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

why cant i grow sweet peas? I did say never again but got lured by a 50p packet. I put them in a little sealed plastic box on some wet kitchen roll in my propagator. nothing happened so i cut a tiny bit of the shell away. I have one with a root, the rest are either not doing anything or going slightly mushy. I have the other half of the packet still. its been a week now. do i wait or do something with the other seeds....and if so what? when i've just put them in soil before nothing happens.

A great day to be out in the garden/patch today. Have done the first cut on the grass so I can now get to my other veg patch, will be clearing these over the next few days. Have ordered so potato bags to plant some spuds, can anyone recommend a good variety that give a good crop? Last time I grew them I was disappointed by how many spuds we grew.

Planted some "green manure " in my raised bed. I've been lulled into planting my main crops too early before in a warm February spell only to get a chilly wet March.

Put a couple of rows of first early potatoes in this morning and going to sow a row of early onward peas this afternoon.

bell yes, March can be really cold or really warm (last year really cold). I won’t be planting anything outside other than potatoes until end of March.

Hi all. After a long hiatus I'm slowly getting my garden back into a usable state.

Have sorted my strawberry bed, started weeding the vegetable patch, and planted some early peas (they're happy to be sown outside from February onwards, so hopefully they'll be ok).

In the week ahead I plan to start on my tomatoes - I'm doing Latah, which is an early bush tomato and apparently good for Scotland - lettuce, spinach and broad beans. Can't decide whether to sow the beans inside or straight into the ground like I usually do.

dreaming I have only ever grown them straight in the ground (from march), and the only time they didn't work for me was when they were eaten by mice I believe. Could this be the problem with your peas?

Chilli powder in with the seed helps with that.

Another beautiful day here, so a couple of hours spent at the plot. Everyone else had the same idea, so quite a lot of chatting and not too much 'getting on', but it was fun. I've directly sown some broad beans alongside those planted out from the greenhouse and have another lot in the greenhouse ready to go next weekend so I might get some successional harvesting. I've also dug up another grass path ready for membrane and chipped bark. Boo back to work tomorrow but it's ok as the good weather seems to be disappearing in the next couple of weeks.

I spent an hour at the plot today but despite the warm sunny weather I had the entire site to myself, weird. Finished clearing the raspberry canes, filled my bird feeders, hoed some annual weeds and sprinkled chicken manure pellets everywhere.

What a gorgeous day .
Hello Grouchy - lovely to see you :)
dreaming - they are very slow to germinate for me . This year I sowed them in pots in the greenhouse the last week in January, and they have only just nicely germinated. sown 5 in a smallish pot , and put the pots inside a carrier bag to keep them a bit damp ,. That usually works for me I don't nick them , or soak them, just water the compost before I sow .
I managed a good go at the plot this morning - and yes , rather too much chatting! Was digging out couch grass, and weeding around the spring cabbages . I cut all the sprout tops for tea . And used a stored butternut squash as well - . I still have a few crown prince and autumn prince squashes left - they store so well :)
My broad beans are finally germinating in the greenhouse - enough to plug the gaps in the ones I sowed in November.
Just ordered some more asparagus crowns for my new asparagus bed extension . We were going to dig them up from the second bed, but after lifting 2 gave up - they were humungous , !

belini what do you use for your green manure? I didn’t put any manure in the raised beds last year and everything was pretty poor. We dug some manure in during late autumn after we cleared almost everything out but I was thinking of a green manure. We are in northern Scotland so I’m sitting on my hands with regard to actual crops too. I really want to get stuff started in the greenhouse but I think it’s probably too early even for that unless we are going to heat it.

Hello I was on this thread until late summer and enjoyed reading about everyone's plots and harvests. Apart from purple sprouting broccoli I have ignored my plot since Sept.

I need to go and sort out the raspberries and force some rhubarb this week. Seeds mainly bought and after great success of cucamelons last year have decided to grow those again and my son has chosen some climbing squashes/courgettes to be a new item this year.

Have garlic and onion sets ready to go. I have given up overwintering them as they do not survive.

Hello all

Was on this thread last year and thebyear before I think but think I shrivelled up in the summer heat last year.

