The Potting Shed - come on in, the kettle's on!

[Deleted User]

I put 4 baby cabbages (duncan) into a 1/2 sq m 2 foot tall raised bed to join the winter lettuces and newly sown radish and into another bed I transferred 2 trays of oskar peas to join yet more winter lettuces. I have sown a few self supporting kenyan beans indoors for that bed. I have two lovely planters with trellises by my patio doors and have transferred overwintered sweet peas and salad stuff into one and sweet peas and herbs into the other. All plants are babies and I have seeds in there. The weather is mischievous this week so all 4 beds are covered in double fleece over flexible (brilliant!) hoops and tied on with clips. I am hoping that this weekend will see the last of the frosts but I am not holding my breath

angelavdavis

Hi everyone!

Hope it was sunny wherever you were.

We spent Saturday on the plot. We had a flat bed lorry full of manure delivered which we split with another plot holder and so my husband spent two hours barrowing it up to our plot.

Meanwhile, I weeded a couple of beds, spread the manure over the empty beds, planted seed potatoes. We also filled some of the gaps in the strawberry bed with some newly purchased plants and hubby planted another gooseberry plant which my Mum had picked up for us.

Disappointingly, our rhubarb (new last year) has flowered having sent up just three leaves! I have never had a rhubarb flower, so promptly cut off the flower in the hope it will produce some more stalks, but I am not holding my breath. It was planted in a manure rich mix, in a sunny spot but I am wondering if it is located in the wrong place - perhaps too dry an area? I am thinking we might move it come winter time to a damper part of the plot. Anyone have any experience of this??

I have been starting my seeds off in the conservatory at home, once I have potted them on, I plan to move them to the greenhouse at the allotment. I will then prepare a bed in the greenhouse for the tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers and melons.

Lovely to see everything springing to life - really pleased that all our fruit trees seem to have taken and the peach is even flowering. Here are some pictures:

http://s245.photobucket.com/albums/gg76/angelavdavis/Allotment%20spring%202011/

LilacPixie

ooo i love the mini trees.. how big will they grow??

angelavdavis

LilacPixie wrote: »

ooo i love the mini trees.. how big will they grow??

Thanks LilacPixie,

They are all on dwarf rooting stock - as per the allotment rules - so shouldn't grow taller than 8 feet, although I will be keeping them to a max of 6 foot by pruning them. I also have two stepover apples which I am training (single espalier) although these are only about a foot high at the moment!

In total, I have got:

2 stepover apples
2 espaliered plums
1 standard cherry
1 standard pear
2 standard peaches
8 cordoned apples

Lotus-eater

angelavdavis wrote: »

It isn't a great idea to compost perennials or anything in seed, but its against allotment rules to bin them and bonfires are frowned upon. I drown the worst weeds first and when they are unrecognisable, compost them. They stink but the plants love the vile brew that is created as a result.

There are various ways to deal with weeds.
1. Do as Angela says, in water.
2. Dry them out in hot weather on paths before composting.
3. Put them in black bin bags for a year.
4. Create a woody compost heap and put the weeds on top of it, so they dry out. This has advantages over the other ways. 1. It adds green material to the dry woody heap. 2. It doesn't smell. 3. It doesn't require really hot or dry weather. 4. You don't have loads of black bin bags lying around.

And I found 1 and 3 don't work very well anyway. I've had couch grass living in water for months on end and coming out of a year in a plastic bag (in a shed) still alive and growing.
2. Needs good weather and when you have it (and a path) it's the quickest way of doing it.

Whatever way you decide to do it, try not to throw away the fertility of your plot which the weeds took when they grew. ie don't brown bin them.

boultdj

My rhubard flower's,angelavdavis, all I do is cut off the flower and give it a liquid feed for a cople of week's, but then again my rhubard is in pot's, but don't worry you will get more stick's just later on
and I'm happy my hardy metor pea's are starting to grow.

cootambear

strawberry plants look all leafy and small but they are very hardy.

[Deleted User]

wow

inspirational

http://www.allaboutallotments.com/index.html

Patchwork_Quilt

"Disappointingly, our rhubarb (new last year) has flowered having sent up just three leaves! I have never had a rhubarb flower, so promptly cut off the flower in the hope it will produce some more stalks, but I am not holding my breath. It was planted in a manure rich mix, in a sunny spot but I am wondering if it is located in the wrong place - perhaps too dry an area? I am thinking we might move it come winter time to a damper part of the plot. Anyone have any experience of this??"

Ours is in a sunny spot and does very well, except that cold winters seem to make it go to seed. The crop is much poorer in these years. I let ours flower last year out of curiosity but will cut the flower stalks off this year and hope for more rhubarb. If you move yours, you will not be able to crop it again for a year so that it can settle in.

singlemum_to_3

gosh all the phots look great just makes me want to go out and do something...who needs a partner !! when you have a garden:j off to make a cupa and dream of gardens