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

Immediately after I asked about the last frost thing, it started hailing

According to my phone the overnight low for us on Sunday night will be 11 degrees! That’s warmer than it’s been most days lately!

I think I’m going to plant out next week, forecast here is warmer after tomorrow. Everything’s becoming pot bound so I will have to bite the bullet.

Morning!
What a totally horrible day yesterday , but so glad to get a fair bit of rain at least .
Welcome ariana1 - pull up a seat :)
I have been hardening off some bits - so peas have been outside for 3 nights now , to no ill effect , The brassicas I pricked out last week are all fine - they have all been out overnight since I pricked them out . I left courgettes in the greenhouse overnight , again no problem , but still bringing inside tomatoes/peppers/sweetcorn/aubergines and the small squashes which have only just got going .
It was -0.7º in my greenhouse overnight . Thursday night seems to be the last proper cold night , so I will be planting out peas on Friday , and some sprouting broccoli , and starting to harden off the sweetcorn outside - they are getting quite tall ….
I net my strawberries as soon as flowers arrive , but with just hoops , and netting which allows flying insects in . I also net peas and anything small and easily plucked out - and yes , its birds here - they will rip pea seedlings to shreds if they get the chance .
I too cannot pass by plants on sale - I have a little row of them in pots , waiting for me to find out where I can squeeze them in : )
SweatyBetty20 - I am planning on putting my tomatoes in their greenhouse permanent ‘summer spot’ over the weekend . It shouldn’t get lower than 5/6º overnight by then . I will keep an eye on the temperatures overnight , and will cover with some bubble wrap if it looks like the temperature gets too low . (And keep an insurance plant of each variety until I am sure all is well ).
HappyThursdays - do you mean broad beans? the black aphids on them are a menace . Thats why I try to get them growing over winter - it means they are just a couple of weeks ahead of the little blighters with luck . I also spray with soapy water , and nip the growing tips out once the flowers have come out .
I think the sunflowers is slugs Love - at least it is with me - they devour them …
Happy growing in (as Mere says , ) another weird weather season

I've got tomato flowers appearing so really need to get them outside, but it's so windy along with the cold. Courgettes have taken off well too inside - at this rate I won't have any beds to put them in as I've still got a lot of digging to on new allotment!

Well all that recent rain means the water butts should be fuller at least!

I am not quite brave enough to leave much in the greenhouse over night yet. Interesting that frosts should soon end. My greenhouse at night has not got above 1 recently.

The tomatoes and one cucumber are now in bigger pots.. I now realise I should have started sowing some plants much earlier! Spring onions and lettuces sown outdoors, will see what happens there!

Does anyone else struggle to grow spring onions? I just cant get them
To germinate. Last year I had to resort to buying a batch from the garden centre.

Im not having much luck with spring onions, I started my first lot off indoors and then transplanted them outside but they don't seem to be doing much, some have disappeared. Sewed another lot direct but none have come up, maybe its too cold?

My spring onions haven't come up either. Thinking I'll sow more once the frosts have passed.

I sowed a row of spring onions and a row of spring onions mixed with chantennay carrots on Tuesday. Hopefully there's going to be some warmth after this cold spell. It can't stay cold forever

i;ve given up on spring onions after several years of poor harvests. even my friend on the allotment site cant grow them and she's good gardener. i was wondering if its the soil. anyway, i'm having some success with welsh onions/perenial onions which i think can be used in a similarish way

I sow spring onions in the autumn and overwinter

@tizwozliz I've seen 'overwinter' mentioned before but I'm not sure what it is. How do you do it?

Hi

Has anyone planted out leeks or sweet peas yet? So cold here still at night.

Thanks @bookbook - keeping a couple of plants back for insurance is a really good idea - will definitely do that. Rain forecast all day Saturday, and I'm out walking on Sunday so think I may take a chance and nip down on a week night next week to plant out my greenhouse ones. I have beef, tumbling toms, rainbow blend and outdoor, and the outdoor ones are going to walk outside on their own if I don't get them planted soon.

I just had a delivery of kohl rabi and purple sprouting broccoli plugs, are they ok to go straight outside? I say that just as it’s starting to rain 😬.

I put my leeks and sweet peas out weeks ago and they're doing fine. Monty put his sweet peas out on Gardener's World and said they're hardier than we give them credit for, so I chucked them out and there's not a bother on them! Did the same with sunflowers after a bit of googling and they're thriving despite the frost, thankfully. We had pots and pots of them in the playroom.

I'm quite excited for the weekend; it's due to hit 17 here on saturday. I'm going to plant out a load of flower and herb starts that I've been climbing over in the house for weeks, then have a barbecue Then the next rainy day, I'll be able to get into the playroom and tidy it. Non-gardening bonus!

My gardenfocused calendar says to keep the tomatoes in till the third week of may so I think I'll stick to that, and the peppers even longer, but that's okay, I don't have many.

My propagator is still full of pumpkins and I'm dying to get the corn in. If nothing else, gardening would teach you patience...

Fingers crossed for next week now, it looks like today or tomorrow could be our last cold night here in the NE but I daren't completely trust the forecast! We had hail storms today and a clap of thunder!
I've tried planting my spring onions in groups like Charles Dowding does so I get a ready made bunch to pull up. They germinated indooors and are now living in the poytunnel where the temperature ranges between 0C and 45C so they aren't really doing much. Hopefully they'll get a wriggle on when the night temps improve!

@UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername

Thank you, they’re going in tomorrow!

My indoor cucumbers germinated quickly and I potted them on into individual pots a couple of weeks ago. They were flourishing until yesterday when I found one limp and forlorn, and another one today.
They are in the greenhouse with a bar heater at night; all other plants growing just fine. Any ideas?

@Pottedpalm That is exactly how my cucumbers behaved last year when I put them out into the unheated greenhouse too early and they were killed by the cold. I would bring them back into the warm. Or maybe they'll be OK as the weather has warmed up a bit.

I’m toying with the idea of putting a patty pan plant outside, I have too many so can afford to lose one 🤔, they are taking over my house and are flowering. Heavy rain forecast for tomorrow, will it survive?

I lost some courgettes last year around the 11th May despite them being under fleece for the night. But if you've got spares why not risk it?

I have put 2 out, I still have 3 indoors as back up. Tbh the healthier ones are the ones I have kept as back up as I know the chances of the ones outside surviving are slim 🤣.

i was thinking of putting stuff outside on sunday, as it looks as if 7 degrees is going to be lowest temp for next week. so they can harden off....not planting yet.

what does everyone think?