The Vegetable Patch

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Now bookbook has sadly left us, and stirred into action by @DobbleDobble, I think it’s time to start a general thread for those of us who try to grow edible produce, fruit, veg, herbs, to share successes, failures, questions and answers

Finally got round to ordering seeds today. Didn’t need many, still got most things from last year. Real Seeds out of stock of everything I wanted so had to go to Chiltern. Added some wiggly mottled Italian French (if you see what I mean) beans as a consolation.

What did you get @MereDintofPandiculation?

Sorry to hear about your allotment @DobbleDobble. Our garden lost a few fence panels but they were the ones we were planning to replace this spring anyway.

Excitement here, I planted a quince, medlar and cherry yesterday and just now ordered my greenhouse! Will have a wait as there's a 15-20 week lead time but I will get things going in the house. Looking forward to every spare sunny space being filled with seeds! Really need to go through my seeds and see what extras I need.

Thanks @StyleDesperation.
I planted a cherry too 4 weeks ago and it now has lots of buds
I’ve started cucumbers,melon,asparagus,radish,pumpkins, sweetcorn, penstemon ,carrots,beetroot and finally tomatoes of differing type in greenhouse! Spread it out after last few evenings once home from work to give me something to do in this awful weather.
Looking forward to spring and hearing everyone’s updates

What variety is your cherry? Great to hear it's already springing to life!

Not veg related but I took cuttings of one of my dogwoods in autumn and they are sprouting leaves so I'm very pleased!

My garlic is starting to shoot, and I harvested some rocket today (random bit that has overwintered). I have more rocket seeds just sprouting in my mini greenhouse. Just feel like Spring is just around the corner.

Veg beds survived the storm but my fence is currently being held together with rope and wood wedges.

Nice to read of all the activity.

Congratulations on your new trees @StyleDesperation. What variety of quince did you go for?

Another budded piece of rhubarb arrived today but the one I put in mid January still has no sign of life. Is this normal at this time of year? I feel like I'm cursed with rhubarb and I will never get it to grow! The one that's been in for a few weeks is Fulton's Strawberry Surprise, the one that's just arrived is Timperley Early.

some rhubarb is a lot earlier than others delora. My later ones arent up yet so dont panic. it likes lots of manure, but dont cover the crown and (sorry if this is obvious) but remove any flower stalks as soon as they appear

@deplorabelle I went for Siberian Gold in the end. I already have a Sibley's Patio Quince but haven't ever had any fruit of it so this year I'm going to try hand pollinating!

My Timperley Early is up already but I don't expect to see my Victoria rhubarb for a few more weeks so I wouldn't worry just yet.

Hoping for some settled weather this weekend so I can turn over and weed the raised beds. Might find the odd beetroot or leek lurking there too.

Thanks for the rhubarb advice @dreamingofsun and @StyleDesperation - and great choice of quince. How long have you had the patio quince? I had my tree a good couple of years before it fruited so it may just need more time.

The budded piece of Timperley Early at least had a discernible bud on it. I couldn't recognise anything like a bud on the Fulton's, which is why I'm a little worried it won't grow. That and the fact T&M / Van Meuwen have sent me duff rhubarb before. When I ordered from Van Meuwen I didn't actually realise they were basically the same firm as T&M (have also had plenty of successful purchases from T and M too....)

I've had good results with fruit, herbs etc from Victoriana Nursery Gardens if you ever look elsewhere (it's where I got my rhubarb).

Sadly I've had it 7 years! It had one quince the year I got it. And then has flowered beautifully ever since, I've often had small fruitlets form that then drop but I repotted last year so I'm hopeful that this could be the year. I even emailed the supplier who suggested early frosts might have got it but one year I fleeced it and everything and still no luck!

Your new quince might do wonders for pollinating the patio quince. Although all quinces should be self fertile, having another one has got to be a help.

I do like Victoriana nursery thank you. At the time I was looking T&M / Van Meuwen were the only ones offering Fulton's Strawberry Surprise (which I've stupidly fallen in love with the idea of having)

What did you get @MereDintofPandiculation** can’t remember which runner bean, maybe it was Firestorm, which a AGM cross between french and runner, so good setting, which I thought was useful as I grow in pots. They reckon keeping runners well watered is the key to a good set, and that’s harder to achieve in a pot. We’ll see.

Also , Anellino de Trento, with spotted curled pods and pink flowers. Just for fun.

Finally, two bicoloured heavily scented sweet pea, Cupani and Painted Lady. I usually buy either Cupani or Matucana. Last year I tried prince Edward of York, which was lovely, contrasting reddish pink and deep pure pink flowers. But there’s a limit to how many sweet peas one can grow.

And that’s my entire seed order for this year! Everything else I have in stock, in 4 plastic sandwich tubs in the fridge, at the back of the top shelf where it’s hard to see stuff so not in such demand for food.

(Except I did decide to get value for money from my RHS membership and ended up with 13 packets of seed from their seed offer. Oops!)

