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

I'm struggling to keep on top of eating the lettuce and peas here! The tomatoes are starting to turn red too, and the courgettes are going mad. All of a sudden I've got too much of everything

Except strawberries and raspberries. The birds are eating them before they're ready to pick, but I didn't get round to netting this year so I'll sort that for next.

Thanks for info re Gardeners World being on tonight - I would have been very disappointed at 8pm tomorrow otherwise!

Thanks Elephant! We have it on series link as we rarely manage to watch it on time due to toddler bedtimes.

Also struggling to keep up here Gin - had lentil-and-kale-stuffed marrow for dinner (tastier than it sounds!) and two huge calabrese heads have gone to seed. My peas seem to have fizzled out - not sure why, think I'll try a different variety next year. Must get on top of my succession planting as I've had a few sowings that succumbed to the heat.

Evening!
thanks for the reminder about GW elephant :)
timtam - hope you are feeling better.
Cath - why, oh why does my DH not like mangetout - they look delicious :)
Gin - you can freeze peas - one of the easiest to do . Alternatively, cooking lettuce , peas and onions in stock is a lovely dish . I don't have too much trouble with raspberries and birds - they only manage a few here and there, but definitely net strawberries .
I end up making a lot of soup with veg that has gone over, where possible. I give a lot away too.
I have frozen my first proper harvest of white currants. The redcurrants were looking amazing, but the middle of the bush is looking very poorly, so have cut all of those branches out, and stripped as many ripe currants off them as possible, Still loads on the rest of the bush, but now keeping a very close eye on it for signs of any more problems.
No plot today, but we have had a drop or two of rain, not much in truth, so feeling a bit guilty. Some due tomorrow morning though.
Greenhouse is looking good - I saw the first set pepper today, and loads of opened aubergine flowers. A whole truss of set Sungold cherry tomatoes - they just need to ripen now :)

Most of my crops are rubbish this year. I don't feel as upset about it as I thought I would; think I'd mentally written off this year anyway.

We had a thunderstorm last night that ended with torrential rain. Thankfully only a few of my blackcurrants were knocked off the bushes, but there's some bug or something eating them. I harvested a few today but about half of those that were ready had holes in them or were dessicated like something had sucked out the good stuff. Not happy about that!

All of my plants look a bit sick with something or other. I don't know if it's because the environment isn't properly set yet after the area being a building site. Our house is two years old; I wonder how long that should take? We finally have a lot of bees visiting us, and the occasional beetle, plus lots of harlequin ladybirds (not the kind I bought, sadly). That's pretty much it for wildlife, apart from seagulls and magpies and mice that DH's cats keep bringing in.

lettuce is great as green in stir fry.
so you don't have to keep eating salad if you fancy a change :o

Grouchy - I think the weather has a lot to do with it this year, but you are doing a good job in trying to get more in - how is the little pond doing? . slowly, slowly I think.
If they are harlequin ladybirds - there is/was a survey as they are an introduced invasive species .

Ooh books I think they might be 7-spot ladybirds instead, having looked into it. That makes me feel happier.

The pond is also unhappy. I think it has algae, but I don't have a lot of time to look at it. I'm going to empty it at the end of Summer and let it fill with rain. DH's cats love to drink the water and eschew their own water bowls, which probably doesn't help the situation!

We don't net strawberries as the pigeons are too lazy to cause much of a problem.

We too are having a bit of a thin season. I think the weather has been a big factor. A late heavy frost. Dry weather then heavy rain then high winds now dry and very hot.

On the plus side the flowers are starting to bloom.

I think I might have to do some pea freezing and lettuce stir-frying. I've been putting huge handfuls in poor DP's lunch bagels, almost a higher ratio of lettuce to bread
I've been munching on the peas as a snack whenever I see them on the plant, but I'm sure they're growing another pod as soon as I've picked one!

I'm hoping we won't need to net the raspberries next year - we have small plants this year and I moved them around a few times in spring, so I don't think they're bushy enough to disguise the fruit as they normally do. MIL has a huge raspberry patch that doesn't get netted, so I'm hoping they will be fine once they're better established.

One of my tomato plants has gone crazy - I can't remember the variety although it began with M I think... I want to say Mountain something but maybe not. Anyway, I've had to put extra stakes in to support it, it's just huge. A lot bigger than the other plants I've got. I'm not sure if it's that particularly variety, or whether it just likes where it's planted!

I have a 4-stem tom (it said 'standard red' on the label dh bought it )
it's heaving with toms, I had to restrict it to 3 trusses per stem. it's huge!
the sunflowers liked the hot weather, the giant ones have grown a foot during last week.

m - money maker?

Marmande?
the strawberries are beloved of blackbirds here ...

I think the blackbirds are what gets our strawberries too, book. Living with a farmer ensures the pigeon population is kept down...

Hmm. Those two M varieties aren't ringing a bell. I'm going to have to dig out the old seed packet in the morning. Maybe I have the letter wrong! I know we had two Sungolds, one Super Sweet, one Terenzo and then another two types which I just can't remember.

The redcurrants are ripening and the blackbirds are eating them just as quick. Usually we have enough to share and put loads in the freezer. Local friends report the same problem so we are thinking that the bushes just set a lot less fruit due to the hot cold weather at flowering time. Hope the black currants do better.

Yellow Money maker can be excessive with their fruiting.

