Allotment?Veg Patch Thread 13! Are we weathering the weather?

[bookbook]

well, we have got to August , had heatwaves and thunderstorms. Goodness knows what happens next!
All welcome to join in sharing the highs and lows , tips and experiences of growing your own :)
Previous thread HERE

I've done a bad thing... I've planted some artichoke seeds indoors even though I know they'll end up leggy and rubbish because I just can't wait. I've also ordered myself a nice climbing rose for the house as a valentines gift to myself.

Meanwhile my Dad has ordered me some seeds and they've been delivered from China. They look very strange and have come with a small bag of plastic beads as a "gift". Almost too scared to plant them..: what do you think? They're supposed to be yellow waxed beans...

Pyjamas could the plastic beads be magic beans? Toss them out of the window and tomorrow you could have a massive beanstalk. Or could they be moisture retaining thingies?

I've also been overeager and sown a few seeds for the greenhouse - melons, tomatoes and cucumbers. DS was so keen to have tomatoes growing again! Fingers crossed for a nice early spring We're south coast so not entirely unrealistic - though I did have to cover my overoptimistic pluot which is about to break into blossom!

I did my seed order at the weekend and forgot to get any sweetcorn seeds (very important for the DCs). Last year was a bit of a disaster as none I planted germinated. Luckily a plot neighbour came to my rescue. The first year they were fine. Can anyone recommend a variety that is likely to sprout please?

The thing with sweetcorn is temperature. Too cold and they just rot really fast. Too damp and they rot but now wet enough and they just sit there.

Fresh seeds sown in may in the heat should be fine. Germinate in separate pots as they also don't like being pricked out as sometimes the seed falls away and the plant doesn't like that as it needs the seed for nutrients for the first 6 weeks.

Any supersweet varieties should be ok, bought fresh.

I had a sweetcorn disaster year before last - temperature and freshness of the seed are crucial. The sweeter the variety the

Can I join in? I got an allotment in January and I'm doing battle with the couch grass at the moment. I met a lovely neighbour who told me that it's been fallow for two years, and that grass isn't giving up with a fight. I have a growing stack of couch turves that I'm trying to figure out what to do with. First thought is dry it then compost it, but I don't want to put viable rhizome back in if I can avoid it. Eventually I want to go no-dig; based on some advice upthread I'm picking up some pallet collars tomorrow to use as raised beds.

When he saw I was making decent progress with the clearance, the allotment supervisor very kindly gave me some strawberry runners that were encroaching on the road from an unlet plot, so I could have something planted in the bit I've cleared so far.

i put everything in my compost bin except really woody stems like raspberrys, but i wouldnt put couch grass in as i've heard bad things about it regrowing. And you will have wasted all that effort. I would either burn it or take to the tip

10 years, I tried no dig with couch grass.

10 long years.

Hence the weed fabric and raised beds.

if you don't isolate the couch grass from the inside of the raised bed it will just grow through.

If you want to go no dig eventually, I recommend covering with tarps or thick cardboard or thick weed fabric and growing on top of it for the time being, and then once the couch grass dies back, after a year or two, then dig small sections over and set up your permanent paths and the beds inbetween. Otherwise you will never get to no dig because you will always have the couch growing into the dug sections.

And yes, I used to bring bags of the couch home and put it in my brown bin to be hot composted away from wherever I was.

It's windy on the plot today. The tunnel is flapping a bit because I can't get the entrance closed properly while I am in it. Got another couple of rows of broad beans sown. I am trying to be a bit more successional but it never really works as they all get to harvest within a couple of weeks of each other but at least I tried!

Thanks, Sackrifice, I have no desire to do this job twice. I've spent the afternoon digging over the gaps between the beds I had planned so that there will be no couch reservoirs to spread out.

When will most people start to sew seeds? I always brace myself for a snowy March.

I have:
6 tomatoes which have just grown their first true leaves
A small pot of Kale - which is a new variety from Baker Creek seeds in the US.
Some onions.

i will sow chillis, more brassicas, and the rest of the onions this week.

And I am doing some seed tray of peas and lettuces for cut and come again, plus I might bung in a load of others that I have loads of, to use as greens over the hungry gap. If the leaves and stems are edible, it's a good way of using up old seeds and getting a decent amount of edible material before buying fresh seeds for this season. And I love buying fresh seeds for the season.

