The vegetable/allotment thread 2022

Tried to be more organised this year, but slugs and snails and neighbouring cats / foxes seem to be more organised. Potatoes doing well, courgettes OK, but runner beans seem to have succumbed to said slugs and snails, and leeks (usually grow OK) look very thin and patchy. Bought one of those small cheap plastic greenhouses so hopefully will get some decent crops of lettuce and spinach.

I've had an allotment for 10 years or so and this is the first year that I'm running out of space to plant things - though I've got a load of garlic that will be harvested towards the end of this month.

I picked 2 bags of potatoes from the allotment bar for £2 each at the weekend, they are late going in but hopefully, I'll still get a crop this year from them ( blight permitting )

I've got a polytunnel which I need to sort out this week as there are chilli's/peppers/tomatoes & aubergines that need to be put into the ground.

My kitchen has been taken over by seedlings that really need to be planted out… mainly assorted types of bean, I’ll be busy next weekend doing that and planting carrot seeds
But I have had a reasonable crop of Rhubarb so far and more to come, along with some delicious Asparagus

Got 2 raised beds and lots of tomatoes, chilli's and Aubergine in pots. Mostly Asian veg in the beds as they seem slug proof. Had a nice crop of radishes already, pak choy, choy sum and mixed spicy salad leaves on the way.

The warm dry weather seems to have bolted all the kale chard and spinach that made it through the winter not long after i was finally able to take some decent cuts off it, but the replacements seem to be coming along well. I've focussed on strawberries this year but have toms, cucumber, courgette, broad beans and salads all getting there too. Chillis will go in the place of the bolted plants once the bees have had their fill. This is year 2 for me so looking forward to seeing whether i've learnt anything...

The warm dry weather seems to have bolted all the kale chard and spinach that made it through the winter not long after i was finally able to take some decent cuts off it, but the replacements seem to be coming along well. I’ve focussed on strawberries this year but have toms, cucumber, courgette, broad beans and salads all getting there too. Chillis will go in the place of the bolted plants once the bees have had their fill. This is year 2 for me so looking forward to seeing whether i’ve learnt anything…

They have bolted because they are annuals/biennials and they are simply completing their lifecycles - just the same as with the oil seed rape that has now finished flowering in the fields. Best to make sure you take them into winter at and good size and then have eaten or preserved everything before spring arrives.

That's why this time is called the hungry gap - annuals from last year have gone over and annuals from this year are just getting going. Growing some perennial kale can be a decent stopgap. Also certain things like purple sprouting brocolli are quite late (obviously you are eating the plant as it bolts anyway).

I took over the hard graft of my MiLs allotment last year. It was too much work for her when her partner left. So I’m the general labourer and The Wife and MiL are the planters and tenders.

Broad beans have been eaten from this years crop, still about another two weeks worth of picking left.

3 varieties of potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, purple sprouting, pak choy,2x cabbage, leeks, parsnips, carrots, beetroot, peas, french beans, runner beans, salad leaves, radish, sweet corn, courgettes, 3x squash, apple, pear, gooseberry, blueberries, red currants, rhubarb, horseradish.

It’s starting to look OK now after it being a weed infested wasteland last year.

Before most of the above went in.

Oooh this is good for asking advice.

We've just spent a wad on netting off (with the blue bendy pipe) the strawberry patch, also will use the netting and blue pipe for the other beds.
There is a courgette, parsley, tomatoes, cucumbers, raspberries, rhubarb, cauliflower, lettuce and an apple tree, on the go at the moment.
I need to get the thin beans planted and out later in the summer. Other herbs do well but have taken over.

The best tip I ever got is to make your own compost.
I also let the veg bolt, then the bees can enjoy the flowers (purple sprouting broccoli atm).

I also let the veg bolt, then the bees can enjoy the flowers (purple sprouting broccoli atm).

Plus you can save your own seed (so long as you are growing open pollinated varieties and not F1s). You will find that sowing your own (fresh) seed is generally much more sucessful that bought seed.

Onions and garlic all doing well but overwintered chard and rhubarb more or else all that's cropping so far.
Soft fruit looking good. 1st gooseberry pick due soon.
Peas partly in (slugs ate more than half) so need redoing with beans in the next couple of weeks.
Tomatoes and cucumbers are installed in the greenhouse but most of the rest still in seedling trays or seed packets.
Not yet put spuds in either but early's cam go in as late as July. In 2020 was laid low by Covid so put spuds in late July. The 1st early's worked and we dug them up on Christmas morning. The second earlies decided to rest and gave me a crop last summer.
Edit: kale flowers can be eaten like broccoli if you catch the flower heads before they open. Tastes good too.

This year I have a decent variety but small batches.

In the greenhouse, tomato plants just starting to fruit. Also spinach, Iceberg gem, and chillies.

In the plots, rhubarb is like something from Jurassic Park. Two pumpkins, onions, corn, potatoes, broad beans (not many), carrots, pak choi, runner beans and beetroot.

