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

Evening!
ah Sacrifice had it on the biodegradable pots - they don't do a very good job of biodegrading I've found !
Bean - not hijacking it at all. Bindweed always comes back, sadly , leave a tiny bit , and it just re roots . Digging it out is the best thing in my view , though it is hard to get the whole root out when the soil is hard . If you can dig out the majority , it does get easier , eventually . And the weed membrane will certainly help - it should be easier to dig when you take the membrane off at least :) . Mm sounds as if your committee is a bit harsh - if its been a mess when you took it over , by yourself its a lot of work . Did you get offered any help at all , even if only to strim back the worst of it ?
Well, I have planted out french beans this morning - the purple Cosse Violette , and the last of the calabrese . I actually emailed my seed company yesterday , to complain about the other variety of french beans - a new one called Python. I have sown them 3 times , with no success . They replied really quickly , and admitted they had some complaints from others , so are sending me a packet of Cobra ( the one I usually grow) , but they are going to have to get a shift on to germinate - they will be about 14-20 days behind the others . At least it wasn't me !
DH came with me this afternoon , the door is on the fruit cage , the net is secure , just have a few bits of sorting to do and the currants are safe ( she said , fingers crossed )

Beanpole I would do as suggested and cover with manure and black polythene, cut crosses in it and plant BNS as it takes up a lot of room and looks like you are filling the plot. I would then start the raised beds a couple at a time as the soil etc becomes pricey. Make sure you put weed membrane under the raised beds. When the Dcs were small I covered 'the lawn' in weed membrane and covered it with bark chips. When I eventually lifted it about 8 years ago, pulling up the bindweed roots was a breeze.

The committee don't really offer practical help and they don't have a strimmer, so it's up to plot holders. But thanks everyone, I feel like a I know what I need to do now. We have an inspection coming up next month so i WILL have a pumpkin patch by then

Beautiful day, I spent a couple of hours at the plot planting out my tomatoes and courgettes. Grumpy Ron was a bit concerned as I was putting them in the same bed as last year. I really should start some crop rotation but it will be fine. Twocan Dave was there also on the other side of my plot so it was all quite jolly. I spent the afternoon potting on cucumbers, squash, cosmos and sweetcorn, they will go in sometime next week, and I've got the battery strimmer going again. I might ask Grumpy Ron to look at my petrol one.

We too had a lovely day on the plot. Planted/sowed the last rows of beans. We dried a lot last year and plan to do more this year.

Tomatoes in the tunnel are now starting to show the first set fruit. Broad beans are starting to show pods on the first row sown at the back end of last year.

Brought home onions, irises, rhubarb. A bit of a challenge for ready, steady, cook!

Mange tout Rodney, mange tout.

First of the Oregan Sugar Pod picked this morning. Small I know but perfectly formed.

Planted out most of my squashes this week, mainly the long Italian ones. Tromba etc. And I've done another sowing of dwarf and climbing beans and a few cukes, and peas to replace the space in the 3 onion beds for when all the overwintering onions are out.

Thanks for the tips. I can't leave it unfortunately as the allotment committee are already on my back for not cultivating enough of the plot

Ok so what you need to do is sow about 20 squashes; pumpkins, trombas, butternuts. Keep the black plastic down. Space out your squashes all over the plot and plant them like I said above, cut a cross in the plastic, dig out the soil, mix with well rotted manure and plant, water in and close up the plastic around the plant stem. the plants will grow and ramble all over the plastic and look like you have cultivated the whole plot.

Beanpole, I don’t think it looks too bad. . I think I would get some brassicas in there, fancy diamond pattern may impress the committee. And try a green manure if you have too much to cope with, then you can dig it in in the autumn or even next spring. Packets of cornflower and marigold seed broadcast are very cheering, and of course radish. Mushroom compost is good, so is horse manure. Yours might also be a good plot for a bit of lasagna gardening - wet cardboard with compost on top.

Aargh, had an afternoon of transplanting and thinning planned and it is raining heavily. The plants do need it though.

Ah, here you all are, I lost you.

Haven't RTFT, sorry. I'm more on top of things than usual for this time of year, planted out sweetcorn, runner beans and sunflowers this weekend. Ate my first strawberry. Everything seems to be growing well (including bindweed). I too have slowworms, Mum, Dad and lots of babies, must try and get a photo.

Hi everyone, I've been reading along with the the previous and the "other" allotment thread and was hoping someone could help me out with my aphid problem.

I have potatoes in a pot that I've been watching up, I've noticed green flies underneath.. what is the suggested action to take.

Thanks!

Looking for a little advice. What do you all recommend to get rid of flea beetles? We took over our plot in November and had put in Pak Choi plants a week or so ago. They have been decimated by flea beetles which have now moved onto the kale seedlings that have come through and my radishes. It's really dispiriting.

I was going to buy BugFree but there are lots of Amazon reviews saying it didn't work. Any suggestions please?

Ah, I found you!

