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

Lovely looking soft fruit Tizwozliz My plot in a corner by trees and first port of call for the birds unfortunately.

Bookbook I have strawberry and sweet pea envy !

I love seeing your progress.
we are still harvesting strawberries, a good bowl each day. soon the pumpkins will grow over the strawberry bed.
courgettes started flowering, only male flowers so far. butternut squash is on the brink of flowering and has started to climb up the shed.
tomatoes: black krim and standard red are doing well. in flower and setting fruit. green zebra, sickly plants (apart from one). shame as I like the taste. (is it me? did I get 'funny' seeds or are they generally difficult? they are not on the real seeds catalogue anymore either)

tiz my strawbs look like yours. But I only have 2 red redcurrants. Nothing done veg wise today. Except eaten another 2 cucumbers, a handful of mange tout (do the pods grow overnight?? I swear they weren't there yesterday) and 5 of the tiniest spring onions ever produced.

frouby your plot looks like heaven.

It has rained on and off all day. I did sort out the climbing rose that is 8 years old and I never set it to train up the trellis right next to it, it looks kinds good now. Aloha, smells amazing. And I tinkered with the virginia creeper, which is intent on covering the windows rather than the walls. My house will be green. Eventually.

Am growing one cue in my greenhouse and it is growing rapidly and flowering in four places. So, that's good and lovely. Monty says in this month's GW issue that I must 'remove the males' from my cues What does he mean? Please help lovely wise ones.
And your fruit and veg looks lovely as always.

I think it’s something to do with them becoming bitter if the female flowers are fertilised. However u think some of the modern af1’s have been bred so this doesn’t apply. Could be wrong about it all though.

cary the male flowers are the ones on stalks. the female flowers have little cucumber shaped thickening between stem and flower.
I don't grow cucumbers, so other than identifying male/female flowers I'm clueless :o

WOW! Those plots look amazing and Frouby love your bean frames - certainly put mine to shame (touchwood mine are holding their own at the moment!!)

Regarding the strawberry plants - I saw some in the garden centre today reduced, if I was to buy these small plants would they need to stay in the greenhouse or would they be okay outside? I would dearly love to grow strawberries but alas have no idea!

This is all such a learning curve for me!

All your plots are looking great!
With cucumbers, I also thought that most modern varieties are all female - I know that Mini Muncher, the variety I am growing, is.
We are now getting lots of courgettes and cucumbers - my new favourite meal is Courgette Fritters with Tzatziki!
ow I would get the strawberries and plant them - even if you don't get any fruits this year, they'll grow really quickly and be ready for next year.
We've had quite a lot of strawberries now but I need to build a cage for next year as my dogs have been helping themselves to a mouthful every time they've walked down the path! I am happy to share with the birds; less so with a greedy Labrador and Jack Russell! I will be watching my tomatoes like a hawk as they will be eyeing up those next!

Thank you all.

It's a big improvement on last year when we took it on and it was 6 to 8ft in brambles and nettles with a huge mound of soil,bricks and grass in the middle that took a month to dig out and sort through.

Am lucky because dh is a builder so does all the raised beds and structures I need while I do the growing. And apart from the shed, fencing and about £70 worth of timber from a local auction it has all been free! Most of the beds are made from reclaimed decking boards dh has scrounged from work, the chippings were free from a local tree surgeon and some of the timber I have scavenged from friends and neighbours.

It does obviously help that dh has the tools and is handy enough to do stuff.

The allotment has been one of the best things we have done. We used to spend weekend mornings mooching around shopping or softplay hell or a park somewhere when the weather was good. Dh was bored and always wanted to go to the pub in the afternoon or sit at home watching sport and drinking cans. Or whining he was bored.

Now we are on the plot until about 2pm and he is too tired to whine about being bored. Ds also absolutely loves it. Especially now we have chickens!

My cues are rubbish. I bought 3 from a garden centre 4 weeks ago as my seeds had mainly failed. 1 is dying and the other 2 don't look brilliant. And I have 1 tiny one that eventually came up from seeds that is about 2 inch high. Am having a run out to the garden centre at the weekend to buy replacements.

I find it interesting which plants just don't like particular conditions...no matter what you do. My cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, chillies, sweetcorn, peppers and aubergines are doing really well. But all my beans look pretty rubbish - they have/are flowering but don't seem to be setting much fruit and have black fly. I wonder whether it might just be too warm and humid for them here?!
I have just been out to look at my chilli plants...all 26 of them! They're all setting lots of fruit now!!!

This is my 1 raised bed, ready to transplant the parsnips, beetroot and carrots I started in big pots while I waited to build the bed. Also have potatoes going in one of those bag thingies

Well. Am really annoyed with my french beans now.

The dwarf seeds I direct sowed last weekend are poking through.

Still nothing from the climbing ones.

Am going to set some more off I think. I am wondering if it was a dodgy batch of seeds or they were out of date maybe? Bought new ones at the weekend so am setting half off direct sowed and half in pots in the mini greenhouse.

Last year they were my greatest success!

