The Vegetable Patch Mark 2

[MereDintofPandiculation]

A continuation of the thread for those of us growing edibles, to share triumphs and failures, swap expertise and solve problems

If it helps, my Moon Calender says that the 22-7th of Jan are good days to start fruits so that's the week I'd do some if I was in the UK.

I still have lots of work to do in the garden itself so I'll leave mine til Feb.

I’m in Yorkshire. Peas, beans won’t be happy outside till May, so Valentine’s Day is too early. Feb for tomatoes, chillis which will be staying indoors, March for broad beans, everything else April.

I didn't sow anything until May last year and still got good crops of most things. Peas and beans didn't fare so well but that was the weather related rather than timing.

That's just the excuse I need to make a start Friday when I've got the day off work

Weather has been dryer today, was hoping to get into my plot in the next few days but I have been struck down with a nasty tooth abscess which has infected my jaw so I am drugged up on pain killers and hefty antibiotics. Hoping I feel well enough to at least laugh a few bags of compost into the allotment tomorrow. I need to start some of my no dig beds ready to plant my fruit bushes and canes that I am transporting from my garden (any tips on moving a gooseberry bush?). I am going to try and draw up a plan of what I am going to plant though I am not sure if I will use my whole plot this year as it needs so much work.

My biggest tip for plots that need work is to invest in weed fabric, the proper stuff, that lasts years and years and try and level your plot as much as you can and cover half or 3/4 of it whilst you work on the first 1/4. Do that really well and if you have to, where the sides of the weed fabric meet, open them up a little and plant some squashes to grow over the covered area in the first year so that you can show you are using the whole plot [and so you don't get kicked off], and then fold it back as and when you have the first 1/4 under control.

Allotments are hard, hard work. We worked mine, religiously every day during the spring, summer and autumn and every week in the winter for a decade. It had been stripped of all the top soil and even after 10 years of adding organic matter was still rock hard in the summer and slippy mud in the winter.

We one year added manure which turned out to have aminopyralid and it never properly recovered. I tried the Back to Eden method using heavy wood chips but all that did was create more nutrients for the perennial weeds to flourish. We tried almost everything over the years but still got very little crops to actually properly grow.

So after a decade of doing this, we nearly gave up. But I decided to put my 'school gardening' hat on and said to myself 'what would I do with this plot if I was doing this in a school?'

So I raked the whole lot as flat as a pancake, bought weed fabric and covered it all. Then bought 27 pallet collars, and 6 tonnes of topsoil and made raised beds all neatly over the whole thing. And I had more harvests that first year than I'd had in years. It cost me around £500 in fabric, pallet collars and topsoil but we got more than that back in the food we could grow. I cropped year round for 3 full years, the beds were never empty, it was easy to use blue pipe and netting to cover what needed covering, things could be grown so much closer together it was a complete shock as to how much I got out of it.

So my advice is to cover what you can't tackle and whilst you tackle a smaller piece, just bung some squashes in the covered bits so that you don't get kicked off. If you can't afford weed fabric, then cover it with flattened cardboard and weigh it down.

I think I will just do 1/3 at a time, 3/4 are covered at the moment just to kill the grass off underneath, I have been collecting cardboard to do no dig so will just do a section at a time. I am not sure what to put on top on the cardboard? Maybe a mixture of compost and manure? Or is mushroom compost a good thing to use? The ground hasn’t been worked for a few years so maybe I am best planting potatoes?

You don't have to put anything on top of the cardboard if you aren't growing on that space, just rocks to hold it down. If you are using cardboard and want to grow right on top of it, Then you can add compost but it then becomes very expensive. I used to plant through the cardboard, so make a hole and plant into the ground and put the cardboard back around it to carry on growing. It really depends on what you are growing as well, as carrots and parsnips need to be sown from seeds not transplanted so you need a decent weeded bed to sow into.

I will want to plant on top of it but won’t be growing any root veg. I can probably get manure quite cheaply and then add compost to it? I might only get half the plot covered this year as it will work out quite pricy 😬. Trying to find a supplier of mushroom compost near me as that seems a good option.

If the manure is well rotted, that IS a type of compost so don't worry about buying the other stuff in.
If its fresh, you can use it as a mulch but dont plant straight into it as the plants won't be able to access any nitrogen and will go weak and yellow.
We have successfully filled raised beds with fresh manure and topped them off with a good 15cm compost.
We grew early salads and then squashes and outdoor tomatoes which enjoyed the decomposing manure.
Then, come autumn, you have got a large pile of well rotted manure to spread over your next patch.

