Shall we have an ALLOTMENT/veg. patch thread? Do enough people have one to justify a thread??

[LadyOfWaffle]

Thought i'd try and start up an allotment thread because I am a complete novice, and although I have joined a site it just doesn't feel the same! Anyway, hope this takes off, be nice to chat to fellow allotmenteers before I destroy mine.

duchesse me too!

I left a notebook and seeds etc for the new occupants, and just hope they actually cared!

we have an allotment and grow stuff in pots in our tiny garden too. Can't spend as often down there as I wish. We'd had visions of summer evenings down there with dd sat serenly in her wheelchair but the little beast screams. So DH dashes down on the few occasions we get respite.
Onions all rotted last tear cos it was so wet but we got pots, artichokes, courgettes and sweetcorn. oh and 80 butternut squashes
Thisyear got seed pots (already chitted), onion sets, clabrese, summer and winter cabbages, courgettes, spaushes, beans and peas.
We'll grow sald and toms in pots cloe by and try carrots.

I left mine 4 years ago, and found myself zooming in on it on Google Earth yesterday. [bloody saddo emoticon]

if there's anyone near me we would share. East bristol?

oh duchesse I'd never thouht of that

[runs off to look}

hi - all!

we're planning a small veg patch this year. i need some advice re the edges though.

we've been offered some sleepers which will hold back the slopey bit in the garden greta but are they safe to grow vegs near and also are they safe for children (am a childminder so need to be extra careful!) thought about covering them with something so they wouldn't get cresosote (sp) on themselves if they sat on them! something like fake grass maybe! also how can i fasten the sleepers tog if i use them? i was going to drill through and use rods but it's very hard aparanetly!

please help!

well, any mner near me who wants an allotment can get in touch... i have field space spare

sleepers treated with creosote cant be used for veg patch im afraid.
how about asking the local reclamation yard if theyll swap em for untreated ones?

field space? Forget an allotment, can I build some stables? I am suprised about the wait for allotments, I think we must have been very lucky to get ours within a few months - I think they had just split most of them into two, and possibly we got priority because we live about 50 yards away. GOsh, everyone has all the lingo - chitting potatoes? I spend ages the other day trying to work out what a spit was (spade depth or length or something) for double digging.

what on earth is double digging??

i know what chitting is. ive chitted

i do NOT know much lingo - you and i are on a beginners par here ladyof.

and NO to the stables... horses smell! hehehe. we have stables anyway... we keep wine in one, band instruments in another, and all my crap stuff i no longer need but wont throw coz theres nowt wrong with it in the last.

i am a very lucky goyl. i know this. [humble]

OMG, marry me! Well double digging is where you sort if take off the top layer of turf, then takes out a spades depth of mud, then fork through another spades depth, put on some compost, then when you go onto the next bit and do it again you put the spades depth of mud you take out from that bit into the first bit, then put more compost on (I think), and keep going 'til you've dnoe a whole bed. Ish.

Oh hello, there's nothing I like more than boring the pants off people talking about my allotment
I want raised beds but I cannot make them myself and nooone will help me
Still, I am proud at how much I grow unaided on a big plot.

ok so can't use cresote treated sleepers for my veg patch but what about if i lined it with pond liner round the edges sort of thing (iykwim)? what about children?

Fools! Double-digging is what you get a man in your life to do! Then you don a floaty straw hat and swan in and scatter a few seeds airily.

i havnt the faintest intention of doing any... but tis nice to know what it is.

i think the pond lining sounds like a plan. and i quite liked the astroturf idea you had earlier for seating... tho im not sure you need to cover it... need to check that with Someone Who Knows

hiya LoW i've got an allotment that I share with some friends. We really only manage to get there once a week but cos there's a couple of us we get quite abit done. Although we do spend some time having a cup of tea and some sandwiches as this feels like the best bit.

We've some broad beans in, got leeks, onions, garlic growing and spent today sticking in shallots Last year for the first time we managed - by accident - to grow brussel sprouts. This was such a shock to the old-timer who gives us lots of advice esp as he's never managed to do so. We were so chuffed.

We've never double dug i have to admit.

can I join?! We got our allotment in September, try to get down once a week but it doesn't always happen! I've got raspberries, blackcurrants and strawberries planted, and have spent this afternoon supervising ds1 and dp digging in green anure that should have been dealt with in January!
I'm going through the seeds I've acquired and trying to plan what should go where atm!

oooh i'd love to have an allotment - can i be nosey and ask are they expensive?

Can I join? We've got a bigish veg patch in our garden and a greenhouse. Last year was my first year but I was hugely pregnant for the most important bits so wasn't very efficient.I spent most of my time sat in the middle of the patch exhausted! Still we got a reasonable amount out of it in the end. We grew tomatillos, tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, sweetcorn, salad, herbs, courgettes (many many courgettes), peppers and aubergines.

Am getting excited already - my first tomatoes and aubergines have just germinated....

oh, can i join, too? I have a veg patch and a greenhouse. The year before last was spectacularly unsucessful in my new greenhouse because I made the mistake of letting dd help me plant seeds, and I think I was lovingly watering empty pots of compost all summer, because nothing grew

Much better last year, though, and I had a fab crop of tomatoes and chillis.

I'd like to have a go at beetroot this year (have a small raised bed, the rest of the garden is claggy clay, so limited).

Can I join too pl? I took over an overgrown allotment last August. Spent first couple of months strimming it down and then covering it. Just went back last week to start planning stuff. First task is to start chitting potatoes. Second is to start digging over the quarter of the plot I hope to plant up this year. Giving myself until end March to do this second task, more if DS helps me!

I'v got a veg patch - it's bordered by railway sleepers (clean ones) and I like growing stuff we can't easily get in the supermarkets - borlotti beans, artichokes, chillis, asparagus peas, vintage pototoes (shetland blacks this year, grreat for roasties) and vintage tomatoes etc. Strawberries, blueberries,gooseberries and raspberries. Oh and lots of blackberries

And last year was soooooooo wet the only thing we got lots of was Brussels Sprouts

I am doing a 'taste test' on new potatoes this year. I have bought two of each of about 10 varieties, and am intending to see how they get on.

It would be great if anyone else fancies doing it - we could compare notes on flavour?

Last year I got so excited about my maincrop spuds - size wise they were impressively huge - but when I tasted them they weren't really that nice.

I have got

International Kidney (Jersey Royals)
Maris Peer
Duke of York
Red Duke of York
Lady Chatl
Swift
International Lady
Charlotte
Nicola
Pink Fir Apple
Ratte

WIll let you know in July how the trial went.

my seed potatoes started chitting themselves. shoots are not 6 inches long! Should I plant them?