My tomatoes, I sow a few to get them off the ground early as they can go into warmed greenhouse soon, which has a heat pad in there; and go into the unheated greenhouse around April, which will protect it enough to start growing in there early.

i went to the plot yesterday and two panes of glass have blown out of the greenhouse - but both are unbroken so i can just slot them in and fix them in properly [the person we hired to fix it used rubbish sealant and didn't fix them in properly so we've been expecting this to happen].

I have started sowing seeds in the tunnel. We have a large box which we fill with horse manure to generate heat. This helps seeds get off to a decent start.

We've got started preparing the allotment in the last week and luckily it's not too hard. Currently just clearing weeds, stones and the odd bit of rubbish which will take another week or so as we can only do an hour after school each day. Because of the clay soil I'm thinking about double digging where the beds will be. When people talk about organic matter what exactly do they mean and where can I get it?! They have manure there but how can I tell if it's well rotted? Sorry, as i say I'm a massive newbie! Here's a pic of the allotment. We have the half closest to the camera.

Well rotted will have broken down, will normally be quite dark and will have stopped looking like its constituent parts.

However, this time of year I just put it straight on the plot as is without waiting for it to breakdown. We put a layer on each bed as a kind of mulch then rotavator it into the soil as we bring each bed into use. The manure rots down in the soil.

Did you clear your plot? I am very impressed

We've done a bit Gnome but we're very lucky that they had already cleared the majority of it before we took over (I think the previous people left it in a bit of a state so the men who run the place cleared it themselves).

So from what I am reading double digging means I dig a spades depth down then fork well rotted material into the soil under that? Can I use normal manure for that or does it have to be the well rotted stuff? Not sure where I can get that? The manure heap is currently empty so when it gets refilled next month it's going to be pretty fresh I assume. Do people keep manure in compost bins to let it rot? I'm sorry if these questions are really stupid!

No such thing as a stupid question.

It would be worth finding if there are stables nearby. We have a lady who will deliver a trailer load fresh from the stables for £10. This is probably around a ton. I get through about 6 tons per season (we have quite a big allotment). 5 tons go straight on the plot and the 6th stays in the poo bay to rot down until autumn.

We dont cover the manure which is left to rot. It will sprout a bit of grass but we just pull that off and put it on the compost beds.

Our poo bay is simply 3 pallets long, 1 pallet deep with the side next to the roadway left open. The horse poo lady likes my bay as it is easy to unload into - means I get my delivery ahead of the small bins which she has to practically teaspoon to manure into!

As you can tell, I'm a bit of a manure enthusiast!

Yes there are lots of stables around here so I'll find out if anyone's willing to drop to me.

I'm here now weeding. There are quite a lot of these little weeds and getting them all up may take a long time! Is it a case of knuckling down to it or will hoeing them and leaving them in the soil be ok?

If you have the time then I would say weed them out. If you can get them out with as much root as possible then they will stay gone. If you hoe then you will have to keep hoeing. Also it will depend on your soil as to how easy it is to hoe especially this time of year.

Weeding does yield rewards. A couple of plotholders near us have just rotavated the weeds in. The weeds are now coming back in force. It will now be difficult to work the soil as it is heavy from rain.

Anything with strong roots like couch grass, bind weed, dandelion will come back like a hydra if they just have their tops chopped off. Annual weeds come from seed so if you can get them clear before they flower then you will slowly reduce the stock.

Once you get on top of the weeds you really will find that the plot is easier to manage. The weeds come back more slowly and less densely. It becomes a pleasure to weed as it takes so much less effort and the results can be seen quickly.

Those are annuals so can be hoed and left to die. What you need is to know what weeds you have, hoe the annuals and dig out the perennials.

Also, try to get something to cover over the bare soil - tarpaulin, weed fabric, cardboard. This will keep the soil in the dark and stop the weeds germinating. This makes a huge difference to managing the plot as things warm up. Nothing more depressing than having loads of weeds growing in an area you've just cleared before you've managed to get some seeds in!

I haven't sown anything yet and won't be for a while. We don't have greenhouse and very very limited window sill space in the house so I don't start early. However, I am in the South East so every catches up anyway. It's a tricky time of year coming up isn't it, knowing when to start so that you don't get caught by a late frost.

Just tried to post and lost it all! But the essence of my post was: hello, can I join? I have a very unused veg patch and am looking for inspiration and guidance. I am being beguiled by the sunshine to start sowing indoors, but I'm in Yorkshire so it's probably too early, isn't it? Also was wondering about getting one of those plastic small greenhouses which you put against a wall - does anyone have any experience with those? Are they worth it?