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

It rained today for all of 10 mins. I was teaching at the time, the students reaction was similar to when it snows we are very southerly. I picked a few more raspberries tonight. My 'Fandango' tomatoes have huge fruits, they were described as medium on the packet, but not one showing signs of turning colour.

lots of heavy cloud (and that heavy cloud feeling) today but no rain.
hoping for some rain tomorrow!
will go away for a week soon and thinking of rigging up a clever watering system.

Another c500g of raspberries (to add to the c250g over the last 2 days). I'm going to pick out some good ones to open freeze and freeze another 250g so that I've got raspberries for cranachan on 25 January.

I'm going to make summer pudding this weekend

We (partially) netted the redcurrants today as they've started to colour up and the pigeons were getting a little too interested. Couldn't quite getting the netting total over the bush though

Picked 200g of broad beans (which came up to to a whole 60g once podded and squeezed out their outer layer. Beautifully green though.

They're not my "main" broad bean crop (which was planted later and are still only flowering) - these were the ones that I planted around the potatoes. They were also from beans I had collected from last year - so I don't know what varieties they were as they were all mixed up.

Also picked c200g of curly kale. Had half of it (with some grown garlic) with my sausages for supper (neither dh not ds wanted any , so got the majority of the broad beans).

Picked our redcurrants today. Don't work tomorrow so I'll make some jelly. Enough for a jar for Christmas.

Hi all. My potatoes have seed heads for the first time. Confused me for a moment since they look like tomatoes. Should I remove them or just leave them. I wasn't planning on digging up the potatoes for a while since we're way for a few weeks.

cloudtree my plot neighbour just leaves them to fall off, I've removed them in the past due to young Dcs perhaps making the mistake of tomatoes but they don't go red but I understand they are poisonous. I suppose if the potatoes make too many fruit the energy will be put into fruit production rather than tubers. So all in all time to dig up the spuds!

Thank you @TheHoundsofLove, I've made a note of those varieties for next year. My cherry tomatoes have got lots of fruits and some more flowers, but none of the fruits are showing any signs of ripening. And still no flowers on the other plants, but they're growing very strongly. The cherry tomato is very bushy - should I remove some of the leaves to let the sun get to the tomatoes?

My squash plant is getting bigger, but no flowers. And the purple beans are speeding away and getting taller, but no flowers. No flowers is a bit of theme in my veg garden

Oh and I wanted to ask - does anyone have one of those lettuce growers that you hang on the wall? And if so, are they any good? They're a sort of fabric square with lots of pockets which you grow the lettuce in. I'm very tempted for my small space as it would free up room in my beds for other things.

Thats interesting purple, our 2 crown prince squash plants (in the greenhouse) are absolute triffids, covered in flowers but absolutely zero sign of fruits so far. This is my last year trying to grow them. They take up so much space and in 5 years of trying (indoor and outdoors) they have never given me fruit/the fruit rots etc.

We have rain, proper beautiful rain. Hooray!

I sowed a few more beans the other day and they have come up already. Yay little plants.

I'm just sitting watching the rain right now.

Afternoon!
Grouchy - oh I so wish for rain.
I popped to the plot this morning , did some watering and picked courgettes . I swapped 2 for a cabbage , and another one for a kohlrabi
Lunchtime, I picked my first few ripe sungold tomatoes , and what an odd cucumber - it looks like a twin , so I picked it , rather than let it grow on .
Going back soon to do a proper water on the squashes - mine are not growing away , but have flowers and set fruit .

Evening all

Lovely harvest and jealous someone wants to swap courgettes for something. Everyone on our plot just backs away slowly if I mention spare courgettes.

Have 2 monsters at the moment. Leaving them on as apparently dhs mate loves marrows. He is back from his holidays this weekend and facing marrow hell 😂😂.

Had a bit of rain this morning. A steady 20 minute drizzle them on and off for an hour or 2. Nothing significant. Suns back out now and it's warming up again.

Busy day tomorrow. Am resowing beetroot as it has failed spectacularly. Also more peas and planting out my lettuce seedlings and possibly lifting the rest of the earlies and planting my brassica seedlings. DH needs to build a frame for the netting though.

