The Vegetable Patch 2024/2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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

We use a lot of cardboard I get it as waste from the work I do. Always have plently to share as well.

Loving this weeks weather but feel a little for those who will
be shocked by it suddenly cooling again due to fools spring.

That looks beautiful @tizwozliz

Loving that dead hedge tizwozliz.

I have started weeding out the sycamore seedlings from veg beds.

Pricked out lettuce into modules. Sowing pak choi and green onions.

Potatoes went in today, wasn't sure if it was a bit too early, but saw others on the site have put theirs in too.

The first Jerusalem artichoke has appeared, as has the first asparagus. Although I can't take any asparagus this year, it does make me feel better seeing it after months of it not doing anything.

Mostly however I'm still weeding, as no greenhouse so too early for me to start any seeds.

I'm doing my potatoes tomorrow @Troubledwords . Never tried to grow potatoes before but I have dozens of sprouty potatoes and an empty bed so will give it a go.

I have toms, sunflowers, nasturtium, broad beans and some cucamelons on the heated kitchen floor (DH is truly delighted). Will be a while before they go anywhere.

I've just realised I've left my tomato seedlings out of the polytunnel after moving it earlier!

Too right I'm going out to the back of the garden in the dark 😭

Almost all of the Jerusalem artichokes are up now, and I think I have some oca appearing, or it's a weed, not quite sure yet!

There's now 2 asparagus stalks, hopefully there will be more soon.

Mostly though it's still weeding.

The people I share an allotment with have just cut all the green leaves off the garlic I planted last year "to use in a salad"
Any hope if I fertilize it heavily and net it to keep the "badger" (Bs) off?

my gooseberry bush has loads of flowers. hopefully I will get some nice fruit this year.

I have a feeling it’s going to be a good year for fruit.my bushes are starting to flower too. Last year I had hardly any fruit.

Unfortunately I discovered yesterday that my allotment neighbour is a lunatic. I knew he was grumpy and rude, considering the number of times I've greeted him politely and he's ignored me. But yesterday I was finally getting rid of the last of the black plastic on the plot (there was loads, there since way before we got it), weeds growing through it and everything. He had a go at me as apparently it was his, and he "wouldn't be getting that back now, would he?" I mean, if at any point in the last 10 months that we've had the plot he had said anything at all, while we have been gradually removing it (sometimes in front of him), or ever spoken to me like a human being, I would have been delighted to give it to him. But no. He had to wait and be nasty. Ugh, I hate confrontation and now my lovely allotment feels awkward and tense.
I'm also pretty sure he went onto my plot when I left yesterday (could see him from the car park) and was looking at what I had done. Time to get a fence I think, as there currently isn't one between our plots 😔

Such a bummer when you go to the allotment to grow stuff and perhaps also for your own health and well-being and then you end up with negativity.

Try to ignore and don’t let him spoil it for you.

Do not let him spoil it for you. Find other allotment owners who are nice on your patch. You will probably find he is well known as a miserable git.
If he moans pretend not to hear him or say I love the way everyone here is so friendly!
Or get him some cheap weed suppressing membrane- about £5.99 home bargains and say very clearly- " now if the stuff on our allotment was yours, you will not be able to complain about that ever again will you ?"

Thanks both. To be fair, everyone else I have met there has been friendly and very helpful! It's just unfortunate that I am next to him, especially when I'm there for my own mental health and wellbeing, as well as growing things to hopefully eat!

Kill him with kindness 😂

Isn't this weather amazing ☀️☀️☀️☀️ No allotment here but had a great garden and veg bed tidy up yesterday.
Got the grass cut, lots of weeding and a bit of raspberry pruning.
Too early for planting out this far north, but need to get some seeds started.

Finished the dead hedge and got some weeding done at the allotment today. Really pleased with the hedge, we still have more stuff to add to it too.

Apple blossom just about to appear, must be too dry/warm for the rhubarb as it's started flowering. We're going away at Easter so hoping to get potatoes in the ground before then. Otherwise just lots more weeding to do.

Will start tomatoes and chillis this week, courgettes and sweetcorn I'll start just before holiday as then they shouldn't need any attention until we're back.

@WhoAteAllTheDinosaurs i also have a difficult relationship with one of my allotment neighbours. TBF I am probably more like your neighbour in that I’ve been there longer and I know I exhude disapproval. Over the years they have drilled incessantly to add sheds and various gizmos, added electrical gadgets that alarm at random times when they are not there, brought dogs on site that bark at me etc. it’s a real bummer and I’m trying to mentally close down the annoyance. I hope you can do as well.

My new allotment neighbour is my DD!!

Edited to say, we don't tend to row so all good :)

Planted 40 potatoes with my DGD's help today. She is just little, but a powerhouse.

Can I borrow her? 😀

I'm afraid she's terribly terribly busy in my garden. Terribly terribly busy. As is her brother, another enthusiastic gardener. Terribly busy too. He is very taken with the machines though and loves to mow my lawn. I love that he loves that.

Her yellow beets and his cabbage and runner beans are taking over my greenhouse (they chose the seed packets) and her radishes are popping up in the bed. I have also put aside a box bed just for them.

They are learning so much every time they come. Today DGD dug up a cockchafer grub when she was digging a hole for a potato. She was clearly repulsed by it but I was able to talk her through it, explain their life cycle and I am hoping she sees them differently now. But yeah, they are pretty alien-bug-ugly the poor dears so I understand her gut reaction!

Well, if she ever has a slot in that busy schedule..

A lot of what I sowed at the end of February before going off on holiday (for a whole month ) didn’t survive the benign neglect (asked SIL to keep an eye on them but suspect she might have over watered them). Particularly disappointed that the chilli seeds didn’t survive - nor the ammi majus. Some of the sweet peas and a couple of the tomatoes did take though. And the rest (cosmos and bupleureum) were just me trying to get ahead.

I’ve re-sown the chillis and peppers, even though they’re a bit late now and I’ve ordered some ammi majus plug plants from Sarah Raven.

Sowed some of the seeds I got from the Which? trial yesterday and today (tomatoes, zinnia and sweet peas) and have potted on those tomato seedlings that had survived (Tigrella and Marmande). Tomorrow I’ll pot on those sweet peas that had survived the early sowing. And I’ll sow some more cosmos (including the Which? Trial one) and sow some more “ordinary” tomatoes.

Have also put down black bags on this year’s raised potato bed to warm it, so that I can plant my nicely chitted potatoes. The broad beans have germinated nicely around the edge of the bed.

I’ll also get some runner beans going in the greenhouse in the empty loo rolls that I’ve collected.

Wow it's been quiet here. Everyone busy doing a rain dance i expect.

First strawberry yesterday, it was delicious. Courgettes, beetroot and sweetcorn went into the ground last weekend so the allotment doesn't look quite so bare.

We put a dwarf plum tree in a few weeks back so fingers crossed for that.

Jerusalem artichokes are threatening to take over the place, potatoes now all out the ground after going in early May.

Various pea and bean supports erected, I have some further on at home but have direct planted some seeds and also germinating some in pots.

Frog production is going well, we found at least 8 in a tub 😂

Tomatoes also gone into their pots at home, although it was 2 degrees last night so they might not be too happy.