Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 14 ! growing into summer

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Well, here we are - its the end of May and after a cold spell , we are heading for summer .
Everyone welcome to join us in the joy of growing your own , sharing the ups and downs , tips and advice
previous thread HERE

I was told when I bought my blueberry to water with rainwater’s so that is what I have done. I don’t know whether it was good advice, but mine are ripening. I agree that they are always smaller than those in the shops though. I hope I haven’t been making work for myself - it would be quicker to turn the hose on them!

Hi fellow veg growers, haven’t been on here for a week due to having emergency surgery on Tuesday, only just got home and my veg patch isn’t looking great even though my mum watered it for me. I do have some cherrie tomatoes but she hasn’t picked my strawberries so they are rotting and my PSB looks sad. I can’t do any digging or bending for a while so it’s going to be frustrating as I watch the bind weed take over the garden.

I’ve read up this morning and all the advice suggests you’re right well. Will do the same.

It's because blueberries are acid loving so if you water with tap water with large amounts of lime in it, it isn't as happy as if it is watered with rain water. However in a drought, if you haven't got limey water, it will be fine.

Today I weeded the growing veggie patch of all the sprouting warrigal greens, putting some larger specimens into pots with a view to having them as container veggies in the front garden and handing some on to friends. It's a good veg, excellent ground cover and holds well in dry weather, but a bit of a bully, so experimenting here.

The fallow bed was weeded, manured, put some wood ash on it. Forgot the crushed eggshells and soil wetters. Will do that tomorrow.

I pulled up wintergrass seemingly for ever, but it's a bugger and grows to seeding very quickly, so I have to be on it every other day.

Nasturtiums are coming up all over so plenty for pesto in late winter.

Lovemusic - I saw your other thread this morning and your name was familiar, I hope you are starting to feel better.

I keep my blueberries in giant tubs on the patio, they generally get enough rain without watering them but I got caught in the heatwave last year and found the blueberries all shrivelled up like sultanas on the bush. That bush didn't survive, the other did but doesn't bear much fruit and has none this year, despite looking healthy so it might be time to replace them. The alive but non-fruiting one looks quite attractive though.

My garden is not a happy place. I didn't get around to putting compost on the garden over Winter and it is very lacking in nutrients. I'm giving up on most things. Will have some peas to harvest soon, and some broad beans. The strawberries are doing fine (have had nearly 2kg of them already) and we have lots of ripe raspberries already. I made some jam yesterday with slug- and bird-damaged berries and it is delicious, so that makes me feel a bit happier about things.

Will work hard on getting the soil back to a healthy state for next year, and might rethink what I try to grow. I want to redo the whole garden anyway.

Grouchy could you try liquid feeds? Feeds like seaweed, comfrey, nettle or molasses are cheap and pretty quick to take effect. If you're giving up on stuff then a green manure crop would start building up the soil now.

That's an idea. Thanks Una. Will give it a go.

Afternoon!
oh Lovemusic - take care , your veg patch will still be there when you are fit and healthy , so don't stress.
Same to you Grouchy - has your arm healed yet ? You have such a lot on your plate . It certainly helps to feed every year - can you mulch , or get some organic sterilised manure perhaps? and agree with Una - a good liquid or foliar feed would perk everything up .
echt - nasturtium pesto sounds lovely - I don't think I grow enough to make any though .
Well - two trips to the plot today - this morning weeding /hoeing around the squashes and sweetcorn , watered the squashes and courgettes , and hoiked out the virus courgette , hope I have done it soon enough .
Dug up some Charlotte potatoes for tea , and cut the first lot of Brokali , and a couple of ( unmunched!! ) little lettuce.
Went back this afternoon with DH . Whilst he cut the grass, I picked more redcurrants and raspberries . Still yet more redcurrants to come this next week .
Must dig up my onions and garlic ....
Hoping we get a bit of rain soon - its starting to dry up a bit .

Had to nip home from work at lunch as I had left the greenhouse door shut and it was so hot- I worried I would lose plants. Everything is still behind but at least I have green tomatoes formed. Chillies only just flowering, cucumbers only just forming . Strawberries are being eaten even under netting - do woodlice eat them?? I kept finding guilty looking ones inside the damaged fruit. My summer raspberries are rubbish- lacklustre and malformed - I think they will be coming out at the end of the season and I’ll stick with the autumn ones. Lovely red gooseberries, far more than last year. Loads of basil which I’ve been making walnut pesto with as it’s so much cheaper than pine nuts and still lovely. Growing garlic for the first this year- need to look up when to pull it out! Do you think I have time to see more lettuce? My mixed leaves have got a bit out of hand and insect-y. I was thinking a little gem type would be better

Cathpot woodlice eat strawberries in my garden. I think it is because they are in a wood faced raised border. It's baby slugs at the plot but I still seem to get plenty.

Can I do anything about that? I’ve put wool fleece underneath them - would straw be better?

I'm intrigued by the nasturtium pesto, is that using the flowers or leaves?!

I have my first crop, some peas!! It's a miracle really, I literally just scattered the seeds on some really rubbish soil.