Have not been to plot for days, better get down there tomorrow.

Just updating my "things I'd do differently next year" list and thought I'd share what I've got so far:

Less space for garlic
Plant climbing peas and beans, not dwarf ones, to use space better. Consider planting on a diagonal not across the beds for better angle on sun.
Plant kale as perennials
Move inca berries to perennial bed or fruit bed?
Get a greenhouse for tomatoes, cucumbers and melons.
More space for carrots, use grit or something on top?
Try proper lettuce with cut again leaves
More grobags with potatoes in?
Start pumpkins, psb and caulis later
Direct sow beans, peas in June
Don't forget to keep the brassicas together for easier caging
Do sweetcorn on kitchen towel and use a good seed supplier.
Work out how to get carrots to germinate more consistently!
Always use a waterproof labelling pen
Set up reminders for successional sowing to avoid gaps
Sow quick growing plants early on (chop suey greens, pea shoots) and then replace with winter veg.
Really like courgette Parador but one plant is enough unless we want to eat it at every meal!

That's a good list Una. I don't think I'm going to bother with carrots next year. They germinate but somehow get eaten or disappear. Not even sure what is eating them because we've had so little slug damage this year and the first lot were right next to a pot of beer which was doing it's job nicely.

I find successional sowing tricky - it's having the time to do the sowing as well as fitting everything else in that needs doing at the plot. It's something I'd like to get better at.

We've been eating peas (not homegrown, don't have enough crop) with spinach and spring onions. Gently fry the spring onions, add the peas and a glass of white wine (or we use diluted white wine vinegar) cook for a couple of minutes then add the spinach and cook for a couple more minutes. It's a Jamie Oliver recipe.

I sometimes wonder if beer traps just attract slugs - so they smell the beer, head over for a drink and have a nice munch on carrot tops on their way. And emptying the full traps is just revolting, so I gave up on them! I'm having a bit more success with JW's garlic spray (liquidise a garlic clove or two, put into a litre of water, leave for a few hours, strain and then squirt on your plants). I've lost a few runner beans but they're generally doing OK rather than previous years when they were eaten to the ground almost at once - that's partly the better soil of course.

Morning!
Its raining - I know we desperately need it, but I also need to go and pick stuff..
Pest - we found that once the birds had found a source of berries, they get stripped of anything vaguely ripe in a blink of an eye. So we built a fruit cage for the currants. The gooseberries and raspberries have to take their chance ( one of my gooseberries was stripped last year before I realised - they are netted this year)
good list Una - though I have found by experience that every growing season is different, so I adjust one year ( so maybe more one thing , less something else) and find I have done it wrong again. My DH agrees on slug deterrents - he is convinced that anything slugs like should be well away from the plants - it just encourages them to find the tasty stuff quicker!
Cedar - thats my veg dish for tonight sorted - I have ( hopefully) spinach, peas, broad beans and potatoes to harvest today :)

Found out the name of the other tomato varieties - Mountain Magic (the huuuuge one) and Sweet Aperitif

Morning! I've n just had a really busy period at work, so plotting has rather taken a backseat recently. Lovely to catch up on this thread and read all your updates! Unfortunately said busy period coincided with the hot with the hot period so things got a bit thirsty - oops.

My currants have been a disaster. Very Very very few (ie not not even 20?) redcurrants. I presume they were scoffed. Branches broken off so I blame pigeons. Not a single jostaberry. Hardly any white currants either. But the worst is - not not many blackcurrants either . Everyone at the site seems to have had a bad currant year, but they've suddenly started to cover their crops so mine are worst off I think. I'll have to fashion a fruit cage for next year, otherwise it's all for nothing.

My courgettes are starting to come in now, and my rasps too. I have a few summer ones, but most are autumn, so I still hold out hope of lots of fruit to come...

And lots of tomatoes forming on my plants. Stay away, blight!

I like your list Una.

I think next year I'm really going to cut down on what I grow, and try to do more vertical things. And I need to keep a proper record of what I did and when.

Great list Una. We have a jotter that we use to keep notes of what worked/what didn't/things to try, but this year I'm thinking of adding a table of timings as well (with columns such as 'sow indoor date/sow outdoor date/first flower spotted/first harvest') as I'm racking my brains to remember how far on things were in previous years compared to the current year, and it causes unecessary stress worrying about things that I think aren't working even though they probably are!!!

grouchy every year I say I'm going to scale back and its always the opposite as there's so much stuff I want to try!!!

gnome what beautiful flowers you've grown - so vibrant! I keep saying I'm going to grow more flowers for cutting but never get around to it/they never seem to work. I do calendula and sweet peas but that is about it. Most of the flowers I grow stay outside.

I have a 5 year journal divided up week by week, which I try to write every weekend, with details of what's flowering/being harvested, what I've planted. It's also quite handy to put in reminders for the future, e.g. when to start and stop picking asparagus, dig up bulbs etc.

I'm impressed by all your garde organisation. I started by drawing a plan of the garden with what was planted where, so I knew not to plant the same thing in that spot next year, but then I've moved everything around about 5 times since that drawing

I've just picked over a pound of mange tout. That does not include the vast quantity I ate for my lunch. The first french bean was ready, it was yummy and made a change from mange tout
I'm not sure I am going to be able to cage them book we have a twenty foot hedge meandering hedge of red currants.