The Vegetable Patch 2024/2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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

Jerusalem artichokes don't like being out of the ground, if you don't want to plant them straight away its best to bury them, protect them from frost, and plant them in March.

Visited our allotment for the first time this year, we've lost a lot of fencing in the recent weather (it was all on its last legs). Not quite sure how we'll replace it, we need something to keep the dogs in, doesn't have to be dog proof but they need to be able to see the boundary or else they'll go for a wander!

Anyone else finding it hard to get charlotte seed potatoes (except on amazon at a silly price).
Any good suggestions please for a good salad potato to plant instead?
Pentland javelin did not do well in the allotment last year

I got 1kg of Charlotte's from DTBrown this year, but that was a couple of weeks ago so may be sold out now.

I just bought some Charlotte potatoes at the garden centre today. I don't normally buy so early as our last frost date is quite late so got months yet but last year I struggled to find them later.

If you can't get seed potatoes I'd be tempted to see if there are any in the supermarket. I doubt that one year of non certified seed will do any harm.

Has anyone ever built a dead hedge? Thinking about doing this to replace our allotment fencing.

I've been learning about dead hedges recently, I was on a tour of a local gardens where they use them, and saw one somewhere else, might have been Wisley. I don't have direct experience but imagine you need a lot of cuttings to fill it with. Great idea, both for using up brush and providing a habitat for nature.

I haven't posted here for ages, not been doing much over winter but have got my plot covered in cardboard and manure, which I will plant through using a bulb planter to make holes. Started clearing out my shed last week and have started cutting back my autumn fruiting raspberries. It's so nice that the days are properly lengthening again now, can't wait to be able to get to the plot after work as well as at weekends.

I haven't built one but you just need vertical sections that you bang into the ground, I would do them 6 inches apart and staggered by just under the shortest length of wood that you are pruning back to use in the hedge. Then just lie your prunings down, and if you get angled bits, weave that around the outside of one peg and the inside of the next ones along. You can also tie them together with prunings like ivy by weaving that around the outside of one and then the outside of the next, knitting it all together.

The reason why I've never made one is that the amount of prunings you need to make one is quite big. I usually process my pruned wood into either kindling or firewood, and the small bits are used to mulch paths either as is or through a shredder.

I have made temporary fences on allotments by using canes, at a foot apart and weaving other canes, or straight bits of pruned wood, again at a foot apart, up them. Because they are canes and not bendy, it stays together pretty well, especially if you aren't precious about spacings and put your horizontal pieces above a 'knuckle' which stops it moving about. And they are usually strong enough to grow smallish pumpkins up them.

Yes, it's hard to judge just how many prunings you need. We have 6 fruit trees that need cutting back, a dog rose and various other bits of wood that have been hanging about from previous years. I could also ask for donations from other allotment holders and we have bits from home I could take along. I like the idea of having a way of getting rid of large trimmings which can't just be composted. We have no need for firewood and the allotment has wood chippings delivered.

We have a 12 m stretch that needs fencing, but could just start with a shorter section. I don't think we actually have to maintain a barrier but the dogs need some sort of physical sign otherwise they'll go say hello to everyone who walks past.

anyone know about pruning gooseberries and red currants?
didn't have any fruits (or flowers) last year.

plants are in pots on the balcony.

I do know about pruning fruit bushes! But without a photo it would be hard to advise.

Also, don't take 2024, the worst growing year I can remember, as a normal year.

If your plants have fat buds on them, I'd leave them and only remove any dead, diseased or damaged stems, back to just above an outward facing bud.

Yes, last spring. Very pleased with it. A metre high dead hedge seems to get rid of far more material than “habitat piles” on the ground. It’s about 15cm thick. Looks attractive too. Mine is curved which gives extra stability, so for a straight one make sure you use reasonably stout very firmly anchored uprights.

on the nature reserve we look after, we use the town’s discarded Christmas trees for a boundary dead hedge which does a great job of stopping litter blowing in.

