Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 12! Plotmenters hoping for better weather

[bookbook]

Well, previous thread is nearly full, and I am busy the next couple of days, so thought I had better get this up and ready.
Thanks for the plot title Una
Everyone welcome to join in and share their experiences, tips, the woes and joys of growing their own .
Summer and harvests here we come ( and we''ll do our best to beat the pests)
Previous thread HERE

I’m so far behind ! My cucumber is about 30cm high with one flower. Fretting slightly about losing things because I haven’t netted everything - like the gooseberries. I’ve run out of canes. Picked off 2 caterpillars from gooseberry bush that had completely stripped two branches so now I’m paranoid. Chickens are driving me slightly bonkers as they are desperate to get into the raised bed despite netting and have killed two bean plants and when they’ve had enough of that they high tail it over into our neighbours garden and have to be tempted back with treats. Two gates and a fence are on Dh’s to do list.
I found my soluble aspirin from last year which I didn’t use ~ is anyone doing the stress your tomatoes thing?

yep. I spray my tomatos with aspirin.
my courgettes are growing well, but no flowers yet.

Quick trip to the plot yesterday evening to see how things were going and to pick some strawberries. I realised that the birds have helped themselves to a lot of the string that was holding my bean poles up. They had actually removed it altogether from one pair of canes. So I had to stop and tie them all back up again. I've tried not to leave any loose bits of string this time. I've never had that happen before.

A bit windy here in the south east today but I know it's worse further north. Hope the stormy weather hasn't affected anyone's plot.

I was just thinking this morning that I might try to start another couple of courgettes since my DM pinched a couple of my plants and I only have five... Courgettes are the ultimate padding out vegetable in this house because they'll just take on the flavour of whatever you're cooking. Might need to create a bit of freezer space though!

I had a glut of courgettes last year, it was bliss! I love them. Current favourite is roasted with red onions, peppers and cherry tomatoes in olive oil and Italian herbs. I can literally have it with every meal. I have a pintrest board called "courgette mountain"

We are having an epic rain storm. But it blew a houlie all night. Ds' sunflower (4' high, came from school in a polystyrene cup, you know the ones) survived, thank goodness.

I have replanted extra courgettes as I lost a few, plus got some cucamelon seeds going as dd2 asked specifically for them. Not up yet.

bluerunningshoes did the asprin make a difference?? I’m thinking about doing half of mine to see. Are you spraying from tiny or waiting?

Posting quickly before reading back to catch up.

Garden is growing nicely, as are the weeds. I've been super slack at weeding lately.

Ate my first strawberry this morning and it was perfection. First courgettte is coming along nicely and should be ready soon, I think.

My fruit bushes are absolutely laden with green fruit. I'll get loads of blueberries and raspberries this year, and plenty of blackcurrants too.

But we're being battered by strong winds today and I've already lost branches from one of my raspberries and a rose, and my blackcurrants have lost a few bunches of green fruit too. And our fence has been damaged and I had to hastily screw & nail some wood onto it to stop it from breaking completely or the children would have been able to escape! I need it to stop blowing now.

Hi everyone,

We've had our first harvest of radishes and baby turnips. Also had one pea! Not even the start of anymore.
How big do you let you're cucumbers grow? Are they like courgettes where smaller is better. I've attached a pick of my biggest one.
Also how big are everyone's tomatoes? Mine seem to be quite small with not much foliage. Attached a photo to.
My courgettes aren't doing anything other than being eaten. I had so many last year, I only finished eating the ones I froze last week.

Evening!
gosh it was windy today. We got a measly 0.9 mm of rain overnight

hi Grouchy - lovely to hear that the blackcurrants are going to produce this year !
Cath - can you get hold of old nets from charity shop - works well putting over gooseberries if not particularly nice to behold, no canes needed .
No aspirin here on tomatoes. Anything I have in pots/bags etc are done the way my DDad showed me . I put a very, very small amount of feed in every watering can fill up .
Meep - I think for harvesting it depends on the variety - is it a traditional size cucumber? If so, it looks a bit short yet . If picnic size, its fine for picking .
These are my tomatoes - first fruit starting to set .
No plot today, but did sow salad leaves and beetroot .

I have lots of fruit starting on my tom plants. I treat them exactly as my Ddad advises me and never use aspirin. I also put a weak measure of feed into watering can, but do this twice a week once the fruit starts to appear, so I did this today for the first time.
Runner beans are flowering!

