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

Titsy looking forward to the picture, can you earth up your potatoes a bit more if you think they are too shallow?

Yes I probably could elephant but it would cover most of the leaves - is that an issue? Hopefully the pics will attach now!

Wow at the pictures Titsy some serious work gone on there. Yes, you can pile the soil on the potatoes, I have the Quantocks but Grumpy Ron next plot along has the Himalayas.

Wow Titsy your plot looks amazing!

That is a fabulous plot now Titsy

A lovely few days here planting out, though the squashes are not looking too happy. Need to sow more spinach and lettuce after some disasters.

Some bushes are not looking happy - in fact one looks dry/no fruit. Need to investigate but looks like an aphid attack on a currant bush that normally is heavy with fruit.

Titsy what an amazing garden. I never knew allotments could be so big.

My seeds are coming up - silver beet, beetroot and radish. Waiting on spring onions.

Radishes are ripe here, have planted out tomatoes and sweet peas and salad greens are coming along. I wonder if I overwatered my squash as the seedlings seemed to rot through at soil level, but later ones are growing fast.

Slight diversion, but have noticed froth on a lavender and nearby pinks, as on pic. Any advice please.

LIZS, that looks like cuckoo spit.

Yes that is a tiny little froghopper getting ready to be born.

www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/other-garden-wildlife/insects-and-other-invertebrates/beetles-and-bugs/froghopper/

They sound cuter than they actually are.

We're into our 6th day of rain here. Thankfully it hasn't been constant so the garden's not too soggy, but I'd quite like to get some weeding done!

Evening !
wow titsy - thats fabulous , you have put in such a lot of work , and its showing :)
The Clitterati - allotments can be all sizes - mine is very big (a traditional size plot about 8 metres by 60 odd metres ) but they can be a lot smaller too - depends on the site .
I had a very busy day at the plot - trips both this morning , and afternoon.
I had been offered some bonfire burnings , which I thought would be a few wheelbarrows full , which was going to be spread around the fruit bushes and such. Was sent a message that it had been left at my shed.
well - I had the most enormous heap of the stuff, so started off this morning moving it around ( about 8 barrows full ) . Then I prepped up another bed ready for planting leeks next week .
I picked asparagus , and got given a lovely lettuce and a bag of newly dug potatoes . Went back this afternoon with DH to finish off the fruit cage - nets all secured , and some paving stones laid at the door. Weeded it all inside ( chasing bindweed of course! ) and then barrowed the rest of the stuff to mulch around the currant bushes .
am bushed now , but its starting to look tidy . Still need to straw and net the strawberries , but they are nowhere near ripe yet, so have a couple of days before its urgent .
No rain here - been warm and sticky , so hoping for rain on Sunday , fingers crossed.

Morning
done a stint at the plot this morning .
1st of June and summer around the corner . :) A bit muggy but grey today
Planted out some more cosmos in the flower bit , and moved some self seeded ( is there anything else?) borage into the same area . It is a bit of a menace is borage , but the bees love it , and the seedlings are easy enough to pull out .
Weeded around the peas ( said borage ...) and they are setting lovely , as have the broad beans . Strawberries in the new bed are looking like I will get a decent crop from last years runners , just need to get some straw and net for protection on.

Wow busy couple of days book!

I spent a couple of hours at the plot today. Lots of strimming and weeding and I planted out a few things from home. My cat has been on a mission to use the plant pots as a toilet so I've transplanted my beetroot, lettuce and spring onions from containers to the plot. Also planted out my courgette, cucumbers and a few strawberries and netted a lot of it.

Happy 1st of June!

Lovely photos! I’ve spent 2 hours tackling a section of fence with a massive diseased climbing hydrangea on it. That’s now gone and I discovered 2 clematis hanging on for dear life underneath it. Bought a kiwi vine from asda for about £3 and put that in - it’s a sunny spot so I’m hoping it survives. I’ve seen one at a friends house locally that was enormous and produced ridiculous unusable amounts of fruit. Have reprieved the pear tree for now, as it sensibly is looking perkier- although no fruit, so not in the clear yet.

