Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 14 ! growing into summer

[bookbook]

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

The slow worms live in a corner of my plot where I leave some long grass and a sheet of rigid plastic on the ground next to it, whenever I lift it up there are usually a few under there but they disappear to hibernate in winter.

Forecast bad for us tomorrow too but I'm out for the day today (flying visit to Yorkshire Book ) so probably no gardening time this weekend.

We had frost here too this week. I pulled all of my sweetcorn plants and a few other bits and pieces. Haven't cleaned the beans yet as I'm hoping to collect some for seed. I don't think my pumpkin was quite ready but I'm so eager to harvest it! Hoping to get my garlic and shallots planted out in the next couple of days.

*cleared the beans...

So jealous of your slow worms Expletive! I haven't seen any since I was a kid.

Thanks books. There is moss everywhere in our backyard. I rather like it in the lawn (I also like the clover that has spread through it) but it's a pain in the garden. I guess I'll start removing it from now on!

My elbow has healed nicely, though the pup has done her best to hurt it a few times.

NZ doesn't have slow worms. They're interesting!

I spent 3 hours at the plot today. I cleared two beds and put down black polythene for the winter I also weeded my asparagus bed. I harvested the last of the patty pan squash and outdoor cucumbers as well as raspberries and carrots. I was given some pears so I am thinking along the lines of a raspberry and pear crumble tonight. When I pull up the black polythene in the spring there always slow worms underneath it. I don't know where they go but they move so fast I wouldn't be able to take a photo. You must have very compliant slow worms Expletive

Very snoozy slow worms. I lift the plastic sheet very slowly and carefully with my phone ready in my other hand for photos. They do usually slither off pretty quickly.

Forgot to ask: there was a lot of moss through the garden. I've turned it over. Do I need to do something to kill it off or will it just sort of compost into the soil? It'll compost. I'm studying mosses at the moment and am so tempted to ask you what species . I'm making a point of not removing any moss from my garden until I've identified it.

Moss in lawn will only disappear once the conditions are no longer right for it. It spreads by spores, and you can assume these are everywhere, so if you have the right conditions, moss will grow. The usual lawn moss is the beautifully named Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus.

On the positive side - the beautiful brightly coloured wax cap fungi won't grow in improved pasture - only in unimproved grassland which still has a covering of moss under the grass.

We used to have slow worms when we lived down south. Beautiful creatures, intelligent looking. Momentary shock always when you found one under a cushion .

Berry harvesting - if you think raspberries can be a chore, try alpine strawberries!

Thanks Mere. It's green moss.

Grouchy . Another few hours at the plot today. I've got another bed weeded and covered. I've had to pull out all my romanesco and savoy cabbages as the cabbage whites got the better of me. I will build a brassica cage over the winter and staple the netting onto it. 'Harvested lettuce and raspberries and picked up a few cooking apple fallers on the community orchard bit. A community shed had appeared by the mass compost heap. Nobody was around to ask about it, I hope it will have a loo in it, but I doubt but it would be good if it runs as a little shop like on Book's allotment. I await to find out.

Afternoon !
it's not raining!!!!
but I only had time to go and pick some veg for tea today. I have a new curly kale , which is rather pretty , and the first of the autumn cauliflowers was ready . I am hoping tomorrow morning is okay , so I can get on .
elephant - maybe you need to push for one!
I have to bite the bullet and clear the tomatoes out of the greenhouse this week - some of the plum ones are still ripening , but the cherry and salad are just about gone now , so may as well cut off the trusses and bring them in to ripen indoors .

Grouchy

@bookbook the squash cake recipe is

www.waitrose.com/home/recipes/recipe_directory/s/sticky-spiced-squashloaf.html

It looks a bit stodgy in the photo but is light and moist. And anything with squash in that DD will actually eat is a big hit so I will be making it again soon as we now have a squash glut and so far I've only managed to give one away

More clearing at the plot at the weekend. I finished clearing the main squash bed and DH cut down the climbing beans. We need to go back and dig over that bed properly. Then hopefully there will be a delivery of the communal manure soon and we can shift some of that onto the plot. Big project for this winter is to clear out the gooseberry bushes and old currant bushes which aren't doing anything and dig out the brambles which keep appearing in the middle.

Hammering it down here today, I can hear next doors gutters overflowing. Managed half an hour yesterday and the day before at the plot, brought home all my pumpkins, took down sunflowers (leaving heads on my pallet compost thing for the birds), took out all remaining tomatoes and pulled out some big clumps of couch grass in amongst the strawberries. Also took home the last of the potatoes. I seem to have less couch grass invasion than in previous years, I made a massive effort last autumn to dig out roots and it does seem to have helped, must keep on top of it.

Morning
thanks Cedar - it looks good :)
Raining heavily here too Expletive , due to for most of the day .
I also managed to get down the last 2 mornings , and dug up all the old strawberry bed , weeded the beds where the beans were they are ready for manure . I kept some of this years strawberries , and some runners , ready to replant in their new home .
Other than that , in the greenhouse I chopped the tomatoes down , just left the green tomatoes on the stems to hopefully ripen , and turfed out the cucumbers .

