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

Sow them in May/June. And you can have them this year.

It's space i'm short of rather than time

Just checked on my forced rhubarb, I think i might need a bigger forcing pot

Anyone got their spuds in yet?

I love the look of those kohl rabbi Sack. I will have a google.

I have spuds in, planted some early ones a few weeks ago, they are starting to appear, planted 2 more lots yesterday (I’m using potato sacks).

Bought some round courgette seeds in Lidl so am attempting to grow those, I love courgettes but they always go a bit crazy and I can’t give them away.

Lovely sunshine here so I spent a couple of hours at the plot. Luckily my plot neighbour was there so I could ask him about me removing a couple of branches from a hazel hedge/trees on his plot which overshadow my top bed he agreed and before I knew it he had got out the saw and had them down and off to the bonfire site. I just did a bit of weeding and watering the new fruit trees and sweet peas. I've 2 asparagus spears popped out of the ground but unfortunately my rhubarb is stressed again and flowering. I gave it a good watering and cut the flowers off. I've got stressed GCSE students at work and stressed rhubarb at the allotment. Is it me?

Just need to dig and clear the weeds Metericious then I can plant my 2nd earlies. A lovely afternoon at the plot today.
Today was spent weeding around the fruit bushes/raspberries/rhubarb/strawberries and mulching with the remaining home grown compost. The ground is already much more difficult to dig and weed than last week!

I've put spuds in today, but they're in growbags in the greenhouse at present so not sure that counts

I think I’ll put my second earlies in tomorrow, I’m near the sea in the NW and we rarely get frosts.

Here in Melbourne, at the end of the first month of autumn, I've cleared, manured and fertilised the sunniest bed and planted broad beans, rainbow chard and spring onions seedlings. The latter is an experiment as I reckon this year-round full sun bed will let me grow them, even through winter. When they're ready, I'm going to try cutting them off and leaving the bulb to grow again. I hope.

Rocket continues rampant and I've left some young 'uns to give me salad in winter. I grow all herbs for use in the front garden near the kitchen, thought others; sage and marjoram, run wild in the back yard.

I'm going to try purslane and aptenia cordilfolia as an addition to salads. They grow all year round, the latter a very good ground cover that attracts bees.

We've had the first rain in months and months. It's always good for bringing down herds of cockatoos to see what interesting insects and grubs have emerged.The air is loud with birdsong.

Discovered this morning that someone has stolen our hosepipe. Not quite sure when, as it's not been used in a while, and just noticed this morning that it was missing. Sad to think that i need to think about locking it up!

Afternoon!
echt - rain for you and cockatoos - do they make a right racket? Sounds wonderful
tiz - mmm so someone has 'borrowed' it eh? some people .... And yes sad that others think they have a right to help themselves .
Not put my potatoes in - maybe end of this week, time allowing .
Yesterday , i got a couple of hours done in the morning, then DH came with me in the afternoon, so we could cut the grass. The lawnmower would not start, so its come home to have some TLC. But the grass did get cut. DH was sorting out the replacement manure bin, and we put up the new raised bed boxes on top of weed suppressant, ready to fill .
Today I had another go , been doing some more weeding , started filling the raised beds with manure - just one wheelbarrow each today, more later in the week with compost and topsoil to add to the mix.
Picked purple sprouting broccoli and leeks . It was lovely in the sun :)
The baby plum tree is now out in full flower, and the greengage is not far behind . Tomatoes and aubergines have all germinated on my windowsill, but no sign of peppers as yet.

Its all gathering pace

Got the keys to my little allotment a few weeks ago. I went into this with the intention of going no-dig because, well, no digging. In part because I didn't want to have to buy a lot of gardening tools. Don't have a car and don't have a shed just yet so would have meant lugging them around as well.

So I started by dragging a bunch of large IKEA cardboard sheets over in a wheelbarrow, managed to cover one (small!) bed. Turns out you need a whole lot of cardboard for this. Then the compost. I can get four bags of 20l in one go. Left them on top of the cardboard (in the bags) to weigh it down until I could get more. When I got back a couple days later, some animal had dragged the bags off and torn into them. Lost probably one whole bag that way. Never mind, I had four more, spread the lot on the cardboard. Would have needed at least that amount again to get anywhere near a decent depth!!!

Next time I got back, some animal had dug into the cardboard so there were bits flying around everywhere. This is when I decided to be a conventional gardener!!!

Treated myself to some fancy tools (the Wolf clicky ones so I don't have to carry mulitple handles). Reckon this will work out cheaper than bags and bags of compost, plus exercise is so good for you!

Got one small bed all weeded and nice, but left the marigolds (I think they are) then popped in my seed potatoes. They're not in a row exactly as I was working around the flowers. I've decided generally that this year, I'll work around what's already there: a bed full of strawberries that have spread out a bit so need to weed and contain, some raspberry canes, some bushes I have yet to identify! Have also popped in my gooseberry and red currant bushes and they seem to be loving the soil.

