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

The words 'hardening off' are filling me with dread!

Everyone seems to do it differently.

I read on an old forum yesterday the idea of not actually hardening off at all but putting seedlings from indoors straight into a mini plastic greenhouse within a proper glass greenhouse. I might give it a go with a couple of sacrificial plants once my greenhouse is up!

I am terrible about hardening off. Generally I just don't bother and things probably suffer because of this. But one day I'll be a proper gardener.

Thanks for info re clods Spotted. I planted some things today and the soil underneath the big lumps was lovely, so I just moved the clods around. Hopefully they'll slowly break down over time.

Am planning a garden centre trip tomorrow. Exciting!

I've a compost related question, my husband bulk bought general purpose compost for our raised beds in tunnel...very dark in colour but full of larger twigs/sticks not broken down yet and bits of plastic and glass! Will it alter the composition of the nutrients etc if I muck about too much with it and pick out the bigger more offending lumps and bumps?
I'm planning on starting most things in modules then transplanting in but obviously direct sowing some things so I'm wondering if seedlings will struggle to push up through really rough looking compost?

And evening all! meant to start with that rather than desperately ask for help!
Has been a run of frost here and minus temps on Scottish west coast but lovely and warm today so hopefully just down to 1 or 2 degrees overnight, positively balmy

To be fair this is the first year I have hardened things off, usually I just put them outside, I then have to go and buy plugs a few days later to replace what has died 🤣, I’m trying to be more sensible this year.

I don't harden off either. I generally wait until the place I want to move them to is not too far from the temperature of the place I'm moving them from, and make the move at the start of a forecast period of warmer weather.

Will it alter the composition of the nutrients etc if I muck about too much with it and pick out the bigger more offending lumps and bumps? I wouldn't think twice about it, but I'd only bother about moving lumps if I was sowing seeds or planting out very tiny seedlings. I always reckon that they'd be quite OK about being planted out in the garden, where they'd encounter plenty of lumps.

I sieve general purpose compost for seed sowing into a bucket. The remaining lumpy bits get chucked onto the polytunnel borders. Sieve is a chip pan basket which has a handle so allows for suitable shaking!

I almost bought a garden sieve the other day. Maybe I should have.

@GrouchyKiwi

I almost bought a garden sieve the other day. Maybe I should have.

I've got one. I find it very useful for piling blanket weed on so the creepy crawlies can drop through the mesh back into the pond. Plastic is better for this than rusting metal.

Rearranged our outside store yesterday so I could put some shelving up. It has a south facing window so hopefully should be light enough, 8 degrees in there overnight versus minus 2 outside so I've got my beans and broccoli acclimatising in there. Frees up some more space indoors to start some other bits off.

Might risk getting some potatoes in the ground, should be clear of frost by the time they're above ground fingers crossed.

Afternoon all
well, what a week of glorious sun , and night frosts .
Just keeping on top of everything now at the allotment , waiting for stuff to show through . Broad beans ^just* peeking up ( but have plugs at home to fill in gaps ) .
I have sown sweetcorn and french beans today . I did another load of peas in plugs a couple of days ago - that will hopefully make for a nice succession with the direct sown ones . I now just have squashes left to do , and any back up stuff for non germination . Pricked out broccoli, but the sprouts are taking their time to get going - they have germinated , but seem to be walking on the spot atm . Second lot of beetroot are up though .

I am just at the feeling of having forgotten something ...
I picked perpetual spinach and sprouting broccoli during the week , and today the very last of the runt savoys .

Broad beans & peas planted out and the pea end of the bed netted. Keeping the wretched pigeons off who do so like pea shoots.

This is my compost sieve:
www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-functional-chip-pan-basket-8-x-18cm/p/0042850

Works a treat!

Soil is already quite dry on the surface so having to damp it down to plant into. We planted up a new strawberry bed so are having to keep the plants watered until they get themselves settled in.

When is it safe to plant rainbow chard outside? I have started it off inside and they are now in the greenhouse, left one outside last night but it doesn’t look happy so I’m guessing I should wait a bit? I tried chard last year and didn’t have much luck.