Have noticed the tomatoes I planted in previously manured beds are twice the size of non manured beds. And I mean literally twice the size. So plan for this year is cover every bed with cardboard as it empties and then cover with a good layer of manure. I can get more manure than a person should be able to luckily and know the best bits of the muckheap to raid 😂.

We are poo picking the fields every day atm. Does anyone know if I put pure horse poo in a dalek composter if it will be good to use as a top up next spring? Have seen somewhere a lady using pure sheep poo soaked in water for a week as a liquid fertiliser. Have also just inherited a decent sized water butt and am considering filling a hessian sack with horse poo and floating it in the butt then using the water.

Evening!
I manure everything I possibly can Frouby , it really does make such a difference.
I went back with DH late this afternoon and we watered the squashes really well. We have a thing that goes in the wheelbarrow called a hippo (I think,) but it takes 2 of us , but gets a lot of water from the tap to where we need it without loads of watering cans. We then picked all the rest of the jostaberries - about 3 kilos . I picked french beans, and a few peas. Needed to cut the sweetpeas too - haven't done them for a couple of days, so there were a few :)

Frouby Yes - I used to do exactly that every year - it will be perfect next Spring!

Frouby I have only had my plot for two years, I did this for the first time over winter and covered it with black polythene, weighted down with milk cartons filled with water. It was lovely in the spring to pull it back as I began to plant things out, no weeds, friable soil, ok a few slugs but lots of baby slow worms. The slow worms moved pretty sharpish but the slugs were easy to dispatch. I am losing the battle against black fly atm. I have been spraying with watered down washing up liquid but I may have to resort to chemical warfare. It started on the beans and they are looking really sad, they have now spread to a courgette and a sweetcorn plant. I only spotted 2 ladybirds and a few ants, does anyone have any suggestions please?

I wish elephant - my broad beans are a disaster with blackfly., and I noticed a few on a runner bean nearby. I am actually going to pull up the broad beans - though I have only used washing up liquid.

Its the ants you want to ty and get rid of - they 'farm' the blackfly , so that would help

Ooo! That's interesting book, do you know why ants do that? I need to do some Googling.

Obviously I want to encourage the slow worms Frouby*. My post sounded as though I wanted to dispatch them too! What I meant was it made a good environment for baby slow worms to develop and then slither off.

they use the honeydew the aphids secrete, and will move the aphids to new plants as well - I had quite a bad attack last year on my red currant and white currant bushes . They will remove predators of the aphids too

Thanks book.

Woo hoo, it's raining!

Here too! The moorland fires need it. That land needs to be good and soaked.

Thanks elephant and hounds. Phone wont let me bold for some reason.

We did about 2/3s of the beds but read somewhere not all plants like manure but its really well rotted years old stuff, almost like a squidgy compost so I don't think there will be any heat remaining to scorch them.

Will start collecting it now. Its a pain shovelling it into bags on my own but 3 rubber trugs isnt too torturous and will take me about 10 mins when I have done the ponies. And the yard owner will be happy to have less poo to pick 😁.

Lots to do on the plot today. Busy, busy,busy.

Good news you’ve had some rain up by the fires. Dry as a bone still down here. Frouby that sounds more than fine . My squash had to cope with some quite fresh stuff and have coped really well. I’ve been collecting manure to fill raised beds at home but they have as much as they need for now so took today’s haul to allotment and it’s in a Dalek. We drive past a place that has fresh stuff most Saturdays so have a routine of bags in the car and pick up on the way past.

DH came with me this afternoon and saw what I meant about needed much more netting for next year and we had a look to see what others have been doing. Watered whole plot which clocked up about 5k steps. Came home with courgettes, mangetout/peas, spinach, chard, first few beans, calendula and sweet peas. Pleased how things are doing considering how dry it is and has to cope on a once weekly water.

First few beans at home started. Been using watering for tomatoes in greenhouse spikes and big difference in size between the one minus a watering spike and the rest. The cucumber I was given has male and female flowers. Am some way off cucumber on that plant and the 2 marketmore plants outside.

It’s a long way from ploy to water pump so had plenty of time to admire all the plots. It‘s a new site opened last year and was a field before. Lots of naturally occurring chamomile around which is flowering and looks lovely .