The Vegetable Patch 2024/2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Come and share your triumphs and failures in your vegetable plot or allotment.

It’s yummy but they’re not nicknamed fartichokes for no reason. I once completely pigged out on them. It was painful

Reminds me of the time we went to eat at a friends house and they made delicious soup from cauliflower leaves. The wind was something else!

Luckily I wfh 😂

We have had them roasted with cheese, in a curry and in a chicken stew, in spicy soup, and fried as fritters, but DH surprised me when he made Candy Roaster squash poutine. Or "pumptine" maybe.

I have collected twelve bin bags of leaves for leaf compost. And mowed them to shreds, which is the truly boring bit.

Do you just pile them up and mow over them?

I just went and bought one of those blowers with bags that shreds/collects them. Haven’t tried it yet but probably could have saved the expense.

Ooooh I like the sound of your blower. Let me know how it performs!

I spread the leaves and mowed over them. You have to spread them fairly thinly. At first I mowed without the grass bag so I could mow them twice but the bits got too small, flew everywhere, and some of them refused to get picked up by the mower when I did put the collector bag on. So then I just spread a bag of leaves, mowed, and dumped in leaf compost area.

I’ll let you know!!

I’m sticking with latest RHS advice - remove them from paths and grass, but leave on flower beds. So I now just dump them on the nearest flower bed. Much easier than taking them down to the compost area.

I do that too, but as well.

Generally I have been mulching on top of the leaves in beds. Why remove something that will do no harm? And this year I am filling one fruit bed with a grass clippings/leaves combo. Very deep, instead of mushroom compost which is on the other beds. Much less grass than leaves since I mow to clear leaves faster than the grass is growing this time of year, and mower is set highish.

I also collect leaves from village paths and steps, and these are the ones that get chopped into the leaf compost. I did it last year, but put them in black bin bags with holes poked in, generously watered and forgotten. This was the best leaf compost ever.

I don't like to keep looking at black bin bags while they rot down, though, so I have made rings of stock fencing and put them under trees at the far end of the allotment where I dump leaves. I hope the result is as good as last year's.

I also have added coffee grounds. No idea why, except that someone suggested it! Might be bonkers.

I had the ‘brilliant’ idea of using a couple of pallet collars to make a dead leaf receptacle. Rotted down beautifully. But the whitebeam and the holly and the Berberis had all sent their roots up into it, so my leafmould dreams were punctured

My best compost ever was when I was living in a house with only an outside loo (feel free to stop reading if you know where this is going). At night I’d use a bucket for wee, and in the morning I tipped it into a hole in the ground, where I also chucked veg peelings and tea leaves. Never any smells, and I always had sweet smelling crumbly black compost.

Black midden soil is the best 😀

I need some advice regarding weed control 😬, I have stupidly taken in another half plot for next year but have struggled this year with keeping on top of the weeds on my other plot, I had major surgery in March which didn’t help and I’m on my own (no dh/dp to help). I know this year has been one of the worst for weeds due to it being wet and humid.

I have just been up to my plot after a few weeks of not being able to get up there, weeds have taken over, grass is still growing like crazy and the dandelions think it’s spring. I have dug a small patch over but by the time I get up there again next week I’m sure it will be just as bad than before I started.

So I have 1 1/2 plots but they are divided into 3 small plots. I would like to keep one as just fruit plants (rhubabrb, blackcurrants, gooseberries, raspberries and blackberries) and would ideally like it to be pretty low maintenance but at the moment I’m struggling with couch grass, the plot was originally no dig and when I keep on top of it it’s producing lots of fruit and veg but half the plot is just constant weeding. I am considering planting the fruit tree/bushes and then laying cardboard and mulch around them in hope to keep the weeks and couch grass down. Has anyone else done this and has it made things easier? Or will the weeds just grow through the mulch?

My other 2 halves have been rotivated by the previous tenants and the weeds just grow like crazy, I’m not sure I can afford to go no dig or if I have the energy to source so much cardboard and compost/manure. We have a farmer who delivers manure to the allotment but they never seem to do it during autumn when I needs it and often it’s too fresh. Because of access I can’t really get anything to my plots during winter if the ground is wet so it’s tricky to source a large amount of manure and get it into my plot 😭.

Any other ideas how I can make it less work for me next year (less weeding)? Do I mulch? Do I cover my plot over with plastic for the winter? Do I use plastic and plant through it (not sure I want to do this)?

Cardboard and mulch is brilliant, I started doing it 5 years ago and haven't looked back. But I only have a garden, not an allotment.

I'm not an expert (for that look up Charles Dowding) but from my experience, a double layer of cardboard will suppress weeds as long as it's weighted down with something. Obviously mulch is best for improving the soil at the same time but weeds will still die as long as they're completely covered. You need a double layer of cardboard with staggered joints otherwise they will sneak through the gaps. To get enough cardboard I recommend touring the neighborhood on rubbish day, people often put out boxes from big TVs or appliances separately and you can just help yourself. Lurking by the cardboard container at the local tip also proved fruitful.

If you're in a horsey area you may find that owners who are poo picking every day will already have heaps you can collect, they may even be willing to pick direct into bags if you provide them.

If you're short on cardboard or compost I personally think it's better to do a small area properly than to spread it thinly, a sparse layer of cardboard isn't half as good, it's no good at all.

Good luck!

I have access to fresh horse poo. I have pallet collars for new raised beds so a lot of compost to find. If I put a thin ish layer of horse poo in the bottom of the raised bed, do you think it will be rotted enough by spring? Typing that now it seems daft. I just don't really want another compost heap (for the horse poo) in the small garden when I already have three!

Horse manure really needs to heat up and cool down before you use it, but you can use it on your existing compost heaps in layers if you don't want to give it its own heap. If you turn the heap a few times, it rots down faster.

I agree that fresh poo is best added to an existing heap. It will be good for the heap and good for the poo. Spread thin on the ground it takes forever to rot. Ask me how I know.

Thank you! Existing heap it is.

going against the grain - should be fine at the bottom of the raised bed now.

edit to add: when we kept ponies as child we used the 'apples' collected from the field on the veg patch and stable manure around the cold frames to keep them warm and to keep salad and radishes going through winter.

Picked what I think will be the last of the tomatoes today, and the last of the lettuce. From now on it’ll be chard and kale all the way. And beetroot.

Quinces have done stupendously well, unlike the apples which are well down, in part thanks to the blackbirds. Still need to pick the medlars but have run out of jamjars

Really glad I wrote this because it reminded me I’d found a small bunch of grapes and had left it outside. Fortunately I got there before the slugs

I have expanded my leaf mould area and spent all day Saturday collecting leaves and chopping them up, with the help of my DGC who were very up for it. We filled a jumbo bag by clearing around the church (l had already cleared my own leaves). When all of those leaves were transported home, mowed over, emptied into the penned off area and dampened with the hose the DGC said, "Ok, now let's fill another jumbo bag!" I was exhausted already so I wept inside a bit and said "Yes!! Let's do it!" And we did.

The next morning they came for rakes and wheelbarrows so they could do some more. Love them and their enthusiasm.

Well, I was wrong about it being the last of the tomatoes on the 18th. Today was the last. I know that because I’ve thrown all the vines away. Tomorrow I go to pick medlars, and that will be the end of the harvest for this year.

Happy New Year, gardeners, from Doug and the Slugs!

Happy New Year!

My cats want to know - what happened to the rest of the cats??

My cats say - what? There are other cats? Hide!!