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

Dustykitten

The Japanese Wineberries I have for my birthday are starting to fruit. Really lovely taste, sweet and sour at the same time. Worth growing if you have some where you can support them.

mutley74

seems like i missed the final clearout of wilko's seed sale (but not too worry still picked many up at 75% few weeks ago)!

i been planting seedlings in the paper peat pots. But when i plant these in large pots they get full of grey mould, is this normal?

dogstarheaven

seems like they're getting too wet, mutley74. not really a fan of these peat pots myself. try watering from the bottom of the tray rather than over the pots. that might help.

angelavdavis

Well, we have had one very wet weekend. We took delivery of our new shed for the plot on Wednesday but planned to put it on the plot yesterday. 24 hours of constant rain put paid to that one!

So, hubby did a little levelling for the increased footprint of the shed whilst I potted up 32 runners from the strawberries, leaving them connected to their parents until they take. This is my insurance policy for next year. The round courgettes have finally started producing. The green and yellow (inc banana) courgettes have been doing well - We have already got 3 large bags of sliced, fried courgettes ready for moussaka, plus a couple of batches of ratatouille and I have already started donating some courgettes to friends and also to the allotment site bench for other plot holders to help themselves to!

The sweet peas are fabulous this year. I can barely keep up with them. I have already donated a few bunches to friends as well as having them in the kitchen, our lounge and Mum and Dad's lounge. We planted some in the garden, but they haven't done half as well.

The cut flower garden at the allotment is a roaring success overall. The beautiful frilly pink edged gladioli look fantastic against the blue of the borage. My freezer is also full of borage ice cubes, ready for the gin and tonics.

I also finally planted the winter squash into the ground - having been growing them in large pots, waiting for a clear spot to emerge. I have leeks waiting patiently in their temporary positions for the potatoes to be cleared in a few weeks.

Anyone had a deluge this weekend?

dogstarheaven

errm, yep.. i went to the lotti at 1.30pm today (should of gone earlier as i knew it was forecasted rain this afternoon). got 3 out of 6 super-reduced Sweet Potato plants (Jamie Oliver range) at Homebase yesterday for 20p and had to get them in. I'm not sure whether they'd crop ok this yr as they're only about 3" tall and a bit battered (anyone knows about them?). Had to pick more Golden Sweet Yellow-Podded Mange Tout as well, before the heavens broke out, and got me a bit soaked.. Although, I've been picking about a pound's worth at a time, there's only so much I could eat of this!

My borage is flowering too, and the bees have another plant to go crazy for.. The last two weeks, the poppies had their hey-day, and thankfully another plant is helping them out...

I'm not sure whether the squash I have is a Winter one or Summer one as it was given to me by a friend... it's planted amongst the courgettes, so I'm not sure which is which!

kazwookie

Ok in to grumble............

The wind has broken a pane of glass in my greenhouse, not a happy person here!!!

grumble
grumble

angelavdavis

Hi Kazwookie, You have my sympathies. I arrived at my allotment to find my new arch in two pieces on the ground! The wind appears to have uprooted it and snapped it. Sadly, it also snapped off the plants in the process so no more runner beans or cucumbers from these plants

Dustykitten

Sorry to hear about the wind damage Kaz and Angel I hope you are getting some sun now to make up for it.

Amazing weather here is finally ripening my large tomatoes. So happy. They had grown so well but just not ripened. I'm sure the late sun will be good for my acorn squash too. That has not been as productive as I would have hoped for but it has been work free.

I have encouraged the council to give me 5 of their heavy duty paper sacks to use to collect up the leaves from the huge horse cheshnut outside our house. I'm happy to do the sweeping but have no where to put the leaves. The council will collect these along side my garden waste bin.

Plan for today is to finish tidying the front garden and plant out a few strawberry runners. I have some lettuce seed left and I may just try sowing it as the weather is so warm and see what happens.

Ken68

It's been a good year here. All taters are up, huge crop. Lots of runners which I let dry and use in casseroles/stews in the winter. Carrots not so good, might just bin those. NEW is Celeriac, has to be kept moist.
Kohl rabi are growing but no signs of the bulby root, think land too light.But leaf edible.
Swedes coming.
Those Sarpo Mari potatoes offer from Thompson and Morgan £1 are really good. Red and not a blemish. Have saved some seed from them. Cara also good and Charlotte earlies. Poor show for Maris Piper.
Massive crop plums, Laxton Fortune apple and Doyenne de Comice pears and an early plum Opal. Been dehydrating like no tomorrow.
Guess allotment watering was a pain in the spring, and the farmers fields hereabouts are still dry.

Primrose

A few days ago two of my tomato plants got hit by blight so I was forced to harvest them all, many unripened in the hope of saving the rest of the crop. I washed all the fruit & put them on trays indoors to ripen but every morning when I inspect them I find a couple more which have started to rot. Just don't have cupboard room for any more jars of preserved home grown stuff like green tomato chutney!