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

Afternoon!
Thanks - we love cauliflower too , but the trouble being they all come at once - these are the overwintering Aalsmer . I have about another 6 which need picking over the next week!
wow it was wild this morning . I was out helping at the horticultural shop at the plot, and I still had customers! ( Mostly buying onion sets and seed potatoes ) . Got home, and found out the asparagus crowns I had ordered a few days ago had arrived whilst I was out, so went back and planted them out pronto - it had stopped raining at least .
Faffed around a bit while I was there - a bit of half hearted weeding , and then decided to pick some purple sprouting broccoli and come home . Looks like a horrid week coming up

Really windy here again, the greenhouse (luckily empty) is once more on it's side. Need to decide whether to try and fix it better or look for a better greenhouse solution.

Rhubarb here is starting nicely, I'm forcing some which is doing well.

I think i'm going to get some things started off indoors tomorrow. Although i repotted some spider plants the other week, must have been some stray tomato seeds as I now have two small seedlings too.

Has anyone seen seed potatoes in aldi yet?

It was lovely and sunny here today so I got the fruit trees planted and did lots of tidying, I even tidied the shed. I am really going to have to buy a new shed soon. The forecast is not so good tomorrow so I am going to start some seeds off indoors too.

Bit of a fail up the allotment today. I had terrible morning sickness and such a hormonal rage that I almost buried DH under the new rhubarb. Forecast for storms this coming week so decided to hold off sowing my corn until next weekend.

Really need to escape up there one day this week to weed around my fruit bushes. Also have some brambles appearing out of nowhere again. They're in my raspberry patch so half tempted to "cultivate" them and have some easy to reach blackberries.

I am in the bath now; went to the allotment to plant out my red baron and sturon onion seedlings, got cold numb fingers so decided to try lighting the incinerator full of hawthorn prunings, it lit fine so i spent 3 hours feeding it and getting loads more prunings in to burn. I stink of bonfire; hence being in the bath early.

Morning!
horrible here - rain/sleet and so cold .
ran to the plot to dig some leeks , as I forgot them yesterday . Just glad I got the asparagus in the ground yesterday.
Nothing quite like a lovely hot bath after working outside Sackrifice - eases all the muscles
Pyjamas - he would have fed the rhubarb for years . It is really tough to get rid of brambles - they manage to root tip everywhere and anywhere . I remember seeing a time lapse film of it growing - utterly amazing at how fast it grows .
I may sow some summer cauliflower seeds, but I checked my diary, and I didn't sow tomatoes/peppers/aubergines until 24th March last year , and they germinated really quickly, so will hold off on those.

Very windy indeed here today, worse than yesterday. I am hiding in the car while DS plays hockey and will be doing the same for football this afternoon. Luckily remembered my crochet and a book.

I haven't been up to the plot this week but planted shallot seeds at home, did a stocktake of my seed collection and tidied my shed. I'm also making lots of little newspaper pots for seed planting. I want to plant tomato and sweetcorn seeds into an incubator this week, plus broad beens directly at the plot.

I didn't sow tomatoes/peppers/aubergines until 24th March last year , and they germinated really quickly, so will hold off on those.

Often seeds sown later not only catch up but overtake those sown earlier as they have the light and heat needed that the earlier ones just don't get.

We go on holiday the day after Brexit so I am not sowing until 24th March, so that the seeds have 2 weeks to germinate whilst we are away. i'm going to put my early toms into the greenhouse beds and give them a good water before we go. I doubt we will have a heatwave whilst we are gone.

Whilst looking at my diary - we had snow 2nd and third week of March last year - so nothing new ! :)
Enjoy your holiday :)
Meet - better than standing outside!
I have just got to finish off a few bits inside the new greenhouse - there is a last bit to put along the floor- a bit like the side of a raised bed, and the space will be filled with gravel. My tomatoes are going to be grown in bags sat on top of the gravel to deter ( hah! ) the slugs and snails.

I was really surprised to wake up to snow this morning, wasn't expecting that at all.

