Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: noshed on August 09, 2006, 13:03
-
This year (my first on the allotment) I've had rubbish crops of peas, carrots and parsnips but good crops of cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, squash, courgettes, cucumber, beetroot, broad beans and spuds.
The jury is still out on the french and runner beans.
My gooseberry bush died and the loganberries are a bit dry. But the backberries are lovely.
The strawberries took up an awful lot of room for not a very big crop.
I keep changing my mind about what to do next year - great, isn't it?
How's everyone else getting on - any good hints and tips based on this year's experience? (Cold spring and dry, hot summer). Mine would be mulch, mulch, mulch. I bumped into a camel roaming about my plot last night, but most things seem to have survived surrounded by a banket of compost.
-
mulch, mulch, mulch.
yes I agree. Lots of well rotted manure if possible too.
I should have watered the sweetcorn much more than I did when first planted out.
I will grow a LOT more broad beans because they're lovely.
I didn't learn what I did wrong with my beetroot! I've been successful for 2 years but this year its a disaster. I have to assume birds but they were covered with fleece in the early days. I'll have lots of backup seedlings next year.
I'll try carrots again. Will use some sand if needed. I got about 9 - 12 this year out of a whole pack. They are good though but not very orange.
I'll plant fewer corgettes. :)
-
... wand I'd like a tad more rain next summer, but obviously only at night or when I was spending the day chained to my desk.
I had have no luck with peas for the last two years, but most other things do seem to grow and crop reasonably well, despite the conditions.
I will not under any circumstances have more than two courgette plants and one 16ft row of runner beans (my friends and neighbours are actually grateful for the down sizing on the crop of runner beans, last year I was beginning to find people running into their houses at the sight of me with a carrier bag, lest it be full of runners!).
I will not allow quite so many poppy seedlings to flower.
I will plant an early row of broad beans again ... they were delicious, and safe under my polythene cloch thingamy
I will plant punkins ... on my compost heap and note down the measurements of the two main fruits on a weekly basis ... hey it makes me smile to really see how fast they grow!
I will sink pieces of pipe into the ground by my fruit trees so my precious baby apples and pears don't drop off through lack of water ... and when I get that one apple heading to ripeness I shall watch it closely with a shotgun so some barsteward bird doesn't get it before I do!
And every now and then I will sit on my allotment and give it a blooming good coat of looking at!
-
One of my favourite sayings at the moment is – “Next year I’m gonna ……………..”
This year I was not prepared enough, as this is my first year too, I can semi prepare for next years plants going in.
Carrots – next year I’ll be planting in blue barrels – I planted 250 and exactly 17 carrots – although these are looking tremendous at the moment, cant wait to pull them.
Parsnips – again like carrots I’ll be planting these blue barrels – question can you grow parsnips in the same way as carrots? Does the barrel have to be blue and plastic?
Beetroot – I will harvest earlier.
Pumpkins – I will give these more room.
Cabbages – I will protect better from the dreaded flying rat (wood pigeon).
Celery – don’t know what has happened but it’s all gone to seed.
Fennel – same as celery – poss too dry???? ( Is ozzo made from fennel – mmmmmmmm my fennel smells lush.)
Spinach – I’ll not plant as much as this year – could not eat/give away.
Runner beans – I’ll harvest on a more regular basis.
Raddish – I will plant in smaller quantities but more often.
Spuds – I’ll wrap in comfrey leaves when planting.
Swede/turnips – I’ll plant more golden ball than swede – the kids prefer it.
Leeks/Onoins – I’ll plant more next year – every buger and his auntie have asked for some.
Tomatoes – I tried lots of different types this year – gardeners delight – yellow cherry – black cherry – money maker – beefy type – alicante to name a few! Next year I’ll try to limit myself to 3 types.
Chillis – again I tried lots of varieties - Bolivian Rainbow Chilli - Cayenne Chilli - Explosive Ember Chilli - Marbles Chilli - Purple Variegated Chilli - Romanian Hot Chilli - Starburst Chilli - Tai Sun Worshipper Chilli! Next year –I’ll stick with best next year - Romanian Hot Chilli so far.
Cucumber – this year I have tried to types an outdoor type and an apple type – next year its all apples – these are tremendous.
The only flowers I grew this year – Sunflower – the son brought them home from nursery. His teacher was very proud of her 3’ skinny attempt until I showed her the photo of my 6’3” pride and joy, yes still talking about sunflowers.
Sweetcorn – I love the way this grows – tall things are fantastic – I will be planting lots next year, this year I have 28 plants at about 6’ tall all have two cobs on and a couple have three although I have been told that only two will grow to complete cobs.
Helper – I would also like a helper – someone to at least stir the smelly stuff – the manure, comfrey and seaweed mixes.
If I can have a go of wellingtons magic wand – I would like a poly-tunnel please and sole access to the tap.
-
... you may borrow my wand anytime ya likes ... I have a spangly tiara and a set of wings if it would help?
