Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 16 Weather weirdness prevails !

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Hello to everyone !
pull up a garden chair and join in with the trials and tribulations of growing your own , against the odds of weather , pests and diseases.
Previous thread is HERE

Afternoon! all

welcome xBella pull up a garden chair :) -
that is soul destroying inmylife - were you warned of this potential flood issue ? If not , I would have strong words with whoever runs the site - either be offered a plot that isn't prone to flooding , or help with flood prevention / less rent etc . Not on :(
Was at the plot on Sunday , so the strawberry bed got weeded and fed , and the fruit bushes all pruned too .
Picked veg today on a quick pop in - sprouting broccoli and perennial spinach .

Hi everyone, posted a couple of years back when I first got my allotment but last year was crazy busy work wise so I really struggled to keep on top of my plot. This year I'm determined to keep a better work/allotment balance. Last weekend was a start - beautiful day on Sunday. Managed to clear three beds that I had all but abandoned at the end of the growing season. Cut back my autumn fruiting raspberries too.

Bought a greenhouse in June and put the frame up but various health issues and work pressures meant that I didn't get round to glazing it. I tried to find someone who I could pay to do it but no luck. It was my first time at my plot for a while on Sunday and unfortunately the frame has twisted so I'm considering what to do. On a more positive note, I am looking at sheds which is very exciting. I've started chitting my potatoes - pink fir, Charlotte and the scary looking Mayan gold but apart from that not got anything started.

My strawberries are in pots and now look like this. I'd like to move them into pots with holes in the side that I've bought. Can I do that now? Or are these plants no good anymore? I've just left them out of ignorance

You might be able to rescue them. Take of all the dead leaves and find the roots which have the green leaves attached and replant those parts. It will regrow when the weather warms up

@JanuaryEl5ieBill

My strawberries are in pots and now look like this. I'd like to move them into pots with holes in the side that I've bought. Can I do that now? Or are these plants no good anymore? I've just left them out of ignorance

Mine looked the same a couple days ago, I removed all the dead leafs and dead stems, gave them a bit of manure and they are already starting to look healthier.

Yes, my strawberries look like that too, but lots have tiny new green leaves sprouting. I am going to get rid of all the dead leaves and move them soon (brought them home from the allotment last autumn so that I could clear their bed of bindweed and relocate them to a different part of the plot - they have overwintered in a raised bed at home).

Going to plant out my shallot sets this weekend. The RHS website suggests interspersing them with other fast growing crops - does anyone do this? What do you plant?

Thank you for the strawberry advice a job for the weekend! Hopefully I can rescue them, they're shoots of strawberries that were here when we moved in but they always seem to create more new plants than they do fruit!

they always seem to create more new plants than they do fruit! Try taking off the runners when they appear, so that they're not diverting so much energy into new plants.

Hi, may I join.
Thanks to lockdown and working from home since last spring we have now got a smallish allotment plot and a greenhouse!
Bought some seeds yesterday in a garden centre. Was overwhelmed with choice so as the soil is clay have so far bought: peas, runner and dwarf French beans, courgettes, Diva cucumbers ( a random guess as to which type of cucumber to get’, kale and some potatoes.

I would like to add some tomatoes, squashes and some fruit.
Can anyone recommend which tomatoes are good to grow? Is it a good time to plant fruit? We have inherited some overgrown fruit bushes and what looks like rhubarb poking up. No idea what the bushes are though.

Well I'd never spotted this thread until it came upon active just now, looking forward to reading back through! I put some tomato and chili seeds in back in February like a sensible person but never acute watered them or turned on the propagator so they are still sat there waiting for me to organise myself. Today's the day!

@Azuretwist I've always found cherry tomatoes easier to grow, but I don't like them much 🤣 I like Marmande and Tigerella for big tomatoes but I quite often end up with a a lot of big green tomatoes and a disappointed face. Moneymaker are smaller salad tomatoes that tend to do ok but they are a bit boring. But still much better than the shops so a nice one to start off with maybe?

Sungold were the tomatoes I was recommended last year. They did really well so growing again this year.