Rained most of yesterday, and supposed to rain again today although it's dry at the moment. Ground is saturated though so no allotment for me today. Think I shall spend some time thinking about what we want to plant next year.

That includes sweetcorn as both our plot neighbours had successful harvests this year so time to try again, more broccoli and brokali as these did well. Definitely trying a different potato variety next year as our main crop got badly slugged which is disappointing as there were some good sized tubers. Not sure what else.

Morning!
as with all things - yesterday was lovely , but we were going out , so only popped in to pick cauliflowers.
Today - was fine to start , then started to mizzle , but I decided to go and see if it would clear up . I picked sprouts and sprouting broccoli , dug up the last of the beetroot . Then the rain properly set in . I was clarted by the time I had tidied and put everything away , ah well .....

It has rained here all weekend, not a break at all yesterday, today it went to drizzle till about 10 now its full on rain again and looks set to stay. I am making pickled onions in
lieu of gardening.

Managed quite a few hours of weeding and tidying in between the rain. Squash bed all dug over and started sorting the fruit areas.

Still a few tomatoes on the plants and picked the last cucumber.
Had a good crop of butternut squash and crown prince squash this year. Want to put garlic in the next dry spell! After forgetting last year I am missing my home grown garlic.

Evening!
first time back at the plot for days

Lovely morning too , after a frost overnight .
Got my fruit cage all cleared and ready for a mulch .
Picked some veg for tea - a leek , some sprouting broccoli , and what is probably the last courgette .
Whilst looking around the outside of the fruit cage , found another 4 or 5 asparagus seedlings , so need to get those out and potted up , and also a bonus of some late raspberries :)

Today's foraging netted a few small unfertilised courgettes, 3lbs apples, 16 figs, a couple of Physalis berries, a big plate of tomatoes of varying degrees of ripeness, two bunches of grapes to put on our breakfast cereal tomorrow, and two mushrooms. But they were growing on leaf litter along the drive, and on reflection I'm not quite sure enough that they're Agaricus, so they're not going into the pot.

We're still averaging about 4 a day of worthwhile contributions to our meals from the garden, down from 7-8 in July/August/Sep. Fruit is immensely more productive than veg, probably because the fruit is shading out the veg. When you buy a 6ft stick labelled "Morus nigra", it's hard to believe that within 20 years it will be a 20ft monster mulberry with a girth of more than 2ft.

Give it another couple of hundred years Mere ... ours is 10ft diameter trunk and about 30 ft wide!

ours is 10ft diameter trunk and about 30 ft wide Are you in the south? There's one in the park opposite dating back to 1900 - it's bigger than ours, but not that much bigger. I'm not sure they grow that huge in the frozen north.

Afternoon!
well, I think that is partly why mulberries fell out of fashion - no -one has big enough gardens anymore!
Well its been a wet old week here , but I did manage an hour on Friday , getting beds ready for winter , picked a cauliflower ( they are all coming into curd now) . Yesterday I spent an hour or so taking all the remaining tomatoes off the plants , and clearing the greenhouse . I have a big bowlful of ripe ones , and as many to ( hopefully) ripen .
Today was all morning there - weeded around carrots , and fingers crossed - I may finally have some worth harvesting and eating - will pull some during the week to see . Got another bed ready for winter , and prepped up an area to sow my overwinter broad beans in the next week .
Also emptied one of the raised beds that is going to be moved - I have the biggest pile of lovely soil and compost piled up on tarpaulin now . I have another 3 more to do yet ......
Picked another cauliflower, and some sprouts for tea .
And now its raining again - I don't think we have managed a whole day without rain for about 2 weeks now .

I think that is partly why mulberries fell out of fashion - no -one has big enough gardens anymore! Main reason I think is their lack of shelf life - 36 hours in the fridge if you're lucky. I pick, we eat what we can in a day, and the rest go straight into the deepfreeze. That certainly would be the reason they're not grown commercially, and most people, at least at the beginning of their growing career, grow what they're used to eating. I've got a reprint of the Vilmorin veg book of 1885, and the number of vegetables in there is mind-boggling. It seems that all the "new" vegetables that are becoming available for gardeners (carrots that aren't carrot coloured, chinese artichokes, "japanese" vegetables, good-king-henry, golden beetroot etc) were already grown in the 19th century.

I think ours is at least a couple of hundred years old and we are in Berkshire ... it's leaning a lot now, had a discussion just yesterday with DH that we need to get a very good tree surgeon in to carefully trim it to preserve it. I think most of the really old ones end up nearly horizontal? I've never managed to harvest any berries, they are so soft when ripe it turns into a murder scene immediately.
I am renovating my disgracefully neglected allotment at the moment and am reading this thread from the beginning for inspiration from all you lovely gardeners!