This is not a bad recipe, but I add flowers and unripe nasturtium pods, too:

www.marthastewart.com/349891/nasturtium-pesto

It's an easy pesto in Melbourne because here nasturtiums are a late winter/early spring plant, and grows like crazy, only falling over in the summer when frazzled by the heat.

My climbing beans are utterly rubbish - do you think it's pointless to plant more now? I did sow some in situ when I planted out the home-sown beans, but nothing grew. And some beans that were planted out, died. I have more empty poles than occupied!

Nb I will also plant dwarf french beans, probably tomorrow...

Thanks for the recipe echt - I make a lot of spinach pesto from perennial spinach and hazelnuts , which is good too :)
Cath - I tend to think the woodlice use a hole already nibbled as a home from home in truth , rather than as a primary offender , but I may be wrong!
yay Beanpole - I would have eaten those raw as I was picking in truth!
Spotted - I think you still have time to sow some beans - we have a long way before any frosts , so even a young plant may well produce .
On that note , I tried everywhere locally to get a couple of extra courgette plants with no success , so I have sowed some - you never know!
No plot today , but I did run up to pick raspberries , as today is the day to make a summer pudding - my DH's favourite .

No, sow more now!

I sowed some last week and they are up already. I am sowing another batch this weekend, and I'm in sowing mode for my autumn and winter crops right now.

I've got a jam jar of my 2019 seed mix, it has a large range of stuff in there and I have just possibly a good 1000 seeds this morning, in trays, in modules, in puts and in individual mini modules. I'll be putting them into wherever I have harvested my spuds in the 4 potato beds. I'll do some climbing beans and put them on the edge and get them climbing up canes. The thing I have learnt about the UK is that we have such weird weather that it is always a chance that we have a warm autumn so it's always worth putting stuff in later and see what happens.

Iv'e also sown 12 Maskotka bush tomatoes, which will be grown in pots and which I will move into the greenhouse as the normal tomatoes die off and get stripped out in October. I'll also keep sowing my 2019 mix and transplant the later ones into spaces in the greenhouse. And if I see any volunteer tomatoes, I'll pot them up and move them into the greenhouse later in the season and grow them as bush not vines as well.

I try to crop from my allotment and greenhouse most weeks of the year, so sowing now and over the next 2 months for winter is essential. The idea is that the quicker crops will be out and eaten by the time the slower crops are ready.

In my mix:
kale
cabbage
carrots x 3 varieties
fennel x 2 varieties
radish daikon
lettuce - cut and come again type
basil
fenugreek
flax
red celery
chinese cabbage
cinnamon basil
beetroot x 3 varieties
home saved chard multicolourd
mustard for leaves
kohl rabi
root parsley
pak choi
tatsoi
swede

When I transplant them, they will be transplanted randomly and planted in a 2 inch grid.

I'll also have the jar to hand and sow in the same grid, if I get any spare spaces that I wasn't expecting.

I'm also sowing a large amount of random peas to go in any spare spaces.

Well, I am taking that as 100% YES to sow. So sow I shall! Today.
There is def too much empty soil showing at the plot, so I'll set off some more courgettes and anything else that takes my fancy.

I won't sow any more tomatoes however. Because obviously I am rooting armpits.

I have just up a load of carrots though I’m not meant to be gardening. Making room for more crops (beetroot and more carrots), though I’m now tempted to plant more beans.

Managed to get some plants in our new bed today, plug plant delivery due this week (my mum bought DS a Rocket garden for Christmas and this will be our July delivery). More prep for another bed started today but hoping to go back on Monday without the children so that I can work with a bit more direction.
Met the chair of the committee today who seemed pleased we were making progress so feeling positive all round...

Today's harvest: 800g raspberries both from my own canes and my downstairs' neighbours' canes (as they're away for 3 weeks), more wild strawberries (have 150g in total now) plus some strawberries from my neighbours (didn't realise they had "real" strawberries, so quite a few had gone over since they left). Had already picked 700g yesterday, so think I'll make strawberry jam with them for her (and me ).

With the raspberries I'd already picked (about 700g), I now have more than enough to make raspberry jam and have some left over to have on their own with cream

Also riddled a few (200g) Arran Pilot potatoes - shaws really not ready yet, but dh says they were nice.

Picked the first few of cutting flowers I'd sowed - cornflowers.

Then went back out to pick a few peas (which I had as mange tout), salad leaves, chives, oregano and some tiny, tiny spring onions.

I need to catch up with everyone's posts, but have had a quick look through and love all the produce pics! Here's my first two baby beetroots from my little plot. I'm very proud of them, even though it's just two. Everything is growing well: some flowers have formed on my potatoes; flowers on the tomatoes; PSB and beetroot doing well and not too nibbled. Fennel is growing like weeds! I don't even like eating it, but like them as plants and flowers!

Gosh yes, this has reminded me that I must get on with summer sowing. Lots of things that I always think, oh yes, I'll plant that after the solstice and then suddenly it's August September and I've done nothing.

Fennel is growing like weeds!

I leave fennel to grow as weeds, it is excellent for ladybirds as they seem to attract the larvae in the spring. If you do cut them down, leave some stems in a pile in the garden as they hibernate in them.

Then when I need some fennelly aspect in a dish, I just use a few leaves finely chopped.