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

[bookbook]

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

I netted all my fruit this week and am now wondering if betting is a good idea? Doesn’t it stop bees pollinating my strawberries? My strawberries have flowered as have my red currant and black currant, I haven’t netted my gooseberries, do I need too?

My house is looking like a green house so yesterday I moved a lot outside, put lettuce out, squash and courgettes (I have spare in case anything bad happens). Planted a second lot of carrots yesterday and I’m trying to work out if my parsnips have germinated or if my beds full of weeds.

Hallo and happy Saturday!
Would love your excellent collective advice. I have some Dahlias I've got started in pots. They've all got shoots now and are putting on growth. I think most will need to go to the allotment as we have a terrible snail problem that I can't really fix as they're coming over from next door. (currently I'm keeping them in my little plastic greenhouse.) We don't seem to have a snail issue at the allotment - - tho I imagine this will be an excellent test - - but I wondered how big I should try and get them at home for maximum protection from getting munched. I don't have anything in the way of cloches etc - tho could improvise? - but really love a weekly bunch of dahlias for the house.

Hi Tangelo I have tried to grow dahlias in the garden, they were only minature ones. I thought by having them in the garden I would be able to keep up with the slugs and snails, but I've given up completely. Sorry.

Hi Tangelo
I take my dahlias to the allotment , they get massacred at home! I haven't had any problems down there - I don't have to do anything with them but they are big plants , which I have overwintered for a few years now . I am just hardening them off ready to plant out hopefully next week - they haven't gone back into the greenhouse for the last 3 nights .

elephant I know your pain - a bloody snail had even got inside my grow house today and was climbing up the side of a dahlia pot. I only just managed to pick it off before it had its dream dinner!

book yours are a bit further along than mine - - maybe by a week or so from the look of them. Very good to know yours do well at the allotment. I'm dreaming of a blaze of summer colour up there and in vases at home. Fingers crossed!

I really love this thread it's great escapism for me away from dreaded real life at the moment with everything going on.

I think I'll look into those glove recommendations so thank you everyone who responded.

I've had an epiphany today. My front garden is already dug over completely and planted up with strawberries and berry bushes. Every square inch is covered or ear marked. But today I realised I can fit slimline grow bags from lidls on my path and still have room for the pram to get past. I live in a council house and they've recently put up handrails along our paths to ensure they are accessible for all. I'm going to string up my tomatoes to the handrail! As you can imagine my house stands out in the street and I'm sure people think I'm a strange one with all my growing. But last year I had 30kg of strawberries from my front garden. And three years ago thy were 6 little plants from lidls and now it's a huge plot. Plus I've given loads of plants away to people.

My question to you experts is this... why is it that when you google how deep should tomatoes be planted? The answer is 10-12 inches yet grow bags are only 2-3 inches? And I thought grow bags are mainly made for tomatoes?

Planted a second lot of carrots yesterday and I’m trying to work out if my parsnips have germinated or if my beds full of weeds. I used to plant a row of radishes in the same drill as the parsnips. The radishes germinate completely and show me exactly where the parsnips should be, and I could then weed between rows without worrying. The radishes were harvested and out of the way before they were any bother to the parsnips..

tangelo I put mine out when they're about 8 inches high, but the longer you can leave it the better, slugwise. It's also important to harden them off and get them used to not much water - soft well-watered new growth is much more attractive to slugs.

It's not so much about getting height (slugs will got to 5 or 6ft for soft new clematis shoots) it's getting bulk of foliage, so that there's enough foliage still photosynthesisng for the plants to compensate for slug damage.

@footprintsintheslow I thought grow bags are mainly made for tomatoes?

That's brilliant questions footprints - I'd love if someone could explain!

I got stupidly excited yesterday - after buying a home grown runner bean plant from a garden (because I thought I'd screwed up mine as they hadn't germinated) they're growing! I've soaked some more over night and planted them this morning alongside more lettuce, dahlias, sprouts and sugar snap peas.

I always use growbags on their sides, like this. Although this year i'm going to go for a growbag cut in half approach. Corona has messed up my new greenhouse plans so I need things to be separate so i can shuffle them about a bit more

Afternoon!
footprints - tomato grow bags are not the best , but yes , on the side as tizwoz shows , but they do like a long big root run . I put mine in pretty big pots now , 1 per pot that way they don't dry out as badly , which can lead to blossom end rot , and gives me a bigger crop per plant.
Lovemusic - forgot to answer the other day - my fruit is not yet netted ( red/black/white currants etc ). I only net once the fruit has set , and they are still all flowering here .
Another hour at the plot this morning - leek bed all prepped up now , and frantically getting the brassica cage done bit by bit , somewhat hampered by still having leeks in the ground ( having 4 weeks not able to come and harvest being a bit of a problem ) So digging up leeks as I go ....Was gifted some sweet pepper plants as I had mentioned I had had trouble with germination - I will be giving back some PSB seedlings when they have grown a bit :)
Still no rain here

Mere
Thank you - very helpful and will help me hold strong on not putting them out too soon. I desperately need the space but would be completely gutted to lose them to hungry slugs

tizwozliz
That's kind of blown my mind. Clearly I've been doing grow bags wrong my whole life!