I'm still learning, and have had poor germination numbers by planting outside and have killed many beetroot by moving them. I've planted a number of substitutions in pots in the greenhouse to make up the numbers. I'm also trying some lemon cucumbers and a pineapple plant.

1st gooseberry pick due soon.

I’ll have to go and check again, I hadn’t noticed any meaningful fruit on ours yet. We’ve a Loganberry this year that has some fruit on it, should be interesting.

6 month old means we haven’t been as on it. The raspberries are triffiding as usual and we got some potatoes in but everything else has been down to the kindness of parents donating lettuce, tomatoes etc ready for planting.

1st gooseberry pick due soon.

You can do a thinning pick in June before the berries are ripe and use them sweetened for pie or jam. Supposed to encourage the main crop to get bigger. You mainly know the later crop is ripe when the birds take them all. Nets fairly essential!

Globe, jerusalem and chinese artichoke
walking onions
pineberries
chickpeas
a pomegranite
cucamelons
tigerella tomatoes
various other bits and pieces

Doing all the usual stuff this year.

Onions, garlic, spinach, beetroot, french beans, mangetout, courgettes, new potatoes, tomatoes, chillis.

Fruit wise I've got rhubarb, strawberries, redcurrants, gooseberries and raspberries and then blackberries trying to take over everything. Not found any sign of the loganberry I put in last year.

I'm a bit behind where I usually am, courgettes still to go in the ground, and I still have half my early seed potatoes to find a space for. Have already harvested some mangetout which seemed to have survived the winter in a pot by the house and then flowered in the warm weather in spring.

12 degrees warmer than yesterday so hopefully that will give everything a bit of a boost (me included)

https://flic.kr/p/2nqvNee

We've got potatoes, carrots, red cabbage, cauli, peas, cherry tomatoes, radish, spring onion, chillies, spinach, strawberries, sweetcorn, raspberries and a load of herbs growing in various raised beds, buckets, borders and in our 'ickle greenhouse.

Nothing anywhere ready to eat yet, but I may lift some potatoes soon.

I have a few beds on the go. One with some onions and garlic, one for the peas and a squash, one for a few brocoli and cabbages,some French beans, spuds and raspberries and a salad bed with tomatoes and cucumbers in pots.

I've been munching lot's of red radishes, eating the dakon radish thinnings which are lovely sautéed and some beautiful baby pak choy and Asian spicy salad leaves. Oh and one strawberry 😂

Really hope this warmer spell will work it's magic.
Everything looks like it will all ripen at once.
Perfect mix atm of rain in the evening and warm, sunny days.

Another good tip: Only grow what isn't cheap to buy. Maybe that's everything atm. Feel lucky to have space to grow food.

Had lots of asparagus so far. Strawberries and raspberries coming on. Blackcurrant bushes look good but pigeons got the gooseberry already. Lots of rhubarb as usual, garlic and onions appear ok, beans and corgettes coming along, few spuds in but there cheap to buy and I don't eat many. Cauliflower and broccoli appear to be getting along and survived the slugs. Few down pours lately have helped a lot. Allotment life is pretty chilled if you can get one, dead men's shoes on our site.

It would be interesting to see if cost of living etc prompts people to grow veg in gardens again. When I was a kid everyone's dad had a veg plot to some degree.

So far everything is doing almost a bit too well with the sun/ rain taking turns..

Greenhouse has tomatoes already beginning to redden, lots of pak choi, aubergines, cucumbers, something called cucu-melons someone gave me seeds for and about 16 chilli plants (love making chilli jam and smoking them to dry them for storage), plus lots of trays of baby salad leaves, that i keep planting an cutting young.

I have 4 square beds and one long rectangular one, the 4 beds have flourishing kale, spring onions, peas of 3 varieties, berlotti beans, broad beans, courgettes, spinach and swiss chard

I then have runner beans just going into large bed, and 12 lots of charlotte and salad potatoes which i grow in bags along the edge of the greenhouse.

Everything has come on so much in the last 2-3 weeks it is becoming a full time job!

Been offered am allotment for £20 a year just 300m from house, but not sure i have time for that as well this year, i may take it at beginning of winter and just prep it for next year.

Slug pallets are now a thing of the past.

How can I stop my pakchoi and beans getting demolished?

Companion planting Earl, plant something that the slugs etc like more than your lovely veg, or something that will stop them finding it in the first place

https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/10-companion-plants-to-grow/

Sounds like it would work except I think pakchoi is like crack for slugs.

I think I need to befriend a few hedgehogs and frogs

Been offered am allotment for £20 a year just 300m from house, but not sure i have time for that as well this year, i may take it at beginning of winter and just prep it for next year.

Take it now, while it’s on offer, if list are anything like round me they don’t come up often.
You won’t be expected to do loads this year, but a bit of horse muck under weed suppressing fabric now will make next year a lot better

We were offered an allotment in October after 7 Years of waiting. Although really busy I took it on, with my step dad, who’s semi retired. It’s a half plot, and it needed a lot of work.

