Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 16 Weather weirdness prevails !

[bookbook]

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

Evening!
well Utterly - I can see now you have enough room for all the tomatoes and squashes - but the big mantra of all allotment growing is it is a marathon , not a sprint , so take it steady!
My DF tried to grow a camomile lawn , with no success , so fingers crossed for you , it sounds lovely
crumbs - I would actually take it indoors - especially if you only have the one . I don't think it will do too much damage , but may knock its growth a bit .
I have pricked out more brassicas , and flower seedlings . Courgettes are germinating nicely , I have potted up cucumbers , and the first sweetcorn are appearing ( really quickly! ) so all is going at pace now . I have however sown some more sprouts - I think they got too warm in the greenhouse , and have just gone into sulk mode ...
Getting everything ready to plant out at the plot - more forking over and weeding , but it is just so dry ( I know it is , as farmers around here have started watering crops in fields ) the weeds haven't really got going.
Picked sprouting broccoli , and the very first of the overwinter caulis , which have taken an age to start curding up . It was small , but I find with caulis , once they get going , they all come at once

Where’s the best place to buy plug plants? I think I’m going to give up on my kohl rabi but the prices on plugs seem crazy and then postage on top. Maybe i should just wait and see what the garden centre has though I rarely see things like kohl rabi in garden centres.

I have ordered another blueberry Bush as I realised you need 2 plants to get a good crop, the one I have is already flowering so I’m probably too late buying it a mate?

Feeling so behind with sowing seeds, but excitingly the courgettes and cucumbers have now, on 2nd showings, germinated. Tomorrow will be a day of taking them out of the propogator and deciding what to do next!

Also sowed a tray of spinach and more flowers.
Have brassicas that need sowing, including Brussels, plus sweet corn.

Has anyone ever had a courgette germinate upside down?

@tizwozliz

Has anyone ever had a courgette germinate upside down?

Yes! I dig them out gently and poke back into the soil roots down. But I am a fiddler with my seeds! You may not actually need to do this.

I've just piled some more soil on top for now and I'll see if it sorts itself out. These are old out of date seed I'd stuck in pots as not worth keeping any longer so I could do with some casualties otherwise the number of courgette plants I have will end up in double figures

I cut my first asparagus spear today! Very exciting, I had it with a soft boiled egg. There might be another one I can cut next week .

Finally got all potatoes in today and picked rhubarb - first crop from the allotment.

Spent time potting on plants and putting more in the small propogator. Lovely day at the plot today.

Evening all!
tiz - for some reason , it happens to me with broad beans some times , but I just push them back in right way up , and give them a telling off
yay elephant - I bet it was delicious .
I picked my first asparagus of the year today too :)
Spent some time pricking out brassicas today , along with a fair bit of watering . It is just so dry now . First french bean has appeared , no sign of a single other , which is a bit weird! , but I only sowed them on Sunday ( along with sweetcorn which are romping along ) .
Just trying to be patient , and get ready for planting out , but most of the seedlings are just not growing away much atm .
Ah well ......

I've been reading but not posting but am de-lurking to say that I have two asparagus spear belatedly showing in my raised bed.

They're really late this year. The 2nd photo was taken exactly one year ago.

Actually, you can barely see the two spears - but they are there, promise

Tentatively posting as a place mark and to take in all your wonderful advice!

We’ve just built some raised beds in a neglected corner of our garden and I’ve got a massive delivery of soil coming this week to fill them up (4 cubic metres!).

I’m very taken with the square foot gardening method so will probably be using that to help us plant out the beds - if my maths is correct I reckon we’ve got 70 square feet so I’m hoping we can at least grow something on our first attempt this year 😂 Plan is to keep it fairly simple this year and stick to staples and things we know we use a lot of. DH wants to grow potatoes but I understand they take up a lot of space, though a work colleague did tell he her mother grows her potatoes in car tyres stacked on top of each other to save on bed space!

Hi CaveMum!

prettybird Your raised beds look very pretty and are making me rethink the entirety of my garden.

The peas seedlings I planted a week or so ago are doing extremely well and I'm very pleased. Need to get more seeds into the ground. The beans are less happy; I've killed two, I think, but I also think I broke their roots as I pricked them out so it's not surprising. Will direct sow some more this week.

Have finally prepped the back row of my vege patch so now have the front 5 sections to do. Hopefully there won't be as much couch grass in this lot, though I know there is a lot of clover!