Right bookbook I’m going to check out the south facing flower beds for a rhubarb spot!
I ventured out in the garden with DS this afternoon and he helped my plant up the new blackberry in a big pot. The side of our terrace is now all fruit pots, two blueberries, the blackberry and a couple of raspberries that aren’t terribly happy but there was no space for them in the fruit bed so they have to do their best. We also transplanted his runner beans from the glass into pots, one is looking very sad but I’m hoping it will perk up now it’s been well watered. I’m thinking of putting them into a couple of potato bags or old compost bags, keeping them in the greenhouse for as long as I possibly can then taking them outside when it gets decently warm and crossing my fingers they make it.
I also planted some flower seeds, violas and pinks, transplanted some cacti I managed to grow from seed and stomped around on the trampoline being a t-Rex trying to catch a baby triceratops that was running circles round me
I’m going to leave the onions until the weather is a bit dryer as I’m afraid they’ll just rot.

Runner Beans?

Yes sackrifice a major tactical error, I did that thing where you put them in a glass held against the side with something absorbent and your small child watches them sprout. Unfortunately I did it at the end of February without really thinking through the fact this was about 2 months early! Now I have to keep them alive until after the last frost, which is probably May up here! 🙈

First family trip to the allotment of the year today. Rather cold and waterlogged so could not stay long with a toddler. However, picking purple sprouting broccoli, checking the rhubarb and mentally writing a list of jobs to do next time ( mainly weeding!) was invigorating. It felt like Spring despite rain/hail/sleet/snow this weekend!

Pyjamas My raspberry canes back onto a hedge which is full of brambles – having tried hard to get on top of them the first year (basically impossible to get at the roots without uprooting the hedge) I realised that all that I was achieving was stopping the plants from flowering/fruiting. So last year I let them flower (the bees were very happy) and fruit (we were very happy). I try to stop any more tips rooting so it doesn’t get completely out of control (when we first moved in there were bramble arches all over the place which were over an inch in diameter!). Anyway, so far so good - it was very satisfying to be able to pick blackberries and raspberries at the same time. I wouldn’t try it with more sensitive plants but raspberries are almost as much of a thug as brambles so I’m sure they’ll cope!

Got a few hours gardening in yesterday – mostly moving barrowloads of rotted manure/soil mix to top up the raised beds and refill the tomato planters – all now covered and hopefully starting to warm up. I know some people have had snow but down here it was a lovely warm day despite the wind – greenhouse windows were opening again so I took a risk and put the first seedlings out in the greenhouse - they’ll like the extra light and I can always bring them back in if the weather looks like turning colder again. This has freed up some space to do some more indoor sowing – early peas, kale, garlic chives, perpetual spinach, chard, leeks, PSB and a first sowing of sweetcorn next on the list.

Anyone with a variety recommendation for perpetual spinach? Especially someone ‘up north’ after last years utter failure I’ve decided to give it a second chance.

My recommendation for spinach is as follows:
Sow fresh seed in September where you want it. In a greenhouse, outside, wherever.
Pick it all winter.
It will bolt as the days get longer, keep picking it until it gives up. Around May time.

Bin it and resow fresh seed 4 months later.

Perpetual spinach isn't actually perpetual, it just doesn't bolt in the first year. But what it does do is waste space that might be devoted to other crops. And it is basically chard, which although from the same family, is not the spinach that we know and love. So if you want these greens, grow chard.

Yes sackrifice a major tactical error

Rookie error; should have done it with peas not beans and then just eaten the shoots in a salad.

Hello - may I join? I've just taken over an allotment in the village - it's a bit less than a 10 pole one, though bear in mind that's just a term to me and I have no idea how long it really is! It's about 5, 6 metres wide, I think. It was cultivated continuously until last autumn, so has some mats of superficial weeds which are coming up easily, but in the 3 weeks I've had it, I can tell their evil roots are starting to spread and strengthen. I have so far dug over everything by hand - soil's beautiful and friable once you get the weeds off - but it's taking ages and I've barely scratched the surface.