My dwarf french beans (purple queen) are doing great, first beans just set. However i've not managed to grow a single climbing french bean. The first i put down to old seed, I bought new seed (blue lake) and a few plants germinated but promptly got chomped by slugs. I direct sowed some more a few weeks ago but no sign as yet.

Like you Frouby, last year they were pretty much sow and forget.

Pathetic beans here too. Two and a half months they have been up, and are about 10" high. The peas are 4' high, covered in pods. Go figure. All brand new seeds.

hounds your chilli plants look amazing, as does the bit of garden we can see in the background! I am so nosy, I love all these pics.

Thanks for your cue advice. I shall inspect them for male bits tomorrow
Need rain here, I don't know about you but I'm spending ages watering. We haven't had much sun but it has been breezy for ages and I'm struggling to keep on top of it all.
Photos lovely as always.

Maybe it has just been a poor year for beans...? Like others have said, they are usually a fool-proof crop that I just totally forget about and then get a massive glut from.

Beans have been a disaster here but mostly because of the slugs. Though the beans are now making reasonable progress. I think my carrot seed is duff, have ordered more as I got one seedling from the last 4 rows I sowed!

Having to settle for wild strawberries whilst waiting for the others to ripen. The birds don't seem to touch these for some reason, not sure why as they're full of flavour.

I've had to reinforce my fruit netting today after catching a blackbird taking flying leaps at the netting and there was enough slack in it that it managed to snaffle a redcurrant.

I love blackbirds - they are so plucky!

Afternoon!
Gorgeous photos everyone - the plots look amazing - and Frouby - I remember the picture you put up of that poor tangled mess you took on - its amazing !
Hounds - lovely chillies :) I have the mini Munch cucumber too, and do nothing apart from water and harvest them .
Beans are doing okay here - even the borlotti which I had to resow some after getting them to sprout on damp kitchen towel. I was given 3 runner bean plants , from an old lady who keeps her seed from year to year. They are not tall, only about 8-10" high, but now twirling madly , and ful of flowers !
Been at the plot this afternoon . Once again watering everything. Dug up the garlic - pretty pleased considering how dry its been. Picked a few baby broad beans, and yet more strawberries. I went to cut the sweet peas, and the dahlias are starting to flower too - somewhat early. Redcurrants are very nearly ready for picking - about another 2 days I think. The bush has come back from near death last year , so I haven't an enormous crop, but its looking healthy for the future, which is the main thing :)
First flowers have arrived on the Autumn Prince squashes - the leaves look a bit yellow, so will give them some wormery juice on next watering.

Blimey booky - your peonies so pretty. Oddly I bought some this morning and was musing about growing them.

My harvests are neither so pretty or impressive. I've had a few more courgettes from my home plant - the plot ones are just getting their first flowers. And a punnet of mixed strawbs/ red/white^ blackcurrants. More blackcurrants to come i hope, esp as i habe now covered my best bush. AND my first sweet pea. Yup, singular...

But look - I have garlic. A bit sparse bit good considering the weather. And it is pungent

That would make me very happy Zebra, looks good !

Just been to plot. My strawberry plants are now absolutely devoid of any strawberries and the fuckers have started on my peas. Neighbour kindly gave me more kale and let me pick some of his strawberries as says he’s sick of them! Came back with spinach and a few more broad beans. Lots of black fly on a couple of the plants but the ladybirds have found them and I spotted a couple of larvae.

Think I’m a week or two off courgettes but won’t be too long. My plot is quite behind, noticed one with flowering sunflowers which was lovely to see. My pumpkin is loving the bed with a whole load of manure on it, despite the fact it wasn’t really rotted down.

My Dad is coming to see plot on Saturday. He’ll have a view of Tipis that have suddenly sprung up in the field behind to my surprise !

Afternoon!
Lovely garlic Spotted
Had a very intense hour or so this afternoon at the plot. Cloudy, breezy , still no rain, so a lot of watering going on. Fruit picking has started. The very first blackcurrants off the baby plant - big one is still a bit off. ripening Nearly all the white currants picked - this year is the first proper crop. And then picked about half/third of the redcurrants - they hide a bit, so there were a lot more than I first thought . Got fed up of picking strawberries after that though...... Also the very first few raspberries . Courgettes starting - the stripey 'Romanesco', and the dark 'Midnight' and more sweet peas .
I'm very excited about my little plum tree - I have thinned it out a lot, as its only a baby , but still looking forward to them . Had to take a picture of the courgette flower - it was crawling with little beetles :)

Wow, what a fabulous fruit crop bookbook! I am hoping that my blackcurrants will have ripened up and not been eaten by the birds. They are under netting but it has been so windy the last couple of days and I haven't had a chance to check.

My beans have been a bit mixed this year. Some of the plants gave up the ghost when they were planted out. I direct sowed some seeds and the first we just coming up last week which was 2 weeks since they were planted so it may be that others waiting just need a little bit more time. My peas have been rubbish this year as well. Last year we had quite a lot but this year hardly any have germinated. Even soaking the seeds with curry powder hasn't helped.