I broke my arm last week, which is rubbish timing as everything is suddenly shooting up, including the weeds. My parents arrive from NZ tomorrow so I'll have to put them to work.

The evil slugs have devoured most of my magic purple beans so I need to sow some more and get some nematodes.

Hello to the new people!

grouchy - i've got a frog, and fingers crossed so far no slugs or snails. its living in a little plastic bucked i sunk into the ground.

Grouchy how did you manage to break your arm? Bad luck though.

Afternoon all!
alice and Hovering - welcome!
alice - are they aphids ? if so , a couple of possible ways . 1st - non organic you can use insecticide . 2nd organic - either spray with soapy water ( a few drops of washing up liquid added to water in a spray bottle) , or up it to neem oil or similar
Hovering - flea beetles are a real nuisance . Not much stops them I seem to think once you have them , but maybe covering susceptible crops with environmesh to reduce the adults hopping from plant to plant is probably the best option. The plants usually recover if they can grow enough through the small seedling phase , so keep them watered , don't let them stress ,and get them growing stronger .
Grouchy - oh no! good timing on your parents part . I thought you were a fan of Sluggo? Horrible things - they have been nibbling some of my calabrese

Been a bit busy last couple of days - , non plotmenting, but have managed to get a bit of work in - yesterday I hoed around potatoes, banked them up a bit , hoed around the sweet peas - tiniest bit of rain = a green swathe of germinating weeds . picked asparagus . Today I planted out all the squashes , and dug up the very last spring cabbages . I complained to the company I got the new asparagus crowns from . They wanted a photo to see what the problem was , so I did a really tidy job of hand weeding to photo , so its looking very smart , if lacking in asparagus spears .... Lets see . I know its been a tough year , but everything else seems to be doing okay, and they were not cheap .
Its raining this afternoon , which is a plus . I have set raspberries on the newish canes at the plot , also broad beans have set too. A few unripe strawberries as well .
The greenhouse is all potted up - cucumbers, aubergines , peppers, basil and coriander are all in their summer pots and hopefully raring to go .
Just have more sweetcorn to plant out , the courgettes and next succession leeks , some more cutting flowers and I am almost there apart from the missing french beans .

No rain really materialised here so I was able to get far more done than i thought, on the other hand, the ground could really do with the rain.

Just general weeding, thinned my beetroot and onions. Planted another courgette (Grisette de Provence). One of the ones that went out earlier is just starting to flower, although male flowers only at the moment. Tomatoes are pretty much all in their final positions in the greenhouse except 3 that i totally forgot about on an upstairs windowsill. I got given an old dustbin so i'm the last of the seed potatoes have been chucked in there with some soil/compost.

Chillis don't seem to be doing much, inside or in the greenhouse and neither do the aubergines. Also need to sow some more climbing french beans as i suspect the squirrel has nabbed the ones I've sown direct.

Flower wise, sweet peas are coming along nicely, cosmos have just gone into the border, and i have more petunias than i know what to do with.

dreaming We used to have a little washing up bowl pond that I hoped would attract frogs but the puppy decided it was irresistible to drink from so we got rid.

elephant Tripped over the children's rocking horse and fractured my elbow. Very painful!

books I'd prefer nematodes, but Sluggo is a great back up. Have ordered some as slug nematodes weren't available on Amazon today, strangely.

It's raining. Whoop.

Just on the way back from a bank hol weekend away and popped into the allotment to water and don't have to as it is pouring down. Hurrah. My potatoes so need it.

GrouchyKiwi ouch! Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

A little rain here but really barely enough to wet the lips of the plants.

We now have a few tomatoes set and the plants are shooting up their strings.

Aubergine and pepper plants are sharing the poo coffin in the tunnel and growing away like mad.

Oh dear. Went to the allotment this weekend having not been for ages. Last time I tried to clear enough of a raised bed to plant potatoes but failed. They still haven't been planted....now the grass us up to my waste. All the other allotments haved mowed paths etc but I can't lift our petrol mower into the car every week, I don't have a strimmer and I really can't afford to rent one every week from h&s.

I'm going to have to give the plot up, aren't I???

Doing the rain dance. Just came out of work and it absolutely chucked it down. My fruit and veg will be happy.

I'm going to have to give the plot up, aren't I?

Can you cover it and plant through?

Why have you got grass, is it just where you haven't cultivated it?

Ah waist high grass, it grows really quickly doesn't it! It caught me out too - I just spent a few evenings hacking at it with shears. Not neat but it made a difference. Problem now is where to put the hay cut grass - I need to build the compost heap!

Grass starts taking over my plot the moment my back is turned and it can get waist high very quickly (the plot next to me has had 5 owners in 5 years and cycles from well cultivated to prairie on a regular basis). It might be worth having a word with your allotment association if you are just struggling with this one aspect, there might be someone who could strim it in return for perhaps you watering their plot sometimes - my strimmer has a lot of charge and I sometimes do the edges of friends plots as well as my own.