I use aspirin in a spray bottle from a week after I planted them out.
no fertiliser until they flower and then they get confrey juice very diluted once a week.

Dd arrived home at 8.00 and asked to go to gather strawberries on the plot. I pointed out that there were more ripe ones in the garden but heigh- ho she insisted and came back to pick more in the garden. She is a little minx though I caught her trying to pick someone else's summer raspberries! Thank goodness the japanese wine berries will be fruiting soon.
I've got loads of black fly this year, I will go and spray the beans with dilute washing up liquid on the plot but I have loads over the foxgloves also. Is it due to the weird weather?

Just been googling aspirin and tomatoes, really interesting and never heard that before. I’m still building my dome greenhouse though goodness knows how i’ll Have an opening door - I just have a hole to step through! Deciding whether to put tomatoes to ground or autopot system, I think autopot and then can put sweet potato in the ground. Soil is rubbish though.

My tomatoes and cucumbers are both small plants still, I’m really far behind. And only have one comfrey plant from the 5 crowns I caught after slugs munched the rest but hopefully that one will be enough so can make more in future years.

Well the storm yesterday brought the poly down. We had half expected it as the West end of our plot is completely exposed and a similar holder lost theirs the other year. Plus a couple of full sized trees were brought down by the winds. Fortunately it was the front end that went so we've salvaged all the plants. Planning on distribution between our garden and my mums conservatory for the strongest plants. Ironically the bean canes didn't even flicker.

Oh what a shame, Monkeys - is the poly salvageable?

Thanks re sweet peas, booky - I think I sowed mine a month and a bit or so after you in that case. But that was slap bang in the awful weather I think. I am so impatient for flowers! But excitingly I can see the first hint of colour on a bud. Just the one, mind...

Well we've taken the cover off and the back end is fine. I'm thinking we could maybe cast some netting over to convert to a fruit cage perhaps? So at least not a total waste of time/money? To be fair it was a £250 tunnel so obviously not the best but there are several other similar structures there that have been very well enforced. We'd hoped to get 2 possibly 3 seasons and save up for an upgrade. It's a lot of money down the drain for us especially after 6wks use 😯 DP was all for jacking it in yesterday but we've now decided to get together the materials each month in the run up to winter each month and try again - we've costed up about 350-400 ish we think? YouTube shows a lot of scaffolding poles, wood frames, water piping jobbies. It's starting to look like a very costly hobby! Obviously we don't need a tunnel and I'm quite happy with beds, but DP had his heart set on one so much that I don't really want to say no 😕

Oh Monkeys that is sad Could you reduce down the length for now using just the back end?Alternatively what about doing something a bit different like a geodesic dome? I’ve read their shape makes them less likely to wind damage but no idea if true. I’m building one from a kit which supplies fixings for the joints.

Cost so far for 3.5m diameter is £118 for kit (I think), £33 for wood and £32.50 for cordless staple gun. Had some outdoor wood paint so painted it and using plastic from sofa packaging for cover for now. You can decid3 what diameter yo7 want to do and there is a calculator which works out the wood lengths for you.

Afternoon !
oh Flying - that's heartbreaking . We went down the HDPE piping/roof laths route for ours - though netting not plastic as I use it as a brassica cage . All in all cost us about £100 (and a lot of labour obviously , and some using up bits that DH keeps 'just in case' like the old Wendy house plastic piping ) ) It was cheaper by miles than buying one, and made to measure too. I would definitely see about netting it for this season. If its a bought one, can you see if there is a possibility of a replacement cover? For future proofing, have you enough space/room to put fruit trees on the exposed border/edge? ( if you allowed to plant them anyway. - I don't think they would need to be standards either for wind protection) .
I went down today to water - its starting to get very dry now - the grass is starting to go white. I am also hand weeding around the asparagus, so once it has rained, I can put a top dressing of manure on to feed them up for next year. I went and checked on the broad beans - just 2 of the plants a bit infested with blackfly, so sprayed them with dilute washing up liquid, and rubbed a lot off too. Then decided I would pick just a few to put in a small melange for tonight , along with a baby courgette, and a couple of onions that have gone to seed.( The rest of the onions have started to bend at the neck, so they are nearly ready to lift , but they are not big this year - again too dry I think ). Picked strawberries..... :)

Ate the last of the spring cabbage yesterday. I read something about scoring the stems and potentially getting a further crop of mini cabbages. Worth doing or should I pull and use the space for something else?

