Allotments

[Kymmy]

How's everyone's allotment doing...

Potatoes this year got a tiny bit of blight on one or two plants but we caught it before it got down tot he roots.. Strawberries, Raspberries, black/red currants, Rhubarb have gone crazy and the gooseberries are rediculously large (over an inch in diameter)

Cobnuts are doing well for their first year, squash (dumpling, gem, butternut) Pumpkin (rouge/jacklanterns) Carrots, Beetroots, parsnips and sweetcorn are also doing well.

Here's a pic from about 2 months back to show how we have it laid out.. (vines on the right, potatoes closest to you and soft fruit far end and mid left)

[techguyone]

I'm starting to get ripe tomatoes now from my garden grow-house, although this year I cheated and planted partly grown plants rather than growing from seed as normally I don't get fruit until September.

Sadly my pepper I planted got munched on almost as soon as I planted it, and has been munched mercilessly daily ever since, despite being grown in a ring, I guess I must have Olympic athlete class snails.

So Tomatoes 1 - Peppers 0

maybe next year I'll have better luck, I haven't actually tried peppers before.

[Taf]

Leeks bolted, as did a few onions.

No fruit at all on the apples and cherries, the aronia and goji didn't even flower!

Beans have just started to crop, they have been really slow this year.

Courgettes, pumpkins and butternuts have started to get a romp on.

Gooseberries huge like yours (already made into jam) ditto the blackcurrants. No sign of the redcurrants though. Raspberries going well... some are over 8ft tall this year! Blackberries have started to ripen, so I hope for drier weather or they will rot on the plants. Kiwis not so prolific, and the Tayberries are still in flower.

Jerusalem artichokes have reached for the sky, as have their cousins the sunflowers.

Peppers and chillis in the greenhouse are in flower, but the Naga chillis are still under 6" tall due to the cold start to the year. Mini cucumbers have been fruiting for weeks already (Picolino). The salads are all surviving cut-and-come-again treatment.

The strawberries have been OK, but many rotted before they ripened. My new addition, German strawberries (Frau Schindler), seem more interested in making runners than flowers and fruit. They are reputed to be the best flavoured strawberry about.

The vines have flowered, but a lot of the leaves look battered and dying, I hope it's the weather, and not a disease.

This year's pest problems have been snails and ants (with their allies the blackfly). Slugs have been scarce.

[Osem]

Well what happened to this thread???!!!

A thoroughly poor year after an excellent start with the cherries. One conference pear, 1 Bramley apple, scant strawberries, no Victoria plums (pruned off the branches to try to get shot of the pesky plum moth grubs), loads of Harfeuzer tomatoes but they're only just ripening now! Given their small size (3ft), our dwarf red lane apple trees in pots have done best I reckon with some really nice specimens waiting to ripen but we're not exactly going to be self sufficient in anything other than green tomatoes this year.

My only success is my 30ft long clematis which I had to cut right back due to the supporting trellis being rotten. After pruning out loads of dead stuff inside the mass of the shrub, I was left with just a handful of wizen bare stems which I tied to the new trellis. It looked awfully bare for a couple of months but since then has covered the entire trellis and restored our privacy. I'll be keeping it better maintained from now on to avoid it getting too thick in future.

[Mr K]

Fantastic year on my greatly expanded plot. Over run with courgettes that have come marrows as i didn't pick them quick enough. Tons of strawberries and raspberries
, kindly abandoned by previous plot holder. Massive pumpkins on the way well as leeks and butternut squash. Over wintered onions and garlic worked out very well, with a 2nd summer crop planted. Cucumbers, sunflowers, turnips, swedes... Pickling my shallots today. Had to buy another fridge to store stuff.

Thinking about winter crops now - have put some winter cabbage in, definitely planting garlic and onions in the autumn again as that worked out very well. Have taken a risk and sowed some turnips this week on the advice of Monty Don. Also planted perpetual spinach. Parsnips looking good and should be able to harvest throughout the winter.

This allotment is either going to kill me or get me very fit. Thankfully we've had some decent rain this summer, as the one drawback of my site, is there is no water supply - very nice views of the countryside though. Starting to get fed up of vegetable soup though...

[jodash]

I've been on the waiting list for over 5 years wonder if I will get one

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by jodash

I've been on the waiting list for over 5 years wonder if I will get one

I decided to get a plot last year, put myself on all the council waiting list with warnings it'd be years. However there are also committee owned allotments, within a day of getting in contact with one of them, I had a plot. Very overgrown and a lot of hardwork, but now it's delivering big time and i've taken on 2 more adjacent plots as the previous tenant got chucked off for doing nothing.

Guess it depends where you live. Have you tried any committee run rather that council owned allotments, if there are any in your area ? People usually have to renew tenancies early in the new year, so that's usually when they become available.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by jodash

I've been on the waiting list for over 5 years wonder if I will get one

How about trying one of those land/garden share arrangements?

Not much use to you I know but I know a few elderly folk nearby who have large gardens they're struggling to maintain and would be delighted to do this. This sort of arrangement can work very well if you can find someone locally.

http://www.landshare.net/

[Osem]

Let's hope 2016 is a better year for fruit and veg than 2015.

[Arthurgray50@blu]

I will be honest, my wife used to operate on an allotment. Sadly, we don't go on it no more, after some guy killed his wife, and buried the parts on it.

And three months ago, some guy was living on the allotment. And got that drunk he fell asleep, knocked over a petrol stove and perished

[techguyone]

Arthur you're always such a ray of sunshine. I always look forward to your light hearted and entertaining posts

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

I will be honest, my wife used to operate on an allotment. Sadly, we don't go on it no more, after some guy killed his wife, and buried the parts on it.

And three months ago, some guy was living on the allotment. And got that drunk he fell asleep, knocked over a petrol stove and perished

No links to such fictitious stories?? Oh well might as well get back on topic then and talk about fruit and veg and growing them

[Taf]

I've been asked to clone a type of chilli which is very cold-tolerant. The local allotment users are really getting into their chillies this year. we all just hope the weather is good enough.

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by Taf

I've been asked to clone a type of chilli which is very cold-tolerant. The local allotment users are really getting into their chillies this year. we all just hope the weather is good enough.

Any chance of some seeds if successful? I do like my chillis

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Taf

I've been asked to clone a type of chilli which is very cold-tolerant. The local allotment users are really getting into their chillies this year. we all just hope the weather is good enough.

Sounds brilliant. Good luck with that!

I've re-potted all my strawberry plants, got the tomato seedlings growing away nicely in the heated propagator and just noticed that our basil seeds have started sprouting in the kitchen. Can't wait...