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

Yes that’s then sack- do they only eat chillies or do I need to check everything?

Hello, may I join you Looking for advice?

The Patty pans on my plot have gone very yellow on the leaves. Does anyone know what they’re telling me? A couple of tiny squashes on them but everything is slow this year.

do they only eat chillies or do I need to check everything

I find the little ones eat the chillis but bigger more hornwormy ones will go for tomatoes. You can usually tell when you have these by a big fat dollop of poo on tomato leaves. If you have either you need to check several times a day to clear them out.

The Patty pans on my plot have gone very yellow on the leaves. Does anyone know what they’re telling me

I'd say they need a high potash feed.

Thanks I’m on the case!

Only one lonely radish to harvest here. But I think I've spied some female flowers coming on one of my courgettes so hopefully courgette season will soon be here and I have some tiny tiny tomatoes and some tiny tiny french beans.

Built a new compost bin/planter today. Contents of the dalek from last year are going in it, then I'm going to plant my patty pan in there and will top up with grass clippings.

I put some beer traps down in advance of all this wet weather - I can't believe how many slugs I've caught overnight 😲😲

Rain....lots of rain. We had thunder storms in the night. Water butts are now over flowing. My patch is loving the rain but some sunshine would be nice too.

Well I put down some potash today and the wind blew it all into the potatoes. So I’ll be expecting some lovely gigantic potato flowers. I’ll need to try again on a wetter day. Threw some around the polytunnel too - figured it cant do any harm. There’s so much greenery everywhere and I am getting impatient for veg.

Awful rain/ very strong winds here ( east midlands) have not ventured into the garden for two days, have been checking it through binoculars as we have loads off huge trees and I dont want any branches falling on me. I had to put the winter doors back on the polytunnel as it was so cold inside also had to the Echiums back inside as they looked very miserable. The small birds dont look like they are coping with all the rain either

Buggering barstarding ducking wind.

I came down this morning and the wind has broken my lovely Black and Bloom salvia - the whole stem has been snapped off at the base.

Evening!
the rain has only just set in here , but its been blowing a gale all day .
Agh Sack - how heartbreaking . Do you think it can come back from the base , or is that it ( it is a non hardy perennial I think?)
So , all I have done in the last couple of days is faff in the greenhouse . Pricked out all my autumn cauliflowers , and winter savoy cabbages . Still have the winter cauliflowers to do yet , but they are a couple of days behind growth wise .
I have tomatoes set , and the first aubergine flower has opened . Still no sign of a flower on any of my cucumbers or peppers though .

Wall to wall rain here too. Dashed to the plot in a dry spell just to peek at it (we're still in the honeymoon period!) and the person who cleared it must have rotavated a whole mint bush - dozens of tiny mints are now popping up everywhere! It smelled lovely when I pulled it out, but I suspect the novelty of that will wear off soon!

I love mint, I have several varieties and almost bought a ‘apple mint’ at the garden centre this week 🤣 mine are pretty contained in the corner of my raised bed and they are slow growing ones.

My beans are growing like crazy and my 2nd lot of peas are flowering (1st lot are fruiting).

Lots of rain here - but we hadn't really had any for weeks so it's not a bad thing. We popped over on Tuesday evening after the worst had passed us by and there was a bit of slug damage on a couple of plants but not too bad. I haven't even got around to putting down beer traps this year yet. Which may turn out to be a big mistake

We're starting to harvest our strawberries. Loganberries in the garden aren't far behind. It will be a while before we get any peas and beans though.

Heavy rain yesterday and still very windy here. Could anyone identify this please, growing in between carrots and radishes. It seems to have suddenly appeared in few days so suspect it is a weed but may be wrong!

Exactly the same as you Cedar - lots of rain this week after a long dry spell, minimal slug damage and started to harvest strawberries.

I planted out PSB, pumpkins, runner beans and sunflowers last week. One pumpkin and a couple of sunflowers have been nibbled by slugs (I popped up yesterday just to check things over). Sweet peas are starting to flower, as are broad beans. At home my tomatoes are starting to flower (I've got some in the greenhouse and some planted out). It's nice sitting in the greenhouse with a cuppa while the rain pitter-patters on the glass.

x-posted - it looks like Lemon Balm LIZS - does a crushed leaf smell of lemon?

Not lemony

Morning!
weed I think LIZS - I get loads of that !
Well, I know the weather has been horrendous , but I am in the corner that the weather forgets . Tuesday , it was windy , but we have not had the immense amount of rain that was forecast - about 10 mm on Tuesday night , and about 3 mm overnight last night .
So yesterday, I just popped to check everything was okay , and picked 2 strawberries - they are just not ripening here , it is still so cold ( about 13º last few days) .
This morning - very fine misty drizzle , but brightening , so I went and planted out the new French Beans, which have shot up . Tied up the straggly sweet peas - I picked the first few as well . Netted one strawberry bed , and did the pull out the long grass in the autumn raspberry bed - the ground is so soft , they came out easily - and loads of sweetheart twirling around a lavender bush .
I have so many weeds appear over the last few days , but the ground is too wet to hoe , so will have to wait for it to dry a little .
Just waiting for my peonies to get flowering - I love them . :)

Is that weed garlicky? Looks like Jack by the Hedge.

It hasn’t stopped raining here ,it was all good to begin with (several days ago) but I think my vegetables need some sun now.

I have planted a few late crops indoors ready to go out as soon as the peas finish, not sure if it will be too late but worth a try.

My strawberry plants are full of strawberries but nothing seems to be ripening, no sign of black currents of gooseberries but I only planted them this year so maybe I won’t get any?

I’m envious of all the folks harvesting things already, it’s been wet all week here and still hold so nothing is doing much. I’m afraid my strawberries, which had been coming along nicely will end up rotting on the plant. I have an ever increasing list of jobs to do but I’m busy now tomorrow and over the weekend and it looks like the rain is going to persist next week. It doesn’t look like we will have enough sun to ripen anything!

Same as DrWhy for me - endless rain, and am now worrying about my strawbs rotting! I have stashed away loads of bottles of water, for the blueberries and the water butt is full. Hope to get to the plot this evening to see what's rotted/been slugged. I still have a few things to plant out but it's way too soggy to do that yet. My runners at home seem jolly happy though.

Gnome poor you - hope you're well on the mend now?

My wonderful plot-and-also-house neighbour has just gifted us his spare seedlings and I'm feeling a bit emotional! Hopefully the dry weather will hold out until I can get them in the ground over the weekend. We've got a couple each of Savoy cabbage, cauliflower, and peppers, one butternut squash, one round courgette and one broccoli. I forgot to ask what type of broccoli, but everyone else at home seems to thinks the fun will be in just waiting to find out. We do not think alike!

This morning I tried stapling some copper mesh around the wooden border of one bed. You can see the slugs tucked in between the wood and the grass, so I'm optimistic that this will thwart their way in. Copper tape is my hero product in the garden, but I haven't tried using the mesh, or on this scale before!

Hopefully we're all going to enjoy a break in the rain this weekend