@AlisonDonut confirms my comment about how many prunings they’ll eat up. In the early days, I’d add stiff herbaceous stuff, like Jerusalem artichoke stems. It’ll rot down quicker, but that gives you room for next year’s prunings.

You could put the uprights up, and some twine at dog head height for the time being, and just start adding whatever you have.

I grew Nicola last year and they were amazing. Good crop and (in my opinion) much nicer than Charlotte which i had always grown before. Lovely tasting waxy salad potato, and they don't fall to bits the minute you turn your back when cooking them ! Very impressed and have already bought for this year.

I've got Nicola chitting too at the moment: my gardening buddy (who died a couple of years ago ) always used to grow them as we have a mutual friend called Nicola, so I've continued the tradition

Also have Maris Peer and Desiree chitting. I usually put 16 seed potatoes into my raised bed, but this year I'm only putting 12 in: putting the Desiree further apart to hopefully encourage them to get bigger.

😞My sister was called Nicola and she passed a few years ago. I think that's why i picked them up in the first place. She would find it hilarious that i always think of her when planting potatoes 🤗
I've been so impressed with them. I have heard that they can be a little prone to blight but fingers crossed for another successful year.

All this potatoe talk is getting me tempted to try again this year. When we last tried we just didn’t get a worth while harvest.

This year I’ve got more tomato seedlings than I could ever need. Last count 50. I’ve no idea why. Chillies are coming along nicely to be potted up soon and going to get my peas going shortly. New grape vine is out. Got some more raspberries of a different variety to pop out.

I'm gonna keep saying it again and again.

Also, don't take 2024, the worst growing year I can remember, as a normal year.

Yes last year was horrible overall. I last tried potatoes in 2020 😅

I got a good potato harvest last year

I've got on my list of tasks for the coming week (we're away on 2 March) to : "sow chillis, sow tomatoes, sow broad beans, sow sweet peas, sow biplureum, sow ammi majus". I can probably leave the cosmos until we get back

I got a fairly decent potato crop last year but not much else. Cucumbers were OK, raspberries and strawberries very good but I did thin out, de-grass and add manure to my raspberry cane area and it that didn’t work they were all coming out.

My strawberry patch had got into a total mess last year too many plants in-filling the spaces from runners and overrun with bindweed, it was hard to get between them to pick, so I have taken them all out, potted up about 40 runners in the autumn and am going to get those planted out soon. Probably won’t get much/any crop this year but better in the long run.

I haven’t sown any seeds yet, I don’t tend to start till March as I plant out fairly late but have got all my seeds and compost ready. Also need to get some potatoes to chit, I only tend to grow maincrop as no one likes salad or new potatoes here.

I do my salad potatoes in bags rather than the ground and they always do well. Chuck them in about a 3rd of the way up and fill to the top... no messing around with earthing up. We have wire worm so no point in growing them in the ground... i tried main crop for the first time last year. Lovely potatoes but all full of wire worm holes 😕

Can I ask, what temperature can I move plants like tomatoes to a small greenhouse ( a cupboard wood/ acrylic panel type?)

I always start indoors, and then put in our main raised beds mid May. But I ideally want to move the plants outside to the small greenhouse earlier when they start getting bigger. They won’t stay in there as it gets very hot summers where I am so they grow fine outside ( plus no space once bigger)

I assume the green house protects them from frost?
Will have tomatoes, peppers and aubergines. Then probably get cucumbers and other smaller crops established also so less slug attached

I don’t tend to move things like chillies or tomatoes out till we hit it being a maximum low of 10c but I know more about chillies then tomatoes so just base a lot around that.

Ours is glass greenhouse with a few panels taped back up though. Greenhouse is older than me and would cost more in custom glass than a new one these days to properly fix.

Just moved my newer raspberry plants out and started on my new grape frame while the suns beaming down here. Checked allotment one and it’s in much better shape than I was expecting. Need to check allotment two next week 😬 though relative has informed me it’s not too bad.