I had to put my tomatoes in bigger pots today so now my house looks like a jungle, I’m hoping in a couple weeks I can put them in the greenhouse.

My rhubarb decided to flower, not just one flower but 4, I have snapped them all off and am hoping the plant will perk up and produce some rhubarb as it’s my absolute favourite, I think I upset it by moving it a few months ago as I had to replace the raised bed (only moved it slightly).

I'd leave the chard a little longer if you're still getting frosts. I have it self seeding on my plot and plants that come up early often seem to bolt quickly, the later ones do better.

I usually sow chard about July, for a later crop, and to stand over winter. But then, I don’t like it much and regard it as a necessary evil, to fill in when there are no beans. DH loves it.

My squashes are germinating in my propagator, as well as my geraniums for pots on the patio. I've another variety of squash I want to get in there ASAP so I think it's time to whip out any geraniums that have appeared, and move them to, eh, somewhere... I'm getting very short on space! I moved a load of brassica starts out of my mini polytunnel nursery the other day and they're thriving much more outside, so I'll have a look at what's indoors and see if I can persuade anything to move to the polytunnel and not die.

Next on the to-do list is to build a salad bed in a shady corner between the patio and the chicken run, and direct sow a load of stuff there and in the other veg beds. Plus I'm adding barrows of compost to the two tall mini-polytunnels; they'll hold about 16 pepper plants each for the summer, one of the small tunnels will have a load of basil and the last will continue to hold various seedlings for succession planting.

I also want to start laying out a herb garden, with a little chamomile lawn in the middle - just big enough for picnicking on. We've been loving eating out on the patio lately but it's not as nice as getting right down in the grass!

I think I need to learn that not everything needs to be done this year. Turning half an acre of lawn into half an acre of fruit, veg, flowers, herbs, picnic lawns, tiny ponds, sweet pea teepees for the kids, food forest, mushroom patch, salad garden, and wildlife area is not the work of one season.

I planted out the rest of the pak Choi today after the tester ones survived 2 nights of frost, potted up some cauliflower and broccoli seedlings and kohl rabi, put some more radish outside just to fill some gabs for a quick crop, as soon as they are harvested I can plant something else in their place. Put the aubergines into bigger pots, really hoping I have more luck with these this year as I started them much earlier, found some more cucamelon seeds so planted those too in hope for a bumper crop.

My strawberries are flowering already, is it too early?

some of my strawberries are flowering too music. its a bit unfortunate as the frost will get them and they wont produce. I have chard seedlings coming through that i sowed during the warm spell, under some plastic cloches and they seem to be doing ok. unlike my cabbages which are looking a bit grumpy

I thought frost was good for making strawberries full of flavour, or is that a myth? There's a valley in Norway that produces the best strawberries I've tasted, and my friend said it was because of the frosts when the plants were in flower.

Mine have started putting out flower buds but are a few weeks off actually flowering as yet.

I moved a load of brassicas out of my polytunnel and birds have started eating the leaves. I've chucked a net over them but I need to build a support to put the net over before putting them in a bed. It's amazing how fast the birds find them!

I've aways found that strawberries where the flowers have caught the frost end up distorted, still edible but ugly. You can tell if the flowers have caught the frost because the centres turn from yellow to black.

www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=470

yes according to rhs they wont set fruit if strawberry flowers get frosted.

@UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername that sounds wonderful! I love the idea of the chamomile picnic lawn, sounds divine!

DH has built a pergola so that we can train some of the grape vines to grow over it and give us somewhere to sit in shade in the summer.

Brassicas are going out this weekend. Need to get to the allotment tonight to give everything a water. I dont want anyone looking droopy though to be fair I think brassicas always look at death's door until they really get going.

I have a young tomato plant (~7 inches, 4 sets of leaves) in my unheated greenhouse at the moment - noticed nighttime temps are due to dip to around 2 degrees for the next two nights.

Do you think I should move it inside?

My established courgette plant seems to be thriving outside at the moment