Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 15 - will winter ever end?

[bookbook]

Hi everyone , just putting this up quickly , will add on later
Everyone welcome! :)

Yep!

Bonkers as ever.

If there are any other Doctors watchers lurking you are welcome to join us www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/3861917-docTors-into-the-21st-year-with-newly-painted-walls?msgid=95284255

@AngeloMysterioso

Our main hand tools are:
Border Spade
Border Fork
Trowel

We do favour stainless steel simply because it doesnt stick to the soil. We have found Wilkinsons own brand to be excellent quality and a good price. We go for the border tools rather than the full size as it does make lighter work. As bookbook said upthread, it is a marathon not a sprint .

Haha, I'm not a closet Doctors-Watcher, but I saw it on active threads. And it's rather known for its wild array of storylines so I took a lucky punt.

Angelo I don't keep much at the allotment at all. I have a cheap spade -may have been Wilko budget brand. I don't have a shed so it just lives in my compost heap. I'd hate a nice one to get wrecked or nicked. I do have 3 more spades (incl my late father's spade, about which I am very sentimental!), at home but I rarely do much digging so the cheap one does me for the allotment. I then have a box with a trowel and hand fork but I rarely use the latter. I also have a dinner fork and an old steak knife, which are REALLY useful. The fork is good for teasing out roots of seedlings etc and also for twanging out weeds with rosette roots, eg creeping buttercup. The steak knife is good for plunging into the ground to get at dandelions. I use them a lot! My secateurs live in my bag. I have two watering cans too -the same, so I am balanced when hauling water.

I rarely need anything else. I've never raked. I don't use a big fork at the plot. I maybe take up loppers twice a year.

It was worth a try @thespottedzebra

Interesting that you hardly use your large and handforks, they are my most used tools by a mile.

Evening all
everyone coping I hope ? I am going a little doollally from not getting to the plot , whilst doing what I can at home .
Just put up the shelves for hardening off , so sweet peas and beetroot are on there . Started bringing out the pricked out brassicas , and the leeks will be coming out of the greenhouse tomorrow . It looks as if it going to be warm this weekend , and brassicas and leeks don't like getting hot in a greenhouse .
I am with Expletive - my most used tool is a proper fork . It is what I use every time I go basically. Rarely use a spade ( DH does for digging out the compost bin and shovelling manure ). I have 2 x watering cans , a dibber made from an old spade handle for planting leeks and garlic , and I use gloves all the time , oh and have a trug for weeds .

Zebra I have an old steak knife too at the plot. Grumpy Ron always feigns terror when he sees me armed with it. Useful for cutting off courgettes, rhubarb leaves and string.

I wonder if the fact I don't fork is something to do with my solid clay?
It's very hard to fork clay!

Yes, elephant sometimes someone will come to chat and I'll see them suddenly notice the knife in my fist...

Horse poo did work a treat on our heavy soil. Not rotted, pretty much fresh out of the stables. One year for my birthday DM gave me a pitchfork. It really is the perfect tool for the job.

One of my fellow potholders uses a coke shovel for shovelling up wood chips. It's about twice the width of a normal shovel. Amazing to see him in action!

I think the reason I do use a fork so much is my heavy clay, it's the only way I can break it up. Lots of horse manure last year was
definitely improving it but can't really go and fetch it now.

yay DH managed to get down and got some veg , and he says its not too weedy . He said it was heaving , but everybody keeping their distance at least

Not especially busy on our field, probably a bit less than normal. It was lovely to be out. It really is balm for the soul.

All beds are now dug and rotavated. Next job is to get the rest of the peas and shallots in.

First day of being an allotmenteer, went round picking up rubbish including a rusty, extremely decrepit pair of secateurs, a few chunks of wood with nails sticking out of them, at least half a dozen tent pegs and several half-buried metal pipes and stakes.

Oh, and I single handedly dismantled a very broken old greenhouse frame (before and after pics)

Angelo don't discard anything at this stage. One of the 'rules' of allotmenting is make do and mend. If you decide to grow climbing beans some of the long pieces of metalwork may be useful in building supports.

agree totally with Gnome -re not chucking anything . Rusty secateurs - wire wool all the rust , oil and leave for the oil to penetrate - they may be salvageable.
Greenhouse bits may make a cold frame .

How exciting to have made a start, Angelo! It will look very different this time next year, I imagine. Good luck!

My raised bed kits turned up yesterday. I'd ordered them a month ago and had been thinking I'd have to wait until the lockdown was over. We made one today. Putting it together was easier than I thought but digging up the turf and loosening the soil under it was much harder than I'd expected. I think there must have been some kind of outbuilding there at some point, maybe a greenhouse or summer house as I dug up a lot of indoor type tiles attached to chunks of concrete and a small, still sealed but cracked and empty bottle of Gordon's gin! Our neighbour saw us and confirmed that the local garden centre should be able to deliver something to fill it.

Those leeks look wonderful bookbook.

Took a quick trip up to the plot yesterday, first time out of the house all week. The kids enjoyed looking for worms while I got some more potatoes in the ground. I think I'll be growing a lot of things in pots at home this year. I'll probably just mostly use the plot for onions, garlic, potatoes and squash/courgettes this year.

I've decided not to go to the plot at weekends as there are just too many people up there and the plots are so small, paths are so narrow that it's quite tricky. I'm working flexibly from home so will go during the week, I can answer emails from my phone while I'm out in any case. I have decided to go low maintenance up there this year, onions, garlic, potatoes, sweetcorn, pumpkins etc. As we are unlikely to be going away I will keep tomatoes etc in the greenhouse at home and I'm planning to do salads here.

expletive I popped along yesterday and it was notably busier than during the week. Ongoing build of beds and I’m trying to build frames to help with the netting-I don’t know how successful I will be.
Managed to find some courgette seeds at home-thought I didn’t have any which would have been annoying. Planted some carrots, pak Choi, tat soi, Choy sum at home-May be a bit early but will try. We eat loads of these so would be great if they were successful...

Our field is still very quiet, I was there this morning and there were only the usual suspects there. The average age of members is quite high so I guess there will be a lot of people staying home.

Even if everyone was on the field our plots are quite large so social distancing is the norm.

The average age of ours is about 45 with a lot of young families. I can only think of one person who is probably over 70. I went last weekend when the weather was not very good and we were constantly having to look round for people coming along the paths, getting close on neighbouring plots etc.

DH & I are in our 50s and bring the average age down by quite a bit! We are an allotment and smallholding society hence the large plots.

Small plots will make the distancing difficult, I can understand that.

I am worried that tightening up lockdown rules will get tightened up more. Many of my fellow plot holders have hens. There is even a pig farm on one of the allotment fields in the town. Tightened rules will be a problem for them.

Yes, ours are about 10 by 7m and the paths are less than a metre wide, mine is alongside the main path so it can be tricky now. I will go tomorrow.

There will have to be exemptions for livestock if things tighten up.