Allotment/Veg patch thread 11 'We bid farewell to rainbow leaves but will keep plotting along'

[bookbook]

Well, nights are drawing in, leaves are starting to turn, harvesting carrying on
What a summer it has been!
Join in with the ups and downs of growing our own into autumn.
Last thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/2951768-Allotment-Veg-Patch-Thread-10-Plotmenters-busy-into-summer-and-loving-James-Wong?msgid=71770088HERE

I was peering at our asparagus yesterday. No sign of life just yet. It is our second year as well and I know DH is very keen that we should be able to harvest at least a couple of spears to try. He was planting it about this time 2 years ago in the snow! (Well he started planting then it snowed so he had to keep going).

It was a beautiful afternoon and I managed to dig over some of the bed where we are planting onions. We seem to have rather a lot of sets so I'll have to extend further than I thought. Fingers crossed I can get over there later and get some planted in.

Perhaps You might want to chuck in a bit of compost into your mix as top soil is lower in nutrients.

You might want to make a wee compost heap if you don't have one already. The non-edible parts of the plants you grow this year can be the compost for next year!

We stick a bit of vermiculite through our raised bed soil mix (maybe about 10%) to keep it loose but this isn't necessary.

Am going to transplant my tomatoes, peppers and aubergines into bigger pots this weekend as they are starting to get their true leaves!

Had to re-sow all my brassicas this week as they got scorched in the propagator on a windowsill - oops! In previous years I direct sowed a lots of stuff but this year just seems so cold and miserable so I'm sowing in greenhouse/windowsill then transplanting.

I'm in Melbourne in mid-autumn, about pull out old bush tomatoes and Lebanese aubergine plants. Cucumbers will still produce.

I was very late with everything this year. A new one has been warrigal greens, AKA New Zealand Spinach, that began poorly but have taken off now, providing ground cover as well as food. I'm kicking off with warrigal greens pesto and will report back.

I've got the year-round veggies down to lettuce, spring onions, warrigal greens/chard, rocket and mooli as well as the recently identified purslane, something I'd been digging out as a weed, but is in fact a bush food. We live and learn.

17 degrees and warm weekend forecast - have potted on toms (black krim) and sown butternut squash

hello echt (I do pesto with my perpetual spinach, hazelnuts and parmesan .- works well)

fellow asparagus peerers unite! - ours was planted as 2 year crowns in 2012, so we have been picking for a couple of years now , though last year wasn't a great crop .
Today DH and I went to the plot for a management meeting re netting and posts - the decision is that the fruit cage netting needs to be replaced, and we really ought to have some more brassica netting too

I have to hold my hand up now - with no sign of my peppers germinating, I was in Aldi yesterday - they had 6 little sweet pepper seedlings, ( with 6 true leaves) for £1.69 , so I bought them. They had chilli peppers, Gardeners Delight tomatoes and courgette Ambassador too - think they were £1.99 for a pack of 6. I bet mine pop out now !

gah - ours were planted .....

I've been busy building some raised beds today and now am broken. I should have just gone for rectangles but I decided to make things complicated. There's one more to do but with the weather forecast and my aching limbs it'll have to wait a while. No rush really, as I've only just starting sowing things. Should have time to get it done before I'm ready to plant anything out.

I know what you mean tizwazliz. Between myself and dh we have moved two tonnes of top soil and mature from drive to the bottom of the garden.. My whole body aches but I am so ridiculously excited that my raised beds are finally finished!!

They look great tizwozliz

Am impatiently waiting for things to be ready to pot on in my small indoor heated propogator so can sow more things. So far have butternut squash potted on, but looking very sorry for itself, and pumpkins and tomatoes have just started to poke through the soil.
Peas have been sown and sweet peas.

managed half an hour weeding at the allotment with two lively children. Think lots of regular short visits are the only way I can get ready!

Or time it for nap time so only hav one to entertain! To be fair my eldest is good at helping whereas my youngest loved moving soil with his little trowel out of the bed onto the path!!

Perhaps - I've done the square foot thing. I would say watch out for overcrowding, I found the things that worked best were carrots and spring onions in tiny rows, the foliage is vertical so lets light and rain in. Single plants of lettuce, also I put supermarket pots of coriander and basil in a square foot each. Radishes didn't work well, the foliage got too big but the roots didn't swell.

Well, the last two days have been glorious. Lots of time in the garden, but mostly tackling overgrown shrubs and brambles, so I have lots of waste to get to the tip today. I have also sown sweetcorn and pumpkins, they are in an incubator in the house. My shallots in the greenhouse have germinated and I have bought some onion sets. Loving the lighter evenings, I was working in the unlit greenhouse at 8 last night.

Need a bit more soil/compost to fill them up. Just trying to work out the most cost effective way to do it.

Oh, and I've ordered some nematodes today. This year it's going to be a 3 pronged attack on slugs - nematodes, beer traps and slug stop.

