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

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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 :)
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THREAD 9

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no sign of rabbits getting in again- the barricades worked :)
So I managed to hoe around the leeks -( they seem to have shot up this week) all around the summer cabbages and cauliflowers, and the flowers. So I cut some flowers for home - the first little lot of sweet peas, and some dahlias from the plant I was gifted last year by another plot holder - its a lovely deep red.
I cracked and had a poke around a potato too - 'Kestrel' second early - it has flowered, and the flowers have withered, so I thought 'why not' . Not too bad a haul , but will leave the rest a bit longer .
Then I came home, and having seen the raspberries had started to colour, went to pick the few , and actually got a nice little bowlful :)

News on the nematodes...

Went down today to clear the patch. i'd show you a photo of the overgrowness but I had to leave my phone in the shed...

Found two live slugs and one live snail [this one was halfway up the stem of the tree we took out so may have missed the application anyway] and had just found a few under the logs at the edge when I heard what I suspectd was a strimmer...only of course after about 10 seconds realised it was a swarm...above our heads. A neighbour has bees. I said 'swarm' and before I got to his name, my OH had fled.

I went to knock on the neightbour's door and they are out. Typical.

Went to retrieve the tools and pop them in the shed and nope - the swarm is right over our garden.

Sigh.

Will pop out later when it is calmer, just hope it doesn't rain in between as the mower is still out...

Seems like the nematodes are already a success though! None of the fresh strawberries has been nibbled either. Hurrah!!!

I forgot to say Spotted - the currants are definitely not as good as last year , nowhere near as many -( particularly my jostaberry) and the redcurrant I was worried about is absolutely covered in aphids - spent a long time spraying yesterday with washing up liquid .....

argh Alternative - on our local fb gardening site we have someone who keeps bees, and offers to come and sort them out - it is swarming season . Good news on the nematodes. :)

He came and collected a swarm a few weeks back when we were on holiday. Happens all the time.

Just been back down, and they are in the Quince. All barrelled around the trunk. 2 ft from the mower, 3 ft from the shed and 4 ft from the open gate which I thought I had shut. He is still out.

We booked today to clear that patch!!! If someone wants to go and steal the mower good luck to them.

Still, we get offered a jar of honey for every swarm he collects and the last jar is lovely. So will just have to hope that we can rescue our stuff before it gets nabbed. We back onto the canal, and have allotment style gardens so anyone can just walk on.

How does he collect a swarm? Have visions of him being like a pied piper and leading a load of bees away! Scary though.

Have been to the Shite Auction. Its a few miles from us held on the local unregulated greyhound track. It has a fur and feather section, plants and garden ornaments section, a timber section and a general bric a brac section.

It's absolutely bonkers and I love people watching there. DP had the bidding card and bought 3 Heather type plants and 3 bloody grape vines. Am not sure what to do with them. They are only about 10 inch high so think I am going to repot them into bigger pots and keep them at home for now. The plant out at the allotment next year. I assume they will need somewhere frost free.

We also bought 36 lengths of timber for building the chicken run. Dp said it was a very good buy and would have cost 5 times what we paid from a timber merchant.

usually it is him in a bee suit, smoke, knock the queen into a bag and they all follow, take the bag back and into a new hive.

Frost free for grape vines - nah! they grow fine in the uk.

collecting swarms is not as scary at it looks. they generally don't sting as they have no young or food to protect. you basically put them into a container - making sure you get the queen and then leave a while so that any searcher bees come back

bee associations will generally come and collect honey bees

collecting a swarm is a lot less scary than collecting honey!
done both plenty of times.

they are gone already. Neighbour came home, collected the swarm, and was sat in his garden. I asked if he'd had them and I he went and got me a jar of honey. There are some searchers faffing about the tree so we will resume the gardening tomorrow.

OH is now freaking out thinking that what would have happened if the queen had landed on him. I may never get him in the garden again!

Bees gorge on honey before they swarm so they're generally very chilled and happy. But I'm still not looking forward to collecting our first swarm!

Really interesting about the bees. There is a little paddock a few miles from us that has hives on and the farm across the road sells the honey. Keep meaning to buy some. I love honey.