Overall, very pleased and enjoying it, but it's not as straightforward as I thought!

Today, thinking of sewing some lettuce. Do I need to cover that? It seems that anything "green" will need to be protected by nets, or are there things that don't need it?

Stolen from the side of the house bookbook , not an allotment situation where the 'borrowed' aspect is more plausible. Not sure whether we'll replace it, it's quite expensive due to the length we'd need, and most of the time we use rainwater for watering.

Just one of my asparagus is putting up shoots though that one is quite well advanced which makes me worry a bit about the others, hope they're just a bit slow. On the plus side first rhubarb pie of the new season yesterday :)

Catlady I wonder what critter is partial to compost and cardboard, rats may be? But very odd. Tiz how disappointing about your hose. I hope a thousand holes appear when they first try to use it, but a bit weird that someone who actually wanted a hose is involved in petty crime. I had a quick nip to the plot today to pick some PSB. My other plot neighbour, grumpy Ron, was there we had a bit of a catch up as I haven't seen him since the end of last summer. Anyway I told him about my stressed rhubarb amongst other things and he offered me some of his, it feels like a real marker of spring to have rhubarb in the kitchen.

I wish you lived near me, elephant as I'm drowning in rhubarb and a bit bored of it already. I've picked loads, and it's waist-height still. And I'm tall. No idea why it's so rampant, as I don't do anything to it. I've divided some and replanted in shadier spots, and given crownlets away too. But still it thrives.

booky your produce always looks so Good! Lucky you having all that manure to hand. We've had some wood chip recently, but that is literally all.

I had a lovely few hours yesterday plottering. It was so sunny and I was joined by many fat bumblebees and a few butterflies too. I weeded and sowed some sugarsnaps and mangetout, and beetroots. And emptied my compost as much for fruit bushes, so am feeling virtuous. My jostaberry has flowers ready to break, which seems quite early. We'll, jostaberry #1 does anyway - I took a few pruning/cuttings last year and they all took, so I have yet more fruit bushes this year.

I have never tasted kohlrabi but I feel I need purple spaceships in my life.

I too have foundered on trying to go no-dig with my new plot. I've spent an alarming amount on mulch (I'm not telling DP how much this project has cost so far) and only just covered about 1/5th of it. I 'm going to see how that works out and maybe roll it out in stages.

Three rows of spuds and some herbs planted in an uncardboarded bit this weekend. Strawberries seem happy enough in the cardboarded section so far. I planted some peas in that bit too a few weeks ago, but no sign of them yet.

elephant, you may be onto something there - found a dead rat on the plot this afternoon, yuck!

Re kohlrabi, it's one reason I wanted to try the allotment as it's so hard to find. Made the rather predictable mistake of sowing way too many seeds in my little window propagator so had to repot them already - 94 little seedlings 😬😬😬 Some purple, some green, so so looking forward to them!

My kohlrabi seeds came today.

Does anyone grow gooseberries? Looking at something to grow along my fence by my veggie patch.

echt in the UK there is a winter variety of spring onion that we tried this last winter. It survived the weather (not really any snow this year) but didn't grow that big so I don't think we'll bother again.

catlady I vote for either rats or foxes. I've had something, probably a rat, try eating into an old bag of compost in the back garden before now. I think that no dig can work well - see how things go this year which will give you an indication of how good your soil is. The most cost effective way of getting manure/compost to put on top is either to find a stables which will give you it cheap or to buy in bulk. That depends on whether there is access to have it delivered. I think you have to view it as an investment over the longer term as it is an upfront cost.

We had a touch of frost last night - it was on the roof tops and cars when I woke up this morning. I have planted my potatoes apart from the main crop which I might get to plant this week. We are going away for a week on Saturday and the chits are starting to get too leggy so I'd like to get them in the ground. Depends on the weather and other commitments though. Otherwise they will have to wait.

Not sure if my peas survived last nights frost (luckily I have back up growing indoors). Hopefully potatoes will be ok.

We had rats, had to get someone in to help me get rid of them last week, they had gotten into both my sheds and made a right mess, my neighbour has chickens which seems to be where they came from.

I love gooseberries - captivator is mu favourite variety. Not sure how they'd fare on a fence though. What about black/tay/wine/logan berries or mini kiwis/chilean guavas if you don't need thorns.

Una I have ordered a thornless variety. It’s not a wooden fence, it’s a metal fence (not sure what they are called, basically housing association fencing) it’s directly behind my veg patch and gets a lot of sun light. I like the idea of Logan berries and did look at the kiwis but was unsure if they would thrive in my garden.

Metal chain fence.