I planted a quince, medlar and cherry yesterday what will you do with the quince and medlar? I make quince paste, and quince jelly from the peels and cores, and medlar jelly. Except medlar doesn’t have much pectin, so this year I lobbed in a few Japanese quinces and that worked well, giving a good set without losing the medlar taste

I went for Siberian Gold in the end. I already have a Sibley's Patio Quince but haven't ever had any fruit of it so this year I'm going to try hand pollinating! I’ve read that they fruit better if cross pollinated, so you may find now you have two that they both crop well. I’ve got the boring choice of Vranje, and the fruits are so huge (close to butternut squash) that I don’t need many

@MereDintofPandiculation we have apple and pear trees so I'm going to add quinces to some of the pies/crumbles. There is also a cypriot thing called "spoon sweets" which include crystallized quince so going to make that too.

I will definitely make medlar paste/cheese for fruit, but I'm keen to try them straight off the tree once bletted too as I never have.

Good tip re adding Japanese quinces for pectin, I'm planning to plant one this year so maybe after a few years I will be able to do that too.

Hopping into the thread (and the allotment for the first time this year, shamefully). I’m secretary of our site and had a couple of toxic evictions to do so kept a low profile and let the council legal Dept deal with it when it got really nasty (two men keeping too many chickens and not growing anything leading to a plague of rats). Think we finally got them moved off this weekend. Now to get pest control in and try and tidy up the mess the pair of them have left behind.

Thinking of something new when we relet. The two had the biggest plots by miles. We have a waiting list of 60 applicants, and only 14 plots. We are going to start halving them but we also considered merging the two plots, building maybe 10 decent sized raised beds, and offering them out as micro allotments. It’s realistically the only way most of our applicants will ever get a chance to grow anything (inner city Mcr) and would hopefully bring some fresh blood and diversity in. What does everyone think? Not everyone wants a big plot, and we’ve had people overwhelmed by the size of a couple before.

shaving - we have only ever had half sized plots as the max size on our site. And some people prefer quarter sized. I've got a half which is plenty big enough - quarter would be too small as no room for anything like raspberries, asparagus, apples etc.

We dont allow chickens - mainly because of rats. Also we are quite strict on people using their allotments and you have to have veg on 3/4 of plot. I think a waiting list is inevitable personally. And you may find that not all those actually want one any more.

What would constitute a decent raised bed? There must be a sweet spot size wise for a growing area, but this is unlikely to be the same for everyone.

@indignatio mine is a full size plot but as I’m returning to allotment growing ( was 20yrs or so ago) before that, I’ve decided on covering the plot and putting beds on.mine are 8ftx8ft but with a divider so 4ft in theory.We’ve built 3 so far, 2 more to go.It will make the plot more manageable for me with osteoarthritis in hips an back .I can’t do the heavy digging anymore.Our allotment is not too strict but no chickens/animals and have to have some veg in too.
I’ve started on the veg seeds but will do some wild flowers too along with mini fruit trees to break up the eyeline across other allotments!

Oh and shamefully I’d have no clue what to do with a quince .Reading @MereDintofPandiculation posts it sounds very interesting and yummy !

Our site is nearly 50 years old and has very generous plots. I think if we merged the plots of the two evictees we’d be able to do eight beds of 2m x 4m, plus beds around the border for fruit trees etc.

I did a waiting list cleanse at the end of last year as we had a massive increase in applicants during Covid, and got it down from 160 to 55, so we do know that these all do want a plot. Applicants are a mix of younger people from the new apartments in the city and older ones from the traditional two-up two-down houses with a concrete back yard. I think with the other vacant plots we have we could offer 6 half plots and the beds. We do have a new ban on animals and the council’s green book states 75% cultivation, which we’ll stick to.

my plot is 16m x 8m (most of the bigger plots are 18m x 7m on our site). According to tradition, mines is a standard half sized plot. So the quarter plots are 9m x 3.4m on our site. The 2m x 4m ones you are proposing are going to be very small.

I guess its a trade off between getting people off the waiting list and giving them something that is big enough to be useable.

We find that a lot of people on our site give up after the first year or so, or need to be encouraged to give up as they dont actually maintain the plot. But i'm guessing that i'm stating the obvious here!

How would it work, waiting list wise? I can think of two models:

A Separate waiting lists for both, so candidates for the micro plots would be removed from the full plot list.

B combined waiting list, take what’s given, but if a microplot you keep your place on the list, and when a full plot comes up, you relinquish your micro plot.

In either case, it would be prudent to have a rule saying you can’t have both a microplot and a main plot.

Sounds a good idea to have a diversity of sizes

We were thinking something along the lines of B, @MereDintofPandiculation - the council manages the applications for waiting lists and sends these to us to add to the list. Part of the online application is a section on whether they want a large or small plot. Some is obviously people who want as big a plot as possible, but in the notes section some pensioners have asked for a small plot or a plot share as that’s all they can manage. I think we could offer the new half plots to the top of the list as they’ve been waiting three or four years so far, with the micro plots to the ones after, on the basis that if a main plot comes up, they’ll have first consideration. All our existing plot holders are pensioners with the exception of us and a gay couple, and at the moment there is no community feel. I’m a committed introvert so I get the need for some people to just potter around by themselves, but there’s no sense of wanting to help others; either by swapping seeds, or helping build a fence, or keeping the communal areas clear. All the leg work - manure and woodchip deliveries, maintenance, waiting list and admin, etc is done by myself and the treasurer, and as I work full time it’s a bit of a drain on my time and I end up neglecting my own plot. A bit of diversity in terms of age, background, skills etc could help us become a bit more of a Co-operative. That’s my dream anyway!