Cathpot I was looking at kiwis in the garden centre today. A friend up the road has a very successful one. £3 is a much better price though, I may take a trip to Asda on Monday.
Apart from being swayed by kiwis, I think I am all planted out, apart from the very slow germinating peppers but they are going next door's plot greenhouse. Sweetcorn in today so all to do now is weed, water, strim and harvest I hope

£3.00 kiwi is a bit annoying. Ipaid £15.00 for mine, and then it seemed to die, but has perked up again. I have a self fertile one, think it’s Jenny, but some need another To fruit.. I cleared a section 1 metre square today. Don’t know whether to do my started late and tiny tomatoes, to move a courgette that may be crowded, to save it for the leeks when they get bigger or to do herbs and beetroot.
Ialsoplanted a cardoon that I was given. Love the look of them but they are so big and I found it inedible. Does anyone eat them?

I was also given a cardoon. It is in a very shady bit of the garden to be 'architectural' and perhaps not grow too big. I couldn't believe the size of Monty's cardoons on GW the other week. I think it's used as a flavouring rather than a food stuff, but I might be wrong.

I was at that rugby club all afternoon (and morning was spent baking) with a French club visiting with their U13 and U14 teams (and I had to look after the groaning table of cakes even though I am on the MN HFLC Boot Camp ), so didn't have much time to spend in the garden - even though today is supposed to be the only good day of the weekend

Have just spent a wee while outside on principle and planted out 5 cavolo Nero plugs and 10 dwarf French beans - but then the midges got too much

Made the first of this year's cut-and-come-again salads (using the bright & spicy - mostly brassica - mix, with a few radishes, on Thursday. (picture is of the bed before I cut half the row).

I grew one before. Got about 10 ft tall. You are supposed to strip the stems and cook them, but it’s nasty work and they didn’t taste nice. I don’t have an allotment, have a 30x20 ft vey patch at the top of my garden so the cardoon is taking half a bed, could put it in the flower border, but they are quite narrow, long narrow garden so that might not work.. I am thinking of turning the cardoon bed over to asparagus, but it would be 3 years to potentially mess up before we got anything back.

If you do it now and get decent crowns (I got 8 Ginglijm crowns, which had been the only ones of the 4 varieties I'd had which had survived the really hard winters about 9 years back before succumbing to neglect and weeds ), you might be able to take a small cut of asparagus next year and be cropping more extensively the year after.

This time last year I was planting my crowns (maybe a few weeks earlier) and I was able to cut a few spears this year from the stronger crowns. Could probably have taken more but was happy to leave them to bulk up.

i used to walk past a plant growing over a huge fence when I worked at a proper garden...one day i decided to follow it back to a label.

After about 15 mins of clambouring through undergrowth, herbs, under trees, in between grapes to the back of the bed, turns out it was a kiwi.

I decided to give them a miss in future.

I might have a look, see if I can get ginglijm, but I know it’s Lots of work to prepare the bed, but it would give me to 2 beds with permanent planting, which I would like. I am a bit worried that the kiwi will just grow and grow, but I think it would be killed by a hard frost where we are, and there’s got to be one of those every few years?

One of the Beechgrove presenters was recommending Dariana (? ...something like that; it was in the 1st or 2nd episode of this year's season) as doing well in their garden, North of Aberdeen. Nice thick asparagus spears

Didn’t check if the kiwi was self pollinating- was an impulse buy. May need to go back and get another one, I think I’ve kept the label . I’ve just had to google Cardoon!

Kiwis can be right thugs - one completely covered a wall and a garage door near me ! Not sure I like them enough for that :)
I have 3 varieties of asparagus - they were bought as a collection for longer cropping. Earliest I have is Gijnlim , then Pacific 2000 , the our favourite - Stewarts Purple . Did I say I got my money back for the crowns I bought this year ? In truth, they work remarkably well from seed too, and much cheaper that way , but an extra year or so to cropping. But worth every bit of time and effort for the wait . We must have had between 10 and 16 spears every 3-4 days for nearly 5 weeks , so saved a fortune too :)