jw how 'made' me do it)

this is to get air and light to the developing toms.

I know you lot think I am bonkers about slugs and snails but this is what I was greeted with tonight on my slug/snail trawl. I had dispatched eight slugs from another part of the garden previously.

I managed to get up to the plot for a hour last night and found these. Hooray!
Thank you all for your kind wishes, the baby is all scabby now and on the mend .

welcome back Alternative - it sounds like your forest garden is finally getting sorted -do you still have the ducks?

Yes we still have the ducks but these ones aren't mine, they belong to the canal. I've had two sat on the roof for 2 days now, quacking every ten seconds. My old ducks [the Indian Runners] were at work. Miss them so much.

GinGeum - I cut most of my tomato leaves off, as the plant grows. Anything looking dangly, or starting to yellow or dry off, chop it off. It gives more power to making the fruit.

But OMG the hayfever this year...I was woken at 2:45 Thursday morning and have had it chronic ever since. I just can't shift it. Am on everything...it's a bad bad year.

Luckily I am now working from home and nobody can see me on skype. So I don't have to look respectable again until next Thursday.

I am with you on the hay fever front Alternative - I've just checked the pollen count because I seem to have exploded this morning, and it's set to be high to very high all week achoo!

I've sorted the tomatoes - thanks for advice re chopping off bottom bits. They look better now too. That's all I could manage though unfortunately - my eyes were streaming doing that and the dog walk, so have had to stay indoors since!

Some lettuce desperately needs thinning and the weeds are back with a vengeance, but it will have to wait till the pollen count is lower I think.

Evening!
a long day looking after DGS , am done for here ...
Sympathy for the hay fever sufferers - it must be very hard this time of year ( how on earth did either of you cope with exams, feeling like that?)
Grouchy - PSB needs a bit of room - they are spaced at about 24" apart and grow up to about 30" high . They stay quite small for quite a while though, and seem to put most of the growth on in autumn.And they need to be netted - white cabbage butterflies love them , as well as pigeons .
timtam - thats a real shame about the blight - it feels early , and all the other problems - sometimes its a battle to stay positive
elephant - they look like well fed slugs ....I can see where you are coming from. Here it is snails - they are climbing up brick walls to get to mine, but they are a bit easier to get rid .
Need - lovely fruit, and a baby on the mend !
I have just been and watered things in the greenhouse - I have my first cucumber just about ready to pick, and the aubergines have flowers open :)

I don't think I coped with exams very well at all book I had to sit one on a different day because I couldn't function, and I got a D in another when it was bad on another day. I can't remember much else of them so assume that must have been the worst of it.