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

My greenhouse is full of tomatoes and cucumbers and things that I've grown from see that are too small to release into the garden. And when the edibles have gone, I'll be bringing tender stuff back in to overwinter.

But if I have any space left I'll be filling it with Aug and Sept sown winter salads. Winter lettuce can be sown through to October apparently, there's winter radishes, and all sorts of Japanese stuff which is daylight sensitive, and has to be sown when the days are getting shorter rather than longer.

Hi a few years ago my lovely friend on the allotments gave me a blackberry plant as she knew i wanted one. However, its fruit have been small and hard - worse than many wild bushes. Am i doing something wrong, its had manure but i admit i dont water it. Or is is just the plant, in which case i think it needs to come out. My pruning is also a bit erratic, but would that make any difference to the fruit?

It might be lack of water - I wouldn't recommend watering it, it may just need to go somewhere where the soil is damper. Blackberries do seem to be less tolerant than the hybrids (loganberries, tayberries etc) to being shaded, but that seems to manifest itself in lack of fruit rather than small fruit.

Pruning wouldn't make any difference to the quality of the fruit.

So you could move it elsewhere and see if it does better. Or get a different plant and see if that does better.

thanks meredintof. soil is quite dry there so i'll think about moving or getting another one and putting somewhere else

Morning all! Just been out to check on my patch and it seems the squash has been producing merrily!

My tomatoes are getting big but no sign of ripening yet. Hopefully the next few days/week of warmth and sun will do the trick.

Everything survived us being away :-)

Some rather overgrown de nizza courgettes, more conjoined twin courgettes, beetroot, potatoes, mange tout, mini cucumbers and masses of French beans.

Lots more tomatoes ripening on the vine too, a couple have split, but seeing as they've been neglected for 10 days (watered once in that time) I'll take that as a win overall.

Lots of weeding to do now, and might uncover a few more bits when I look more thoroughly later. Need to look at supporting some of the (mystery) squash that is growing up the A Frame

Wow look at that harvest Tiz. I have been inspired! And that squash looks wonderful restoration

I've just planted some Marie Piper potatoes. It said they could be ready for Xmas. First time planting potatoes. Do you think they stand a chance? My garden isn't all that sunny. Would they need a cloche?

I also planted some late carrots. When do they need the finest mesh over them? The seedlings have come through. Not sure if I've left it too late.

We’ve been harvesting gherkins which DS has been pickling, off to the plot this afternoon to do a complete soaking as we are then away for a couple of weeks. Hoping the thunderstorms that are forecast for the middle of next week actually come and water adequately!

Wow @tizwozliz! Looks fantastic.

I haven't tried late sowing potatoes for a Christmas but have contemplated it in the past. I've cleared my second earlies now so would it be ok to plant some in the same spot and see how they get on, or have I missed the boat?

Hope you have a great holiday @Whattodowithaminute. Gherkins sound good. Am looking forward to moving the temp veg patch to its final position with more space and getting a new greenhouse next year.

Evening !
tiz - wonderful harvest - good to hear everything survived .
Rookie and Restoration - I have tried growing Christmas potatoes , but without a lot of success. As they are tender , and being in Yorkshire , I grew them in big pots ,so I could move them into the greenhouse when the frosts came , but the harvest was disappointing . I suspect I didn't water them enough .

• had a couple of heavy days at the plot . Yesterday morning and this morning , lots of weeding , planted up some beetroot ( more yet to do tomorrow ) , watered and then harvested courgettes , french beans . brokali and some silly early purple sprouting broccoli . Pulled out the bolted spinach ( helped towards some soup) I dug up the virus courgette , hopefully I have managed to stop the spread to the others . I was very lucky to been given a dozen eggs yesterday from another plot holder - I had given her spare plug plants earlier in the season . Then today , I swapped beetroot with another plot holder - I gave them chioggia to try , I got red and yellow ones, and some Charlotte potatoes . Its lovely to beable to share these things :)

Hi ,
another too hot day .
It was a very speedy morning trip to water , plant up the rest of the beetroot , and cut flowers . Hopefully cools down a bit tomorrow . Got given a fennel by my NDN too!
Had to water three times in the greenhouse today - it reached 41.3 º in there today with every window and door open

I've been picking purple sprouting too, also in Yorkshire, but in my case I'm not sure whether it was sillily late or sillily early.