Hello, I used to be on the allotment thread a few years ago but for one reason or another fell off it!
Anyway I also planted some asparagus 2 years ago and this morning I spotted the first tip poking through the soil. I almost chopped it off with the hoe. Thankfully I saw it just in time.
Direct sowed spinach, beetroot and cornflowers this morning. Feels so good to be back outside.

Potatoes are in (rocket, vizelle and sarpo mira), plus have sown chard, leeks, sugarsnap peas, lettuce (red salad bowl and valmaine) and cucamelons. Various flowers too. Sweetcorn is coming on nicely, as are tomatoes, peppers and melons - watermelons a bit weedy but hanging on in there.

Early potatoes are in. The potatoes in the polytunnel have been earthed up.

I have some shallot sets in and about 120 seedlings in trays plus another packet of seeds on their way.

Lots of trays of pea seedlings at different stages. We were having problems with mice nibbling the seedlings so we are trying chilli spray. So far so good.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

We spent the day at the plot today, got our shed up finally so somewhere to take refuge in the rain, (or from the man on the plot opposite who keeps trying to get us to use roundup on everything!)

Also got our early potatoes in, feels really good to be going again!

Evening all

My potatos are still in the shed. Getting the new beds painted tomorrow and hopefully start digging over next week depending on the weather.

DP made a few more beds up yesterday while I was out with dcs. Will have 3 1.2 x about 2.5m for spuds, 12 approx 1.2 x 1.2 and maybe 2 more that sort of size.

I have rhubarb is one bed, strawberries looking sad in another. Then at least 10 other beds to play with. Will do 2 lots of french beans and 1 lot of runner beans in those beds. Will grow those 1 side and have chillis, lettuce and possibly beetroot in the other side.

Will probably use 2 beds for toms (unless we get a polytunnel, 1 for leeks, 1 for sweetcorn and 1 for courgettes.

So leaves me at least 2, possibly 4 free. I want to grow some brassicas too but am planning on maybe starting those as the early spuds finish and putting them in there. Possibly.

I also contacted a couple of local tree surgeons yesterday asking if they had any spare chippings and one is happy to drop off foc so will organise that for next week hopefully!

Seedlings I set off on the windowsill quite happy and perky in the mini greenhouse too.

Just need the weather to stay reasonable now and we should start getting somewhere.

I don't deserve my asparagus patch it's completely weeded over but always produces loads. I've just started clawing all the grass out of it! Today I have strimmed, cleared some old gooseberry bushes and dug over two beds. Waiting for my veg plugs to go in, I've ordered perpetual spinach, chard, courgette and winter gem squash.

Am I too late to get some sweet peas going?

DH moved the asparagus in late winter so is hoping it survived being transferred. Unfortunately asparagus is one of the many things I am not allowed to eat (warfarin) so I am a concerned observer rather than having an active interest in the outcome.

Rhubarb is growing so fast I can practically see it. It looks like we have lost a crown so I will be buying a couple more to fill the gap.

I really wanted to get an asparagus bed in this year but assume I have left it too late. Can you plant them in autumn/winter?

Off to the plot at some point today. Just going to check the weather forecast, we want to paint some timbers!

Wasnot, I planted sweet peas yesterday (first batches failed) - probably a bit on the late side but you never know!

Frouby I think March is normally the latest but given the weather we've had you're probably OK!

Gnome, just a thought but I've taken a small chunk off one of my bigger rhubarb crowns and it seems to be establishing nicely.

Welcome Dreaming and Ipanema (and anyone else I've missed!)

Have just been planning where everything is going which has got me dreaming about future harvests! Has anyone used a dehydrator for preserving? All being well I'm going to be getting a lot of fruit in years to come and I don't think we'll have enough room in the freezer for it all, plus I love making granola so it would be great to be able to use home-grown dried fruit!

Thanks bookbook. Perpetual spinach goes well here, though I think I have my work cut out with the warrigal greens tetragonia tetragonioides which, once they've finished sulking, appear to need a flame thrower to keep them back, so possibly obviating the need for chard this year.

My ambition to pull out defunct veggies, manure the beds etc.etc have gone by the by as a series of peerlessly warm days has turned up. It's school hols. Instead I have rearranged containers to get the most sun in the front garden, pulled up the sun lounger, put on hat, sunnies and 50+ and settled in to re-read EF Benson's Lucia novels.

Well that was an intense couple of hours. 95% of the raised beds wood treated. I have more than I thought too, 16 1.2 x 1.2 and 3 1.2 by 3m.

It looks an awful lot right now but am sure by june I will be contemplating the space I have left and scouting around for timber.

The 18 rasperry canes I put in January are finally showing some signs of life. I was getting a bit worried. 1 of the 3 rhubarb crowns is through but the other 2 aren't appearing yet. And the strawberry bed is looking pretty sorry for itself and there is a great big nettle in the middle so am going to try and move them to a different bed and then dig that one over.

Will try and attach a couple of photos below. Am pleased with how it's looking after 11 months when I consider what it was when we took it on.