Also does anyone use a bokashi bin for their food waste? Parents have donated their spare and I need to buy some bran and wondered if there were any shops the might stock it.

Evening all, sorry to hear about the polytunnel Flying. I have no experience of that sort of thing at all, but I see some amazing improvisations at my site, hope you can rescue it in some way.

I've been up most night this week, plus an hour this afternoon. Picking strawberries, a few bits of planting out, watering and weeding and lots of chatting. We haven't had any rain to speak of for at least a fortnight and the ground is very dry now, I had to water a couple of areas tonight just to loosen the soil and get some deep-rooted thistles out. Every year I get a bit overwhelmed with the amount of work needed in May/early June to get everything cleared and planted up, but I always reach a point where I feel I've broken the back of it, got there about a week ago. A lot of my stiuff is still very small as I was late planing out pretty well everything, but on the other hand, I have not lost a single plant to slugs and snails so far this year, that's one benefit of all this dry weather.

monkeys I'm so sorry for your tunnel. Is the structure buckled or just the cover? I keep the tab for firsttunnels open on my browser to drool over, they do a cut to measure service for covers.

Our wind was not too bad, a lot of mess from the trees, but no damage. And we have had rain. Lots of it, so thats something, but it sets back my earth moving. We have good soil on heavy clay, but dp churned the bit I'm moving two years ago, so the clay is at the top. No good when wet.

Positives are we have had 3 mini cucumbers, and one big, the plants have finally got with the programme. The rain has sent my potatoes crazy, but nothing outside is even close to ready.

What a shame Flying! Hope you can recover something.

I've taken the plunge and planted out my replacement beans, courgettes, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, chard, kale, calabrese and peas. I'm hoping that the slugs have been reduced by the nematodes, and that having all the nice tender plants out together will mean they can't get everything. Slug patrol for the next few nights too. The last lot of runner beans and peas I sowed directly appear to be putting out shoots at least some of which haven't been eaten so hopefully I'll get some plants going now. One plus of having my first few batches of beans eaten is that the sweetcorn has had a chance to get nice and tall so the three sisters thing (slightly modified as I find the squash swamp everything so I'm using sweet potatoes as the base layer) might actually work this year.

My mulberry, angelica, sweet cicely, ginger mint, skirret and goji appear to be recovering in my refuge for badly eaten plants. And an artichoke that I had planted last year and thought had been devoured has reappeared and seems to be doing nicely.

Meantime in the greenhouse the tomatoes are setting nicely. I have some teeny melons and watermelons that look like they might have set, plus some peppers, all of which are firsts for me. All are real seeds company varieties (sweet granite, blacktail mountain and kaibi round no2) which are supposed to be nice and early. I think the combination of the greenhouse and the bees (which can get in through the open door at this time of year) is definitely helping.

Strawberries are doing wonderfully and we've just got our first raspberries. Strangely the autumn raspberries (allgold) have ripened before the summer ones (glen coe). Blackcurrants are changing colour so will be with us soon. All go!

job for today: straining comfrey juice. I only can do that if it's not bbq weather or if I don't want neighnours to have a garden party

Hello everyone!

Much excitement today as we finally picked our chickens up! 6 point of lay hens and the 2 litle lilac peking bantums from the stables. Ds (4) is fascinated and have had to drag him home tonight.

Love hens. They are brilliant timewasters. The little bantie cock is a bit of a thug and already bossing the hens around. Bearing in mind they will be twice his size and weight at maturity he ought to be careful!

And finally got something to harvest! A small half pot of strawberries that ds didnt manage to snaffle before I got them home and a lettuce.

Everything is coming now though! Have a poorly looking cucumber that I think has been a bit battered by the eind. Have staked it and watered it and told it to sort itself out.

Tomorrow will be weeding and direct sowing the last few bits. Got some kale, beetroot and salad onions to plant. And possibly turnip. Dh made a couple more raised beds yesterday and seems a shame to leave them empty. They are only small beds so might as well use them.

Absolutely lashing it down here!

Ooh chickens! That sounds brilliant. Poly is not rescue worth we've decided to start from scratch. However today we got our first ever crop so that's eased the blow.