Moneymaker is a good tomato that gives a good crop was over run last year), this year I have 4 different types but the yellow pear toms don’t seem to be germinating very well, have also planted giant toms, a black tomato and the moneymaker as back up if the others don’t work 🤣. I usually end up giving tomato plants away as I plant too many.

I’m getting excited about planting, I haven’t sewn much yet but itching to sew a few more things, the next week is looking rubbish for weather so I might hold off another week so before starting more seeds.

Oh thanks. I will try an online order of two varieties then.
Realised I forgot the compost, but a local garden centre delivers thankfully!

I cannot find a supplier for German butterball potatoes in uk. Any suggestions?

I spotted seed potatoes in Aldi today, unfortunately only as I was heading out the door and had already paid and people were queuing to get in.

Can anyone offer container size advice please?

I'm intending to grow a few veg in a small, south facing garden this year and have spent most the winter reading as much as possible!

I'd like to grow tomatoes in pots. I've got seeds for bush variety Baby Boomer. What litre size pot would you recommend?

I'd also like to try and grow Uchiki Kuri (Red Kuri) in a large pot with some sort of support. Any ideas of litre size pot for this squash and what sort of support I could build for it?

Thanks in advance!

I use 10l pots for growing tomatoes. I suspect the squash will need something bigger. I've done courgettes in one of these sorts of buckets with drainage holes made in the bottom but it took a lot more effort than keeping them in the ground

Meant to add, with the tomatoes, if you can get some sort of self watering pot you can get away with smaller. A lot of them are quite expensive though, so depend how much you are willing to spend, i've always been too much of a cheapskate to try them.

Thank you @tizwozliz

I've seen some large pots that come with a saucer and holes so I was hoping that I could make sure there is always water in the saucer for the squash. Would that work do you think?

I could do the same for the tomatoes but I'd read somewhere about not over watering those only if it is very hot weather.

I'm going to take lots of notes and treat this year as one big experiment!

Afternoon all!
welcome Nofirndsatall , Azuretwist and Heyha :) - being nosey - whereabouts are you? South/East/North/West ?
Tomatoes varieties - I grow them in my greenhouse being in Yorkshire - Sungold as a cherry tomato and it ripens quite early , lovely and sweet , Roma for a plum eating /cooking tomato/ St Pierre for a gorgeous flavour salad tomato and San Marzano for making tomato sauces . I put mine in 10L pots ( one plant per pot ) - they are 12" diameter and makes watering and feeding a bit less of a problem in the summer - you really don't want to let them dry out , but not over water from the top either - it leaches the feed out of the compost ( it can lead to blossom end rot ) .
Squashes take a lot of feeding and watering, and they do get pretty big as a plant , so as big a container as you can - even a big compost bag would do at a pinch . I grew Uchiki Kuri a couple of years ago , in a bed , and they go everywhere - so have a trellis or something if you don't want to trip over them !
Azure - La Diva are my favourite cucumber - again I grow them in a greenhouse - small fruit with a lovely flavour , all used up in one go usually ! It is the best time to plant fruit right now , just before the buds burst . Currant bushes are hard to tell apart , but if you run your hand along a stem , you will know which is the blackcurrant - it smells of the fruit :) . If they are very overgrown. you just have time to prune . Cut out any crossing branches , weedy sad ones , and keep the centre open for air flow.

I'm West Mids so conditions are deeply average here 😂 I had problems with blossom end rot last year so that's a personal goal of mine to be more consistent with my watering programme.

I am cheap, I use growbags split in half for those sorts of plants then chuck the spent compost on the flower beds when finished. I've still got all the empty growbags from last year but haven't found a job for them yet- toying with a bulk bag of compost this year!

That's great info! I was thinking 50L pot for the squash and wigwam poles but a trellis would be better. I wonder if I could use large square wire and curve it around the pot?

Heyha - I used compost bags for years , put on the side (or end up ) to give a longer root run , 2 plants per 60l bag . I find growbags a bit too thin personally .
Apple ( sorry , I think I mixed you up? ) Just remember , the squash will need support as it grows , they can get quite heavy , even though these are not that big