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After a lot of work and building, we got a lot done over winter and have been growing since march. Kept things simple, pots, onions, beans, brassicas, and some Lettuces, but the transformation has been pretty amazing.

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It’s been hard work, the plot was covered, and I mean covered in glass, but the satisfaction of seeing things growing is really worthwhile. And it’s a great place to go to zone out for a few hours.

A shed / greenhouse combo planned for autumn so we can grow direct from seed a lot
More than we have done this year (I’ll admit a bit of cheat garden Center young plant buying has gone on this year!)

Slug pallets are now a thing of the past.

How can I stop my pakchoi and beans getting demolished?

Remove all slug hiding places near to veg patch, including long grass. Then put down one board or flat sheed of some sort to provide a damp hiding place for them near the veggies. Then check under the board regularly and dispose of any slugs.

Also on damp evenings check veg themselves and remove slugs.

Ideally this would be done from the beginning of the season and then the number never gets too great. The main thing is don't give them any habitat to hide in during the day. Also, no uncomposted mulches on the soil and remove all dead leaves etc.

We treated with nematodes a few years ago and that really seemed to help.

Harvesting has begun

https://flic.kr/p/2nuF1kD

We’ve had a predominantly cold and wet sprint/summer so far that most things we’ve planted have barely grown. I’ve just started constructing the shuttering for the concrete base for a 4m diameter geodesic dome as it might be the only thing that saves our ‘summer’ produce - hopefully I’ll get that finished in the next few weeks. Mrs DB has been spreading 2 tons of bark clippings over the non-growing areas of our plot and getting an area ready for the chickens which arrive in the next week or two.

Forgotten I'd started this thread....

Have been enjoying our first home grown potatoes for several years, and the first pea pods are beginning to start to swell....

Time for me to start planning as my council have just agreed to sell me some land to extend my back garden.
It's an open piece of land - approx 100' x ave 20' - so gets sun all day and ground is free draining; bargaintastic £1,450 inc council legal fees and vat free!
A little overgrown and no invasive weeds so should be easy to get on top of it.
I'm turning into my dad - well, sort of; he took over a neighbour's back garden (council house so no legalities) with their agreement to extend his veg garden.
Current thinking is wildlife garden, veg garden and raised beds made from reclaimed untreated tropical hardwood sleepers I've got my eye on.
Possibly a couple of reclaimed stone troughs.

Main (spring planted sets) onion crop now uprooted and in the drying bench
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Yes the hedge needs major surgery...

My garlic was planted earlier than usual before winter, watered, fed with liquid seaweed more than usual. I did a trial harvest in late June as leaves were browning, stems really thick, however very disappointing. I harvested late July after the heat and what a triumph, nicely formed heads, lovely taste.
On another note we had blackfly invading some of our flowering plants, I left them as there were a lot of ladybird larvae about but they came and went with little impact, I removed badly affected bits and put them on the ground for the birds then sprayed with water to reduce the numbers a bit. I was rewarded by hoverflies and wasps deciding that the ant protectors were reduced enough to dive in, a week later hardly any blackfly left.

Spend 6hrs yesterday sieving soil from one of our raised beds yesterday got 6 wheelbarrows worth of stones out of it!

Wad using a Soil sieve

And I’ve 3 more to go.

Trying to get the beds cleared and prepared properly for next year. Hoping to grow some root veg.

Had some onions this year and a load of kale but hope to do better next year.

Also even though it was damp cut the main lawn. Did it with out the collector on for speed, It’s so full of moss and un level I’m stumped on how to improve it!

I fear I’m at the point where a trip to garden centres at weekend will get my new hobby

Bit of an update - the dome was completed in the summer and we have 4 main ‘produce’ beds

We are next to open country with a herd of red deer so the 6ft fence is essential. No 🐇 🦊 or 🐿 but we do have pine martens. Fresh produce here is expensive and often low quality so many people here grow there own. The chickens are great for slugs and entertainment, but will destroy anything they fancy - fresh eggs are nice.

We have a bit of a mouse problem as they are living in the compost bins and living off the bird seed falling from the feeders - huge number of wild bird here - so will be taking steps to get that under control (bucket trap and food for the buzzards and owls)

That is a mega strawberry Dovebiker.

Today was time to harvest the remaining squashes and pumpkins
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Oooh lovely.
Our strawberries have been late in sending out runners. I've potted a few up but need more. Will take out the 3/4 year old strawberry plants, leaving that for other veg (not sure when to do this). The new strawberry bed is not looking its best.
French beans have been slow to grow and the wind (we are on the side of a hill) keeps blowing them over.
Going to gather the last of the tomatoes and one remaining cucumber from the green house next week. The green ones probably won't ripen this late in the season.

I weeded and put down bark over the raspberry bed, hoping for a better crop next year.