I always thought grapes had to be in a Mediterranean climate! I know there are some uk growers and wine producers but assumed they kept them warm in the winter.

Grapes next summer would be fabulous!

That seed offer (10 packs for a fiver) is on again at Thompson and Morgan. Might have ordered some more. You need the code though, will try and find a linky.

We've been at an Open Gardens day at a nearby village today, and MIL was cooing over somebody's leeks. Next thing we knew, the owner of the garden had gone behind the greenhouse and rustled up a pot of spare leeks for her. Very kind.

I got the Thompson and Morgan email about the seed sale again too, and have ordered another ten packets.

We have been wondering for a few years now whether to turn one of the fields into a vineyard. We've been told it's in the perfect location with the right soil, but it would take at least 5 years to make a profit from it, which is hard to take the plunge to do. It would be nice to see grapes rather than cereals for a change though!

Takes a while for vines to get established but we had some amazing grapes in the summer before we moved. We have two new vines this year but they're being very slow to get started so I don't know how long it will be before they fruit?

Are they the same selection of T&M seeds or a different choice? One of the seeds I got last time was Oregon sugar pod so glad plotmenters are having good results with that one!

I think I got that one too! Am going to be like a dog with 2 tails when they arrive and am raiding the charity shop for a suitable tub to keep them all in!

I am excited about the grape vines now. Did tell dp when he bought them we lived in south yorkshire not the south of france so might end up eating my words! I wonder why more people don't grow them if they do OK?

DP is going to start the chicken run tomorrow. Exciting times!

Frouby - at our site, there are a few growing them ( East Yorkshire) - the two near me - one grows purple ones in a polytunnel, the other has white which are planted outside, but trained along the inside of a greenhouse :)

we have lovely warm drizzly rain this evening.
I did a lot of pruning and weeding today.
and started the next batch of comfrey juice - ready for when the courgettes really get going. only have male flowers so far.
the 'standard red' tom has lots of fruit, the first ones have turned 'shiny' now so hopefully not long for tasty garden toms.

I had a similar sort of day Yellow. We had our rain in the morning. I spent couple of hours weeding and hoeing. I let the comfrey continue growing ( left by the last plotmenter) and am just about ready to start the comfrey juice. My tomatoes are similar. Tomorrow I will plant out some of the T&M £5 seeds and continue to get rid of 'armpits' from the tomatoes and support the plants further up.

i grow my grapes outside, in derbyshire. the trick is to leave them on the vines for a good month after they are ripe.

Thank you for that tip AlternativeTentacle

We are east midlands and have grape vines. DH has turned one bed into a mini vineyard with 16 vines growing on wires. It has only been there for a couple of years so not much in the way of results yet.

I had an investigatory dig amongst the potatoes today. Not knowing what I'd actually planted means i've no idea whether they're earlies or main crop. I unearthed a few small Desiree potatos which I fried up with my breakfast, but now i know what they are I'll be leaving the rest in the ground for a good while yet.

Courgettes still flowering and shrinking (circled), and one has even turned yellow so not really sure what is going on

that sometimes happens. don't know either. but it certainly looks like you are not short of courgettes :o

courgette flowers are just stunning, aren't they?

I'm thinking about abandoning my garlic crop - I put it in a bit late even for spring planted and it's got rust quite badly. I pulled one today and the bulb is about an inch across and not showing signs of making cloves. So I'm wondering whether to give it another month or cut my losses and pop some winter cauli seedlings into their place - any thoughts?

Evening all! I am feeling quite proud. Dinner tonight was smoked mackerel risotto. Broad beans, garlic and spinach all home grown. I couldn't do the spring onions as the slugs ate all of them first. I suppose I could have caught the mackerel............. and if I had a paddy field............ I am looking forward to reading about Gnome's cake.

We've been out and about the past few days, which is unusual for us. Came home this evening to a nice handful of lovely strawberries, and a whole load of sadly wilting plants. It has been very windy here for a week or so, so despite the bits of rain we've had the ground has dried out. Just hoping I've not managed to let my tomatoes and a strawberry plant die, as well as other less important things.