Hope you don’t mind me sticking my head in. I did the same as @CuriousEats and had a load of fresh manure topped with a bit of compost then grew pumpkins which loved it.

When filling raised beds in the past I have used cardboard with layers of kitchen waste, grass cuttings, leaves and manure then a bit of compost and mushroom compost on top as a cheap way of filling them.

Hi, I'm quite concerned about the soil quality in one of my older planters. Do I need to empty and start again, or is there anything I can do to salvage and add nutrients ?

1 - things seemed to struggle last year in it compared to the last few and newly planted salads and spring onions just didn't seem to grow.
2- there are a lot of thin roots (sort of) throughout it which make digging tough,

I've dug it up and turned it over and now there are lots of white specks over the top of soil after it's settled. - is this bad?

Any help would be welcome! Sorry I'm quite novice at this!

How big is it? I'd either empty it out or if it's absolutely huge, just replace the top 15cm.
Personally I'd normally replace the compost in a planter every year, or 2 if its good quality organic stuff and I'm adding feed to it.

Thanks for that! It's about 4 m2. I'm tempted to get rid and restart then, I would rather not have another bad year out of it!

Hang on is this a raised bed or a plant pot? To me, a 'planter' is a largish plant pot/urn.
If its a raised bed, just top it off with 15cm well rotted manure or compost and don't bother to dig it in. It'll help suppress weeds, and you can plant straight into it, providing its not got huge lumps in. If you spread it now, the frost will help break down any lumps anyway.

The 15cm is just to make up for lack of nutrients and organic matter as I suspect your soil is overworked and exhausted. In future, just add a 5cm layer each year to feed the soil and bury annual weed seeds and thats all it needs. No need to dig!

Thank you that's great. Sorry yes raised bed but I call it a planter for some reason !

I'm contemplating rebuilding all my raised beds this year. Some have collapsed a bit over the winter, they're getting on for 12 years old now and were just built cheaply from gravel boards so they've done well. Need to decide if I want a total redesign or just rebuild. This is our garden rather than an allotment so might be nicer to have something a bit nicer looking, and could then arrange the space a bit better. We started off with just 3 long beds and they've been added to ad hoc over the years, so it's a bit of a mish mash.

I can't get pallet collars over here in France so I've had to prioritise the few [bought from new] B&Q ones that I brought with me from my old polytunnel and greenhouse in the polytunnel and for parsnips/carrots and as a seed bed. The rest of it, I have to grow in ground and I've spent a fair while clearing beds, raking them flat and then raking lower access rows into them for sowing, planting, harvest and maintenance.

Rows are half a metre ish wide and access rows are the width of the rake. All rows run east to west.

Been up to my plot today, with a bit of help I have cleared about 1/3, covered in cardboard and a layer of manure (old). Plan was just to clear and cover over with plastic but then I realised there was surplus manure on the allotment (local farmer delivers it for free). Hoping to get my currents and berries planted next week, bushes are already established in my garden so it’s just a case of moving them, also ordered a damson tree to plant but might take a few years before I get any damsons.

I went up to my plot yesterday and covered the first shoots of rhubarb.Turned through all the raised beds.
Now I need to get the last two beds filled as I want one of them just for flowers as 4 8ftx8ft are veg.
im not going to start planting any seeds until end of February into march as last year I started to early really.

Has anyone managed to plant any seeds or onions etc or been to their beds/plots? I seemed to have killed the thread😥

No, patiently waiting and twiddling thumbs 😬.
My plot has been to frozen and before that it was too muddy, hoping next week I can get on there and create a few more no dig beds. My potatoes are chatting but that’s about it.

I go to mine every day as it is at the end of the garden but very little work done so far. Sowed onions and carrots in a small pallet collar raised bed in the poly, and sowed mange tout, lettuce, beetroot in modules but none of it up yet.

Got my tree delivery last week though. Quinces, plums, Nashi pear, Kiwi berries, grapes, and a peach. Nowhere near planting them yet, too cold.

I went up to my plot last weekend, pulled out a few dead cosmos that I had left as they were still flowering at the end of the growing season and checked things over but that’s all. It was pretty frozen and it gets very muddy in winter, it’s hard to even walk along the grassy paths on the site as they are quite uneven and slippery. I did bump into a fellow plotholder in town the other day and we had a chat so that has turned my mind to spring planting though.

What with one thing and another I’ve completely neglected garden and greenhouse for last two months. My oka in the greenhouse have collapsed, but it looks as if the pots are full of tubers to be harvested. My Physalis has lost all its top growth. I hope it will re-sprout - at least it will be easier to repot. I need to check my seed stock and order new seeds.