Watch the sweetcorn for mice ... the wee wotnots ate more of my corn last year than I did ... I fixed them on the remaining cobs by cutting the bottoms off plastic bottles, making a split down the side and putting them over the corn cob (sometimes you need to cut the neck a bit too) and taping them with clear tape. Then I stuffed fleece in the opening ... it was a bit of a faff but it did work!
-
as its our first year and we didnt get our plot until April weve had almost all sucess stories except parsnips which didnt even germinate.but next year will
plant at least 4 rows of peas as our 2 yr old ate most of them including pods
plant some spuds as we didnt bother this year.planning on rocket and charlotte.
stagger the lettuce a bit better as we had loads all at once
plant twice as much sweetcorn as it has been marvelous
just stick to one pumpkin plant as theyve taken over
get some more water butts
-
Next year I will ......
Remember to sow some seeds in the greenhouse ready to plant out in July after some of the first crops have been harvested
Plant my carrots in tubs just like the Big Dig program as this year I needed to sow my carrots three time! Ditto parsnips
I will NOT GROW six courgette plants but limit to two - one green one yellow.
I will grow my black prince tomatos as they are fabulous such a great tasting early maturing tomato.
My peas didnt do so well this year - not decided whether to do these next year or not.
LOVED the fresh cauliflower, cucumbers, lettuce, broad beans, runner beans and french beans so will be doing them again
Will do more garlics and shallots as they came up brilliantly.
Will grow my own marigolds from seed instead of buying them from the shop
-
I agree with more mulching
I won't plant my excess potatoes and brassicas in the polytunnel. Spuds too gangly and not so many potatoes on them. Seems to be too humid for brassicas, several went mouldy.
I only planted half as many runner beans this year as we froze loads and OH doesn't like them frozen, but not so many per plant this year, so I won't have ANY left to freeze!
I'll plant more early potatoes than main crop next year so we can have them when new potatoes are so expensive.
Broad beans did well, but lost lots of flowers, so sill be planting MORE next year. Also will plant more peas, as they are lovely!
Beetroot didn't do as well this year, much smaller I suppose because of the dry summer, but need much more next year for OH.
I will buy my shallot seeds or sets next year like I usually do as this year's sowing my own saved shallots didn't do as well, and I'll try a different red and a white onion.
Will practise successional sowing more successfully (hopefully!)
Won't plant my sweetcorn in the dampest part of my plot (they didn't like it!) and will plant more spring onions, because these ones didn't last long!!!
Will plant more spring cabbage like Offenham because the summer cabbages really did well, but we don't eat much cabbage in the summer, so more winter and spring cabbage on the agenda!!
I will still grow 7 or 8 varieties of tomatoes because we all love tomatoes, and I love seeing all the different colours and shapes forming. And Pennydog sits there eyeing them up and waiting for me to throw her one!
I also will try my carrots and parsnips in something tall. In fact we have an old bath we took out of a house a couple of weeks ago. I might put that the other side of the polytunnel and try that. In fact, we have another one coming out of another house this week. Oh is doing a few jobs for his aunt and her daughter. I could have carrots in one and parsnips in the other one!!! covered with fleece!!
Will try to get more melons to germinate, but maybe less courgettes like everyone else!!!! lol
My celery is going to seed too, wrong weather again?
And Comfry-kid, no the barrells don't have to be blue and plastic, just 3 ft high or more so the carrot fly can't get in! Apparently they don't fly over 3ft!!!
-
Also I'm going to be a bit more organised - no more standing in the middle of the plot with a few plants thinking: "Where will this go?".
And I'm going to use the cold frame for hardening things off - not as a lettuce jungle.
-
This was also our first year at vegetable gardening. Since we don't have an allotment yet (and could have to wait a year or more for one), we're limited by the size of our garden.
We will plant everything out earlier, as we didn't plant anything until mid-May or later this year.
We will not plant the courgettes in the square foot garden plots, ESPECIALLY the flying saucer courgettes (AKA golden bush scallop), which obviously aspire to world domination/invasion, or at least square foot garden domination/invasion.
We will plant more beetroot, it is lovely pickled.
We will plant more peas, especially the very tasty Delikett sugar snap peas.
We will prune our tomatoes in a timely manner, lest they again grow out of control.
We will grow more spinach so there is lots for the freezer.
We will NOT sip our soy lattes whilst admiring our garden and saying "oh look at those pretty white butterflies fluttering around the kale!" Instead we will concentrate on protecting our kale crop from the caterpillar-* offspring of the pretty white butterflies.
We will NOT plant a second crop of spinach in the heat of summer and have it bolt before it barely has any leaves on it. Instead, we will plant perpetual spinach in the heat of summer, which does very well indeed.
We will stagger our lettuce plantings so that we do not have to eat enormous salads everyday for weeks followed by salads from Tesco.
We will paint the sides of the garden boxes with salt solution BEFORE the slugs decide to set up camp amongst our vegetables (or what used to be our vegetables).
We will try to figure out why the "easy to grow, quick-maturing" Tatsoi did not come up at all.
We will read more about celery cultivation so that we will have more than one head of it.
We will continue growing wax beans and green beans and rapini and kohlrabi as they are all very good.
We will net our blueberries so that we may also enjoy the fruits of our labours, not just the birds.