If it's really hot in the greenhouse, I pour a couple of cans of water on the floor to raise the humidity. And in the fond belief it might discomfit red spider.

Didn't manage much more than a tiny bit of weeding today, just too warm. Tomatoes coming along nicely, have some mazkotka ready alongside the sungold. Squash also coming along nicely and chillis too. No sign of aubergines yet. Blackberries will be ready in the next week I think

Afternoon!
fab harvest tiz everything is motoring on :)
I had a good go at the allotment this morning . I re- netted the row of swedes with bigger hoops , as they were a bit cramped in the net tunnel, so it gave them a bit more room . Weeded in the brassica cage - the bindweed never gives up ...
Picked courgettes , french beans , calabrese ( a bit of a disappointment this year - it is opening up and trying to flower rather than grow a bigger head - weather I guess) . Picked a cabbage for tea , and my first summer cauliflower too :) Cut a few flowers - the sweet peas are nearly over for me , but the asters and scabious are just coming into flower .
Hoping we get rain this week !

My money makers are collapsing under the weight of their crop but no ripening yet! Just piles of very heavy green fruits!
Any tips to help them along?they are on South facing patio against a wall so very very warm and max light.

3kg of potatoes today - hadn't really intended to pull them up yet but they had collapsed on top of some other bits so changed my mind there. Not the biggest, but also less slug damage and scab than usual. Still have some other potatoes elsewhere.

A couple more courgettes, some baby onions that something had dig up, a handful of mange tout and some cauliflower greens to go in tonight's stir fry (they've all bolted, no great loss as I didn't even realise I'd planted any!).

Will be sowing some baby carrots this week, need to look through the seed collection to see if there's anything worth throwing in the ground where the potatoes were.

Amazing harvest Tiz.

How big are your allotments if you don't mind me asking?

@Splinkyplonk I put banana peels at the base and made sure they got plenty of water. They've started to ripen this week. My friends ripened a week ago. I was told the banana tip and I feel it really helped. (I'm growing cherry tomatoes mind you and in a slightly shady spot)

That's clever, thanks @Rookiegardener I will give the banana skins a go!

I'm actually an imposter on this thread as I don't have an allotment :-) I do have a reasonable size dedicated to fruit and veg growing - perhaps 8 x 3m these days (It grows each year). Tomatoes, chillis and aubergines are grown in pots on the patio separate to this. I also have 20m of hedge with a lot of blackberries.

and scabious are just coming into flower I cut back my now-over scabious yesterday! Which scabious are you growing? Mine are Knautia macedonica. In Yorkshire, Field scabious and Small scabious have been in flower for about a month, and devils-but scabious is just coming into flower. I think sheeps-bit has been around about a month too, but I don't see it in my usual haunts

@Hothammock here's a picture of my soon to be first ever harvest 😅

@tizwozliz that's huge! I currently have a 8ft by 4ft area in my garden. Trying to make as much use of it as possible.

tizwozliz I don't have an allotment either. I have an area of pots about 1m deep and a bit shorter than a hatchback; half of a rather large greenhouse, and then an area about 10m x 10m for fruit, plus a medlar, a mulberry, a quince, two figs and a grape elsewhere in the garden. So I'm well off for fruit, but space-constrained for veg.

Evening!
The thread title is allotment / veg patch
From last year I have gone to a half plot , which is over 8m wide , and somewhere along the range of 25-30 m long . ( But that includes car parking space , shed and compost/manure bins ) I also have my greenhouse at home , which is 8' x10' .
Splinkyplonk - tricky stuff , getting them to ripen - an art , not a science . The old timers tend to strip lots of the leaves from the plants , allowing more sun and air around the fruit , but I always think they look very sad like that!
Mere - I had trouble getting the scabious to germinate this year , didn't get many , but was just a packet of Scabiosa atropupurea, think they just got knocked back a bit early on .
The quickest dash to the plot this afternoon to water . 3 courgettes cut as well . I did cut some aubergines today from the greenhouse - they have been amazing this year

Our house is postwar so gardens were sized for grow your own so we're lucky with the amount of space. I might move into the front garden next year once we get some conifers taken down (not enough light at the moment)

@Rookiegardener tomatoes look good, ours are unbelievably sweet, i don't think i'd guess they were tomatoes in a blind taste test!

Currently doing the will it won't it dance about whether to water - we're forecast thunder and rain but no sign yet.