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

Morning all!
On our site , you can now only rent half an allotment - which is about 60' x 25' or 125 sq metres. There are still full ones - they are only split when they are given up. This was done to get the waiting list down . Half a plot is £20 a year . We have water, toilets, a Horticultural shop on site, and green waste trailers to take stuff away.

chock - not sure at all what 'Colony" is - our committee is a member of the National Allotment Society, but we dont run software. as far as I am aware. We have had to check things re GDPA, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with It? ( a naturist eh? !)
Frouby - next week - I hope the wedding goes well, and the weather is nice for you. You have got so much done this last year. Those blueberries are a disgrace tbh. I would not be happy.
Lonely - we have built our own polytunnel frame - using it with net though as a brassica cage. Its big, - 4m x 7m as we are trying to make the plot so we don't have to move stuff around year on year . We used 32mm HDPE pipe and tanalised roof laths to join .We have just finished it, and the net has been joined ready to put on this next week. Just need to get a door made and then its done.
I did a short stint yesterday I got the straw around my strawberries , and picked more asparagus .
I have started hardening off sweetcorn and curcubits. 2 of my sweetcorn had been nibbled down to the soil when I went to take them back indoors last night. Slugs/snails - the blighters
Not sure I will get there today - it rained a lot overnight, and its looking as if it is due to rain again.

Morning! It hammered it down all yesterday and most of the night too. I'd stated hardening more things off, but got The Fear at the end of Eurovision and moved lots of it back under cover. God I'm a sap! The slugs were out in force when I went out, so will survey the damage later on.

I'll hopefully pop to the plot briefly today to pick the last of last year's spinach and chard. I'm making a spanakopita so may as well batch make as many as I can for the freezer at the same time.

My plot is a small half one - it's 96 sq m I think and it's about £33 pa. There is a fence and a lock, and water in troughs but no hoses, no loo no frills.

Naturist update - he's in his late 70s I would guess, and has had his plot for decades. I saw him for the first time on the bank holiday and had a chat - he had a pair of skimpy shorts on but nothing else. Another plot holder then had a quiet word with me. He does apparently grow lots of tall things like artichokes etc, so he isn't easy to see when things are ahem, in full growth, but I've been told to let the chairman know if he does it because he'll have a word with him.

Re Colony - found a bit online. I think MCC want to use it for info gathering - how many sheds, vacant plots, animals, multiple plot holders etc. Someone told me of a plot where a woman has four plots together and keeps llamas and miniature pigs on there! Apparently she treats it like a small holding. Hopefully it will weed out the rule breakers so that others can have a go.

£50 a year for a 10 x 10 plot though mine isn’t as in the corner. Rabbit fenced, water and parking. Right next to sports ground so can watch matches for those interested. I’m not so have shed facing over open fields. Does not come with on site naturist as far as I’m aware but there are quite a lot of rules. We can have a max 8x6/shed or greenhouse but not both.

Pretty sure my old beans are going to germinate. Got given an old beer barrel and a couple of pots so might take my blueberries down. Went twice last week which was enough to keep it fairly under control, much better than I thought it would be ta this point and I am a fair way to getting rid of the grass paths.

Planted the miniature hops plant I got for DH at Christmas against plot shed and that’s started to grow. Should get a reasonably decent crop of strawberries from the plants that were already there and the birds have found my feeders. My rhubarb is bolting but such is life.

Lonely it's a steel frame 6mx3x2 so we've trenched it and secured the corners with postcrete which took 10min to set and should hopefully pull out in a plug if we need to move/replace it at any point. Buying flooring a polythene flooring for it today to cover the horsetail coming up, planning on reinforcing edging with wood and building raised beds up one side.

Trying to visualise these sizes so I've been outside with the measuring tape. This year I have a 8m x 5m area dedicated to growing fruit and veg. It's expanding towards the house each year

Thanks monkeys not sure of my final size yet, looking like 6-7m x 3-4m It will only be about 5'9" tall (so I can get in easily) as we are very windy. I intend to dig it out eventually, so about a 2' sunken path. Will pour a concrete trench all round and secure the cover to that with wooden batons.

To buy from first tunnels would be about £600 complete, which is so far out of my budget! Hoping the pipe will come in around £70 and the cover about £100. Have enough lying around for doors and back window.

I found very very old seeds in my rusty suttons tin, so have planted brocolli and hipsi cabbage just to see. Plant before 2014/16. Not very optimistic.

Horsetail is the bane of my front garden. It is the only thing that grows out there (N facing, never direct sunlight), and boy does it grow. I hate it, however prehistoric and interesting it is.

Well I have replaced the 3 sad looking blueberries with 3 gorgous ones from the garden centre. Dp could tell I was upset so suggested we just replace them now if we could find decent ones. These are about 12 inches high, loads of leaves and branches and even flowers on so very happy. The are in a bed as I want to make sure it's full of eracious compost.

The sad looking ones have been potted on into bigger pots in eracious compost and have been brough home so I can water with rain water from our water butt. Not optimistic they will survive but will give them a chance.

Also was tempted by some interesting looking plug plants. 1 have 2 tiny tim cucumbers, 1 black chilli, 1 golden courgette and 1 lemon cucumber. They are only tiny so in my mini greenhouse. I also bought a little tray of PSB as I forgot to sow it. They are planted out and hoping they don't get attacked by caterpillars between now and when I can get some netting over them.

Tom's were potted and staked into trug containers today. Nice guy a few plots down has kindly bestowed us an extra hoe, plum Tom's, a sack full of pots, and miscellaneous bits & bobs.

Managed an hour at the plot this afternoon, planted out shallot seedlings, earthed up
potatoes and did a bit of weeding. Yesterdays torrential rain did not moisten the soil much at all, it's getting very crunchy now.