Afternoon all!
Welcome CaveMum - pull up a garden chair :) I am sure Carol Klein has done a book on small space veg growing with the RHS , cannot remember the name though , but looked very good on maximising harvests
well, still no rain , hopefully a sprinkling on Tuesday with luck .
prettybird - I looked at last years harvest , and picked my first spears on 22nd April , so here it is fairly much the same .
Everything is coming along well , picked sprouting broccoli ( nearly done now , maybe a couple of more pickings ) , another small cauliflower , and just a couple of asparagus spears to join what I picked yesterday ( which should have been eaten yesterday , but wasn't able to, so have to make them stretch to 3 people today :) )
Everything in the greenhouse is doing well, and the crown prince squashes have germinated , no sign yet of a new variety to me - Marina di Chioggia ( enormous seeds ! )
Onward and upward ...

I have spent the morning shuffling around plants, moved some tomatoes and cucumbers into the greenhouse, moved some marigolds out of the greenhouse and into one of my raise beds, put some patty pan into bigger pots and now they are sulking, potted new blueberry plant which arrived yesterday in its own acidic compost.

I have ordered kohl rabi and PSB plugs as I have given up trying to grow them myself. I now need to make a frame so I can net them to keep away the cabbage whites.

Weathers looking good for the next week with the possibility of a bit of rain, evenings are looking warmer after tomorrow so fingers crossed we have seen the end to frosty mornings here.

Hello all!

Seeing your asparagus plants has just reminded me that I forgot to plant the asparagus lol! Argh! Your asparagus all looks amazing and so delicious

We are a bit all over the place this year because of lockdown we haven't been able to spend as much time at the house with the garden :( so we are also very late planting everything

I've got the cucumbers, tomatoes, celery indoors still. I've planted out the spinach/cauliflower/leeks and put directly into the beds cabbage/carrots/parsnips/beetroot.

Reminder to self to get carrot seed tape for next year - so much easier!

Have also planted the potatoes, rhubarb just starting to show, raspberries/blueberries/gooseberries and blackcurrants all looking quite happy.

Still to plant courgette/kale/pumpkins (later)

Have a new dog this year who keeps running over the beds when he's playing! Need to teach him not to v quickly as he always seems to think he is 'helping' with gardening especially when I dig and he digs with me!

Brassicas planted out and netted. More cabbage seeds sown - we prefer the pointy sort.

Rhubarb is in full flow. Time to make rhubarb gin soon though we are still enjoying peach brandy from last year's peaches.

DH is very jealous of all the asparagus. We have an asparagus bed but it is sadly unproductive.

Hello all, I’m only just planting my courgettes inside so think I’m a bit behind! My French beans are doing really well and are already a foot tall! The new raised bed is not full of soil yet so that’s a job!

My cane contraption that I attempted fell down in the night. Any reason why I can’t use trellis for green beans and tomatoes?! I’ve got trellis already going spare in the garden. I’ve bought one bamboo obelisk but it doesn’t seem very tall (I guess 4 foot).

I've literally just planted my courgettes and squash today, Chunk. And I've not planted any French beans, or the bulk of my runner beans yet, so you're well in front of me
Booky I'm growing Marina di Chioggia too. I've grown them before and they're lovely: quite big and delicious, albeit not overly prolific. Mine are old seeds so I've sown plenty -so of course it will either be all or nothing, germination-wise.

I'm also very jealous of the asparagus. I don’t have the space for it alas, and it would be a big old faff on my heavy clay.

I don't normally start the courgettes till May so you're ahead of someone :)

I'm going to try and follow this thread - just taken on an allotment plot which is currently grass. I have leeks, courgettes, pumpkins and tomatoes in pots at home which I'm hoping to dig up some room for before it's too late.

These are my 6 raised beds, which I put in the year after we had the patio built (about 15 years ago). 5 bed rotation (one for flowers which has tulips in it at the moment) and one bed (the shorter one - to allow space for the whirligig which I put way when not in use) for asparagus. It's a south facing garden but a north facing slope. Greenhouse (second hand from deceased FIL) was put in 2 years ago.

My soil has arrived! I’m going to have shoulders like Hulk after we’ve shifted this lot 😂😂😂

Im not having much luck germinating my courgettes, green ones have germinated but don't look great and I can't get the yellow ones to germinate at all, im wondering if my seeds are dodgy?

My French beans have just started to show, hopefully runner beans won't be far behind.

I think pretty much all my old seeds have germinated so now have 16 courgette/squash of various varieties