An old chap on a plot nearby who'd been spraying his weeds came and told me he'd recommend doing the same to mine - very dilute solution of Roundup and leave a week, then rotivate in. I'm really torn now. Didn't want to use herbicide (our allotment does allow it) but I'm beginning to see that the weeds are going to take over before I've managed to get the buggers all out this month. :-/

I have plans for a massive raspberry bed (will make a cage) and desert gooseberries and currants. Plus courgettes for DS2 who only eats courgettes, hardy cucumbers, and carrots, and a few first early Vitabella potatoes, which are chitting. If it looks like being another hot summer I might try aubergines and peppers, so will get some seedlings underway.

Advice re. the weeds? It's my project, not counting on anyone else being able to help me, which is fine, but ... and I may be able to get someone to rotivate for some beer money.

Advice re. the weeds? It's my project, not counting on anyone else being able to help me, which is fine, but ... and I may be able to get someone to rotivate for some beer money

Each time a rotavator cuts into the soil it kills worms and cuts the weeds into more weeds.

What soil is it?

Is the soil dark and rich, or clay, or sandy?

Ours was clay which meant you could only dig the weeds out for about a fortnight in spring and a fortnight in autumn, otherwise it was too dry or wet.

My advice would be to cover the lot in cardboard or thick newspaper, or thick weed fabric.

Then dig over a small patch at a time, whatever you can dig in one session. then leave that as a stale seed bed for 2 weeks, hoe off any weed seeds that germinate, and then plant that bit up.

Then uncover another patch, rinse and repeat.

A 10 pole allotment will be a huge commitment, cover what you cannot deal with this season so that the lack of light weakens the perennial weeds.

You really need to decide as well; do you want an allotment that you dig over every year, or do you want paths and beds where you walk on the paths and grow in the beds? And then you can decide what you want your paths to be and work around that.

Incidentally, growing in beds rather than in rows, can increase your yields as you can get more crops into the space than having to leave a walking row in between each crop row.

Also, I'd focus on growing 4-5 things in year one, and grow them well.

Potatoes, Peas, Squashes, Beans, and Courgettes are pretty fail safe and will give you a fair amount of food to eat in the first season.
Potatoes in this month
Peas in April
The rest can go in mid May.

Just take it easy, dig thoroughly, plan well and don't overdo it.

And don't rotate. It's often the advice given to newcomers and that's what then swamps them with all the regrowing weeds that then take control.

Consider this: if weedkiller killed weeds, why are there still weeds? All you get if you use it is weeds that are stronger and more feisty than the ones you started off with.

glom - agree with sackrife's advice. I really wouldnt put weedkiller on the plot - who wants to eat stuff after that? Instead cover with something till you need the area - do you have any thick black plastic? Google things that are easy to grow - aubergines i've never tried because they have a reputation for being tricky outside and i am lazy. Potatoes and squash will cover large areas and stop weeds....so second advice from sackrife. google lazy/lack of time gardening and you will find lots of tips

Sunny day today, I’m moving around top soil into my new raised beds ready for planting in a few weeks.

Went into my shed today to find I have furry friends, any tips on removing rats?

Yes Sackrifice definitely a rookie error, peas are a good call. We could sprout some beans too. Spinach in autumn to go through winter sounds good. I tried it in spring last year and it was a disaster but several people on this thread have recommended it so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Afternoon !
welcome Glom - all good advice up there, not sure I can add anything , apart from definitely not rotavating - the weeds are just chopped up to come back more .
no plot - wind and rain and more to come tomorrow
DrWhy - I'm in East Yorkshire, and grow perpetual spinach. Not sure there is a variety as such - I have chard also, due to lack of attention

Am 3 weeks into my new allotment and unfortunately the weather has hampered progress. Ours doesn't have any rubbish removal or a skip and I've already done a billion tip runs - I've got 2 broken sheds, tons of general detritus, lots of broken glass, I've dug up 3 tarpaulins, there's 8 random doors/plastic shed panels. This is in addition to loads of rotted wood, waist high weeds and brambles all over!! I fear I will still be clearing this time next year!