Any thoughts on sowing potatoes directly in the earth vs sacks/buckets, please? I've a few feet space to the very back of the allotment that I'm earmarking for pots. But wondered if sacks are the easier route to go? Ended up with an abundance of inherited mid/small sized plastic tubs which I'm thinking I'll chance a mix of small grow veg in & see what takes and what doesn't.

Another plot holder also said he's giving us an extra composter. We've picked up a decent sized one off Gumtree, but have been informed we'll need at least 2... possibly 3? Obviously I'm massively in novice zone 🙄

What lovely fellow plot holders you have Flying - you can never have enough compost! I'd say that 2 is the absolute minimum that you'll need (one to assemble materials and one to turn into), but that 3 is the optimum (one to assemble, one to turn into, one to do a final turn into).

Does anyone know whether you should remove side shoots on semi-determinate tomatoes (Corazon)? I seem to remember reading that you shouldn't, but they have very clear side shoots and seem to want to grow more as cordon tomatoes, so I'm thinking of just treating them as cordons?

FlyingMonkeys I think it is better to sow directly. I have always been told that it helps 'clean' the soil as you earth them up. I'm not overly convinced by this, as on my plot it just seems to give the cinque-foil and bindweed more chance to party, however it must be cheaper. DM was over on the weekend so I only spent a couple of hours at the plot yesterday. I put in some more broad beans, bought from a car boot at 10p a plant. I asked Dd to pull some rhubarb and she did, and she did again and then she pulled some more! It is delicious, she made a crumble and I will be eating the rest with yoghurt for breakfast this week. I think my cucumbers and courgettes will be ready to plant out this weekend. The outdoor tomatoes planted out 2 weekends ago are doing well. Happy, sunny days.

Evening!
no plot today, but did get an hour or so in yesterday, as it didn't rain. It was perfect for getting out bindweed !
Flying - I would put in the ground, it is really hard to keep them watered enough in tubs , though it works well, but you have to be diligent. And also, I think they taste better i truth when they grow in soil, not compost ( though you may well be using soil I suppose) .Ooh and another composter - well worth having, its much nicer to use your own .
Everything is suddenly motoring, so have to crack on with the brassica cage now - they are just about ready to plant out. Tomatoes need putting into their summer placing too. The butternut squash are still sulking a bit - all the other curcubits are chucking out new leaves, they are hmmm, I'll think about it
Hounds - - it seems to say you could almost do either, but if you want them to keep producing, rather than the one main harvest I think
I would nip out the side shoots

Success! My rocket has germinated. I think I also have a runner bean. My dodgy near dead fruit trees bought on impulse last year from the supermarket have come on. We are in danger of getting fruit... Red & black currents and gooseberries all flowered and now getting fruitlets.

Another beautiful day here, not what was forecast at all.

Everything I've sown in pots has now germinated - yay! So I've sown some more beans and peas in the hope i can get the successional sowing cracked this year.

Something is appearing now where I sowed some beetroot but at this stage it's hard to tell if it's the beetroot or weeds! I've not grown beetroot before so unsure what it looks like when small.

Picked rhubarb and spring onions yesterday. I think the spring onions are my first over winter crop

beetroot look pretty distinctive.
even tiny seedlings look 'bloody'

Thanks folks, I'll definitely pop the pots straight into the soil then. I've gone with Cara maincrop as reviews stated it's pretty robust. Sounds like everyone's stuff is busying away! We also found a nest in MIL's shed. Not abandoned, mummy Robin was watching closely from a tree and flew back in after we'd come out.

Ah! what a lovely clutch is that the right collective noun? of eggs.

Afternoon!

That looks like a lovely haul book ! I've got a new favourite asparagus recipe - you coat them in parmesan and panko breadcrumbs and oven roast them. Served with poached eggs and hollandaise, it is utterly lush.
Flying What a treat!
I've had a pleasant afternoon pottering - I've planted out my few remaining tomato and courgette plants. Plus, I've staked my broad beans and done some general tidying. Everything is looking really green and healthy at the moment - there has been heavy rain the past couple of nights and, coupled with the warm temperatures, everything is growing really well.

The beetroot was a rainbow mix so not sure that they'll all have red stems.

I've caved and planted a couple of things outside today. Mainly because they were overgrowing their pots so it seemed sensible to put in their final growing positions.

Afternoon everyone - a beautiful day here. I went to the plot early both yesterday and today - by midday it was too hot for me and I had to seek out some shade!
I've planted some peas - Kelvedon Wonder - although I'm not sure how well they'll do as the soil is not very finely-tilled in that bed. Oh well if they make it through the lumps & bumps they should be tough enough to survive the slugs!
Also planted 2 Crown Prince squash seeds, under bottle cloches at the moment. I'm hoping to do a modified "Three Sisters" planting, I don't have room for the beans but will be planting sweetcorn amongst the squash. My first batch of sweetcorn is fully germinated at home & I planted another batch today as I reckon I have room for them. Hopefully they'll catch up. I also prepared part of another bed where I do have space for some beans - French beans going in next week on a wigwam. I've moved one of my blueberries to the plot, it's in a trug of ericaceous compost which I've sunk into a bed. Raspberries are doing very well so far and my strawberries are bushing out a little but I'm nipping off most of the flowers as it's the first year, and I've heard the plants are better off in future years if they don't fruit in the first year?
To fill in some spaces I've sown beetroot seeds in front of my currant bushes, Boltardy variety which I didn't try last year (I grew golden beetroot which were a bit disappointing) hoping for a good crop of beetroot for pickles and roasting.

would spraying with asiron work for potatos to prevent blight?