Just placemarking for later, and will post some photos of our plot and brand spanking new polytunnel. Very excited for this season.

I must give chilli powder a go for my peas as they always get eaten! I will need to buy some sweet pea plants as last year's sowing didn't grow at all.

Seedlings are doing nicely with a bit of help from the grow-lamp, if the weather stays like this I may be able to start moving them to the greenhouse!

I did chilli powder on my peas last year, and it certainly seemed to help. I gave them 30 minutes soak in warm water with chilli powder stirred in .

Well I managed to poison myself with some beans I grew last year and defrosted in my attempt to clear the freezer for this years harvest. Didn't cook them properly and so my boyfriend and I spent all weekend with d+v! What a waste of sunny weather!

I've just ordered some asparagus crowns from Ken Muir, so will prep the bed for those with some manure, and blood fish and bone.

I've got a couple of fruit bushes to put in too that we picked up in a local nursery. A kiwi fruit for the greenhouse, and a chokeberry. Not even really sure what that is, time for some research.

I’m working a late shift today so been busy digging out one of my veg patches. Also planted some potatoes in bags. Loving the nice weather but trying not to get used to it as it’s only February.

Hi books. It's nice to have the energy for gardening again!

The children and I planted tomato, lettuce, spinach and brussels sprouts seeds today. I also managed to tip a pile of lettuce seeds into my flower beds so that was annoying.

And my crab apple tree and weeping pear trees arrived today, which is exciting. I managed to snap the handle off my spade at the weekend so I won't be able to plant the trees till my new spade arrives. It's coincidentally at the same time as my in-laws arrive so FIL will be able to help me with planting the trees and MIL will be able to entertain the children so I only have GrouchyPuppy to look out for.

Just had a lovely few hours at allotment, t shirt weather. Was pleased how it looked when went down, it’s fared well over winter except for broken shed window which currently has plastic over it as a temporary repair.

Still got lots of leeks, so,e perpetual spinach and chard. Had several sacks of manure I chucked around things then found a pot of wallflowers where I’d chucked some seeds in last summer so separated them out and replanted.

Bit of a crisis over raspberries as forgot what to do with summer raspberries so mostly left for now though I did decapitate a couple of stems to get past. To complicate things I have autumn raspberries down one end of the bed so think I need to sort them into another and my strawberry bed that I inherited is a right mess.

Planted some garlic that had sprouted outside as was left on a table. Am having a hysterectomy this year probably so low maintenance crops will be really important for me this year,

A slightly random question, does anyone know what will happen if you leave garlic in the ground for 3 seasons...?! I have just spotted some shoots between my raspberries that look vaguely ‘onion-ish’. I planted veg in that bed in summer 2016 including garlic that all appeared to die. In 2017 I put the raspberries in so they’ve been growing a couple of years. Is there a chance they will produce edible garlic bulbs if I leave them? Do I need to split them as they are now groups of shoots or should I just give up entirely and pull them up?

Another newbie hoping for a place on the thread.

Haven’t started yet, trying to get my head around the whole business of growing veg

DrWhy I still keep finding garlic planted by the previous allotmenter. It is fine but not really divided into separate cloves but tasted ok.

Do I need to split them as they are now groups of shoots or should I just give up entirely and pull them up?

If you want garlic then by all means, dig them up, split them and replant.

Garlic bulbs up after the Spring equinox so do it as soon as you can.

About a quarter of my new allotment is now dug over and covered with cardboard and 10cm of mulch (exactly - I wonder if the kids will ever miss their ruler?) I was hoping that 900 litres would go a bit further, but never mind. I've got some green manure seeds and I'll cover the next cleared section with that for now while I see how no-dig works out on the first section. I've spent rather too much money on tools and a cold frame already; don't want DP to start giving me the hairy eyeball about overspending.

The mulch delivery driver carved a big tyre divot out of a neighbours plot while he was there digging it. I'm pretty sure that's no way to make yourself popular as a new arrival. I apologised profusely and offered to help him dig over that bit again, but I think the damage was done.

So as the good weather arrived I pulled my back out while putting my socks on. Have hobbled around the garden centre today longingly looking at plants. Hope my back recovers soon, I'm desperate to start getting more plants in!