STW – Garderners and allotment users – Friday chat

How many mixed lettuce leaves can one man eat

amen to that

Nice back garden design micheal

thanks

chakaping – how easy was the garlic to grow?

After being away for a week, came back to my allotment to find that my potatoes are sick with blight!

Dug up the rows and burnt off all the plants, luckily the potatoes did not seem to be infected, but the yield was obviously low.

Does anyone know if I need to treat the soil for blight, before growing anything else, I heard they can attack Tomatoes too?

chakaping – how easy was the garlic to grow?

Easy peasy lemon squeezy, seems to grow really well in my garden.

Ordered the bulbs from a seed distributor, stick them in the ground and each clove turns into a full bulb.

Last year’s crop has lasted me a full year.

excellent i think i’ll fill a whole bed with it over winter

Few tips here for blight Ski

http://www.allotment.org.uk/vegetable/potato/potato-blight.php

So far so good for me. Only thing that failed were my beans, but I think that was down to the cold snap we had a couple of months ago – I’ve put some hardened plants in and they’ve been fine.

So far:

Spuds – earlys need to come up really – anyone know a source for cheap sacks?
Onions – again, they can’t be far off ready
Garlic – Might pull it up this weekend
Salad – I shall be more frugal with the planting next year, far too much of the stuff!
Leeks/Spring onions – Need to start them off much earlier nest year, it’ll be September before they’re ready I guess
Peas – Growing well, but I didn’t stake them early enough and they’re top heavy and unruly. Lesson learned!
Beans – After initial fail, plants growing nicely.
(tip – peas & beans like coffee grounds – have a word at your local Starbucks/Costa/Cafe they’ll be happy to get rid)
Courgettes – coming along nicely
Carrots – I shall be trying pots next year – I’ve got 4 plants from 2 whole rows!
Parsnips – Seem to be growing well, we’ll see what happens
Cabbages – nibbled, but not too bad
Broccoli – As above
Cauliflowers – As above
Pumpkins – one plant killed by slugs, the other fine.
Raspberries – All good
Blueberries – Bit weedy, but wasn’t expecting anything this year anyway
Gooseberries – as above
Peppers – Doing nicely

Recently had a couple of bits nicked from the allotment (cloche and a poly tunnel), but it’s right next to the road so not entirely unexpected. I’m a bit wary of what might happen when everything’s ready, but we’ll see. Might have a night watch in the shed! 🙂

Really enjoying it, far more than I thought I would. Everything’s going to be ready in time for when my baby son weans, which is nice 🙂

I’m soooo excited, our garage work starts next week, which means that in aobut 6 weeks I’ll be able to start planning my veg plot. And yes I know it’s all to late for this year but still jumping up and down with excitement! <does little giddy dance>

No it’s not too late, preparation is everything.
You can get your raised beds ready and get the manure in. 🙂

Even though I’ve been growing veggies for 8 years now. I bought myself the ‘Alan Titchmarsh how to grow – vegetables and herbs, idiots guide. Hopefully it will help me.

I get giddy when I start picking the fruits of my labour. Yum.

Woody – We’ve been feeding spinach from the garden to our baby girl.

Ironically though, I’ve just not had time to grow as much stuff as in previous years because of her.

How difficult did you find cabbages? It’s the one thing I just can’t grow (so far)!

Ok so tell me about raised beds? Why do I want them rather than a normal bed (my dad used to just have normal ones and they worked for him 🙂 ). If I want raised ones, what’s the best thing to use to raise them with?

chapa – my allotment neighbour gave me some young plants, I just stuck ’em in and they seemed to grow ok. I didn’t give them any protection though, so they have been nibbled, but they look to be doing ok. This year’s the first year I’ve done anything like this (ever!), so it’s all been chucked in without much planning. We got the plot in March, and junior was due in April, so it was a case of get it all done ASAP, then think about it later. We’re only using half the plot at the moment, and I just cannot believe how much food you can grow in small space (we only have a half plot anyway!)

Does anyone know if I need to treat the soil for blight, before growing anything else, I heard they can attack Tomatoes too?

From what I remember there is no treatment once the disease has taken hold, however, spraying the tomato plants with a Mancozeb spray every 2 weeks in damp weather should hold it at bay.

As for raised beds, they’re ideal if you have back problems 😉 but also you can manipulate the soil or growing medium you use for growing your plants more easily, reduce stone content (if particularly stoney) and also are ideal if your soil is poor draining or gets waterlogged in the winter.

Mrs F

Wiki Raised BedsWiki Raised Beds

Better crop yields in smaller spaces – I don’t have them but friends who have them say they’re terrific

Aha, thanks tankslapper. I will ahve a read.

I have both mrs flash. The yield from the raised bed, ( first time I’ve used one is this year) seems to be greater than my old allotment style bed.

I’ve also used buckets and pots this year for the first time. The slugs and snails seem to stay away a bit more from those.

Raised beds are nice but seem far from essential to me. I do half my growing in them and half at ground level.

Dig in loads and loads of manure/compost and you’ll still be able to grow plenty in normal beds. Had my best results of all in normal beds actually.

When do you think you’ll be ready to start sowing mrsflash? You can get stuff for this year in as late as July. And pretty soon after that you’ll be sowing stuff for overwintering anyway.

Strawberries and Raspberries Today
ICe cream later…

After seeing the picture above I went and looked at the rogue raspberry growing by itself in the flower bed.