I think the very first grow bags I bought many years ago had instructions to use on the side so I've always done it like that.

A whole day of gardening here today, bliss. A couple of hours at the plot this morning, I had to soak it with my hose in order to dig. We are forecast rain midweek though. Got my potatoes in and dug a lot of bindweed out of my strawberry bed, they are starting to flower and I will want to net them then which makes weeding harder.

Home for lunch then potted on some flower seedlings, sowed runner beans and French marigolds, filled my raised bed (1m sq) with leek seedlings and radish/carrot/lettuce seeds. Finished off with digging bindweed and brambles out of a border.

This afternoon I selected my 9 tomato plants that will go into my polytunnel. It always makes me smile when I look up and remind myself of the ideal spacing for tomato plants - between 2 and 3ft. Never have I ever positioned them that far apart!

@Whiskas1Kittens I have poly tunnel envy now!

I'm so shocked at the grow bag updates. I'm going to tell everyone!

Lord knows where I'm going to put all my tomatoes. I do this every year. I must have 30 that I need to home. Am seriously thinking of asking the allotment manager for another half allotment.

Wow-this is a gro bag revelation... I haven’t bought any in a while as a garden centre refused to sell me some-now I understand... I have too many plants but we eat a tonne of tomatoes so I’m loath to throw any away!!
A quick trip to the plot today for a water and to build up another bed-now need to put more soil/compost in it from somewhere... courgettes went in yesterday-hoping they will be ok as we are past last frost date here but who knows... forecast for rain here this week 🤞

Got up to the plot for a couple of hours today - almost entirely spent digging bindweed and couch grass roots out of the beds being made ready for courgettes and beans. Both being hardened off this week ready for their new homes next weekend.
I'm also digging out a spot for my sunflowers - I have mistakenly bought seed for an absolute enormous variety so am interested how those go! Seedlings doing well already.
But achey tonight but the results of hard work outdoors feel much nicer in lockdown!

I too am in awe of the growbags trick I purposely didn't get any this year due to lack of space but could have squeezed in a few like that!

Some beautiful apple tree photos on here; I would love one, but we have no space for a big tree (or indeed any tree that can't be contained in a pot!). I planted out blackberry and raspberry bushes in a freshly dug out pot and the cat eagerly used it as a litter tray... pah. I think it's now cat-proofed but no idea if my plants will grow

It was a bit hot for me to do any gardening yesterday but hoping to crack on today. The DC haven't yet had any schoolwork set for this week so a day of learning about plants (or digging in the mud whilst I learn!) should be ok. We re-built our little plastic greenhouse yesterday too and moved some of the seedlings into it.

Does anyone have a website they could recommend that we could buy strawberry plants from? A few of our local garden centres are delivering, but none of them are offering strawberries unfortunately. I've always bought them from local places but they're either shut or only open limited daytime hours and I can't take the DC along. Any recommendations gratefully received!

@Tangelo the DC are measuring their sunflower seedlings every day with great excitement at how much they grow!!

@Tangelo @RubySlippers77

Re: measuring sunflowers. Depending on the age of your children they could plot a graph to show growth and create a table. They can also estimate future growth based on previous results.

footprints rubyslippers
Lovely idea. Tho never mind the kids making a graph and predicting future height - I feel like this is an ideal evening activity for me with a glass of wine! As well as planning what to do with the inevitable courgette glut of course...

@RubySlippers77
I bought some 'malwina' variety from Marshalls a couple of weeks ago and they're very perky and doing well atm, but no flowers yet. I think i left it a bit late, not sure, but hopeful 😊

marshallsgarden.com/pages/search-results?q=strawberry

Thank you @AngusThermopyle, I'll have a look. I'd like to support some local businesses but just can't until the lockdown is lifted!

@footprintsintheslow my DC are only 4 but I'll remember that one for next year! DS2 has already asked me seriously how he'll look after his sunflower when it's taller than him, he has ambitions...

Jumping onto this lovely thread, if nobody minds. Just to say that I always cut my tomato growbags in half....I pummel them to loosen up the soil, then kind of fold them in two, stood up on each end, so I can cut them apart to make two bags. I know it's extravagant but that way each plant has a very deep root run, and they always do well. I think I saw it recommended on Gardeners' World a few years ago.

RubySlippers I've bought strawberry plants several times from Ken Muir and they're still delivering - they do some lovely varieties - but it looks as though they may take 28 days to arrive. I think this is a problem with most places at the moment, unfortunately.