We will be on the lookout for the gooseberry sawfly and dispatch it BEFORE it eats 90% of the leaves off our gooseberry bush.
We will try to find space for the offspring of our strawberry plants, who have borne us an average of 2.4 strawberry babies each.
We will try to figure out why the carrots that the seed packet promised would be "extremely tender and sweet" were in fact pretty hard and not very sweet at all.
blah blah blah :roll:
-
FANTASTIC! its great to see everyone planning for next year. I have no doubt she will do everything you are all going to do! Her tomatoes in the poly have been a disaster this year. The sweet corn is pretty ropey too (sowed 64 seeds and 9 germinated! a bad year). The runner beans have flopped - too hot. Her flowers have been very sad - too dry. (She has a very big plot so watering is only feasible for food - flowers have to fend for themselves.) So, on the whole, probably one of the worst years ever!
Two successes: She has a sunflower that is 11ft tall with one flower on the top! Will save some seed to grow some more next year. She has also grown some Indian Corn - Wildas Pride. It is about 9ft tall, green or purple stems, two cobs per stem, also purple, with purple kernals! she only grew 12 plants this year just to see what they look like. She loves them, so next year she will have a jungle!
-
:D COR BLIMEY!
Next year i want to
*get a polytunnel as i,ve lost the idea of my hubby actually getting
the old greenhouse too not look like the house that jack built! :evil:
*buy a cultivator/tiller :wink:
*Put things in earlier as we were late this year cause wer'e newbies :lol:
*Paint the shed :shock:
*get a LOAN FROM THE BANK!! :roll:
-
i think next year i will go on holiday in january (i'm sure the kids wont mind swimming in the north sea then) because we were away last week and came back to enough weeds to choke a elephant.3 days weeding and the plot looks much better though,
also i need to get a smaller net over my brassica cage as the one ive got now is about a inch square and is letting every butterfly from afar into it.
also stagger the planting of lettuce a bit better i had about 30 ready at once ate 10 and the others had bolted,
appart from the above i'm quite pleased had a great crop of early spuds still got 6 rows of main crop in the ground.
the onions and shallotts are great there all out now and drying,i grown all mine from sets but the lads who grow theres from seed are much bigger.
i must agree about the weather though it was far too hot early on in may and june.as for now its blooming frezzing i took the dog for a walk last night and i got 20 yards from the house and came back for a coat, its the same this morning a realy chilly wind
-
As ive only had my allotment for a few weeks, i plan to get down there and actually motivate myself to do some digging and make a compost bin
hopefully get some things in the ground pretty soon, but have no idea what! and when to put in?! and generally get everything ready for a fresh start next year! :)
-
theres lots you can put in now apes
leeks(plants not seed)
spring cabbage(sow them now or if you can get young plants even better)
winter onions
spring onions
garlic
you could try and sow a few salad leaves
any way good luck and keep at it
-
:) Hi apes it says in my allotment book im borrowing from the library
(maybe you could get one) that this time of year you can plant out
cabbages(winter and spring) kale,leeks,sprouting broccoli and potatoes
in pots(under glass)
_______________
happy growing!!
-
Hmm next year
Lots more broad beans
Lots more spinach beet
1st earlly & 2nd early potatoes
Get all my water butts full and rain collecting
Build up the grenhouse I've got
Plan for succession I'm hopeless at it :oops:
Build a deep bed for carrots and parsnips - lots of stones in the ground :x
Not get stung by the nettles :)
Get some soft fruit in
-
Next Year?
I've borrowed Wellington's Wand (Tiara, wings etc...) because next year I will have a second plot. It has been well looked after for many years by the same family. They can no longer manage it and want someone who will look after it to take it on. They were impressed with what we have acheived this year and offered it to us.
So Next Year? Lots more time outside gardening and growing ... and perhaps a bigger freezer. More late potatoes and more room for greens.
-
Do you actually ever get time to do any "estimator"ing Rugbymad? What with one plot now two, masterchef cooking, growing-to-show, rugbying etc. etc. I just wonder how you make time?! Unless 5 minutes estimatoring gives you a week's worth of wages?
-
Nest year I will
Plant things is nice next rows and not all higgledy piggedly, it has been a nightmare weeding!!!!!!
Grow more mini pumpkins - they are lush roasted!
Grow twice as much sweetcorn
only 2 courgette plants.
Grow tomatoes earlier as mine are all still blooming green!
Grown loads more onions!
more chilli plants,
more broad beans - after being told for years my husband doesn't like them- he has now changed him mind.
PEAS!!! - forgot to plant them this year
Sow parsnips much much earlier.
Grown lettuce not salad. - easier to clean
and give melons and celery a try.
-
And I'm going to build a greenhouse out of scrap corrugated plastic and scrap wood. Not pretty I'm sure but it may be the business if we have another cold spring.
-
Plant things in nice neat rows and not all higgledy piggedly, it has been a nightmare weeding!!!!! .....
Hooray! she is a great advocate of straight lines being easier to weed. Some people look at her askance and say 'how boring' .... well, I rest my case. Thanks Karen!