I have just eaten the entire (2 raspberries) crop

chapaking, probably mid august I would have thought. still giddy.

Not a lot I’m aware of that can go in that late; rocket, maybe spinach, other salads probably (but I’m not much of a leaf-muncher).

Still, you’ll have plenty of time to get loads of stuff in for overwintering!

It’s really addictive.

spinach and rocket will do, I love them both. I am prepared for addiciton 🙂

Hi all

Pics from a few weeks ago from the little plot I’ve got in the back garden

The Potatoes, Broccoli and Toms have since become Tryfids!
First year we’ve had a go at all this and think I tried to cram a bit too much in to small an area
The Potatoes and Broccoli are crowding my onions carrots and lettuce’s

Q?
Can you just keep trimming Rocket and it come back ok?

Q?
Can you just keep trimming Rocket and it come back ok?

Not sure, was so prolific that I couldn’t eat enough to make a dent.

Ended up making rocket pesto, which was something of an acquired taste!

29erKeith – looking good. Nice garden too !!

I’ve been removing leaves from my rocket all spring/early summer. Aslong as you don’t rmove the growing point in the centre the plant should keep producing leaves. I’ve had most of my salad leave bolt though…. I think I may have put the plants out too early, and they’ve had a bit of frost or something….

Does anyone have any other ideas ?

I’m new to this thread but have been growing beans, potatoes and garlic in pots. The potatoes have just gone nuts – foliage is getting on for 3ft tall. Is this normal? Should it be cut back to encourage spud growth?

Ta

I’m no expert, mine are growing really high too. Just leave them, the flowers will start showing in a few weeks.

Looks like an alien’s head on a stick in 29ers garden

For best yield you need to ‘earth up’ your spuds. Every week or so you need to bury the haulm (posh word for the stem). Ye olde way of growing spuds was to put them in rows a couple of feet apart so you could then just use a hoe to drag the soil from the gap over the plants – new fangled ideas include using things like growing them in compost bags or dustbins where you plant the seed spud a foot or so off the bottom then just top up the bag/bin as it grows.

I’ve been piling topsoil on top of my potatoes as soon as I get a few inches growth out of them. How long should I keep this up? I’m going to run out of soil soon!

cheers martyntr, its small but we like it

Jimmy i think that’ll be the watering can on a cane 😆

Potatoes have been flowering for a few weeks now still a few more unopened buds but once there all done thats time to dug ’em up isn’t it???

Surfr – if you’re doing it in a bag/bin then you can just keep going until it’s full (as long as the plant keeps growing of course…) – if you’re growing in rows then you reach a point where the sides of the mounds are getting too steep (usually when there’s a foot to 18 inches of soil mounded up) and so it’s not practical to keep going after that.

Can you just keep trimming Rocket and it come back ok?

The seeds I bought say you can get at least 4 crops from a plant.

Rocket certainly seems to be the easiest thing to grow of the things I’ve tried.

Can you just keep trimming Rocket and it come back ok?

The seeds I bought say you can get at least 4 crops from a plant.

Rocket certainly seems to be the easiest thing to grow of the things I’ve tried.

The general rule of thumb on potatoes is 100 days from planting till harvest. This can however vary depending on Variety. 😉

martyntr – nice tip

redthunder – that’s a amazing crop, nice one 😉

Bit late now, but seed wise, where do people go/recommend?

An observation. Everyone’s gardens on here look fantastic. Can I just be a spoil sport and remind people that the way our vegetables and plants grow is down to the birds and bees, so a little wild area is a good idea if you can spare it. It just gives insects, mammals and other creatures a place to live, which in turn helps the garden grow. I found a bees nest in our little wild corner the other day. 🙂

Bunnyhop – I have one behind the Compost bin by the blackcurrent bushes. In the spring I saw a Hedgehog over there…. great for eating the slugs 🙂

I've had intruders!

Cabbages and Cauliflower decimated by cabbage white caterpillars.

But in the deep bed things are looking up. Courgettes from martyntr coming along nicely and will soon be ready for harvest.

And the potatoes have just started to flower so They'll be cut down above ground and harvested soon. (very excited about this one)

Well not posted for a while, so, will jut update you with my nightmare allotment!

Being my first year and knowing absolutely nothing about growing plants, so far I have had blight on my potatoes, pea fly in my peas and just found what is apparently white rot on my onions!

The strawberries got taken over with couch grass, but at least my little one managed to crop a few.

So over the last year, someone broke into my shed and stole my tools, caught a family from hell helping themselves to a bucket full of my crop, while there kids played in my poly tunnel, putting a nice gash into the plastic, thanks for that!

The only thing so far is doing well are my Tomatoes , sweetcorn, red onions and Beetroot's, even one of my apple trees has decided to give it a rest this year with no apples!

Anyway at least I have had enough to crop to feed my family so far and neighbours, friends and relatives for the last month or so.

Learnt so much though this year and will do things differently next year, they say you lean by your mistakes 😉

I am not giving up! my wife loves the spot we have now, even though she was not keen at first, the neighbouring allotment folk have become good friends and my kids have had a great time there too.

might take some pics to post up latter 😉

Ski – apple trees need quite heavy pruning to ensure year on year crops. Did you have a bumper year last time, and has it got overgrown?

I've had a few bits nicked too, and now stuff's getting close to ready for harvesting I'm paranoid more things are going to be pilfered. I'd have no problem sharing if they're prepared to come and help out! Might have a night time stakeout in the shed! 🙂