He seems to have hooked a couple of us, delta.

Very frustrated with the peas too so far, never been this slow in the five years I have been growing stuff.
Worked with the guy (Joe was ex military) for 4 years on his allotment, before my turn came on the list and he passed his over to me, bit of an advantage gaining a plot and shed that was so familiar.
Regards netting, Joe was insistent that this, as everything else, was done properly.
He felt that at 74, he was going to have one good crack at beating the the other 80 odd allotment keepers, to the prize winning cup for best plot.
Everything was mapped out for me, digging over early with manure, getting everything planted at the right time, and above all, protecting what we had.

For the brassica, I put posts in, and added all the 2x2 lengths of support we had accumulated to make a solid frame 3ft high x 12ft square.
The netting was placed over this and stapled, 40 assorted cabbage planted and re-stapled after each weeding shift, nothing had a chance of getting in.
Result was cabbage as solid as footballs and around the same size, perfect in appearance and without whitefly or slug, caterpillar damage.
Thought it a little over the top before all the work was done, but he won first prize and proved to me that planning, even for a full time worker, can overcome the extra time the retired guy has on his hands, a valuable lesson for me.
One failure, though not apparent until we lited them, was the carrot. These were riddled with carrot fly and useless.
After seeking advice this year from other growers, (doing it all myself this year as Joe has left the area)the carrots have been screened with cling film up to the hight of around 2ft, run around a post at each end.
As for Parsnip, after a few years now I have come to the conclusion that my family prefers to eat them young and steamed, rather than larger, woody types that I used to bake in the oven, sure are better in taste.
Peas are picked young as possible as are broad beans, no time for broad beans once the sweetness has gone, brassica planted in stages and any not required are given away before they are ruined with bolting/splitting.
Mate of mine has been the 3rd generation of his family to work a plot, he gave me spuds in Feb that were great despite being in the ground over the winter.
I followed his lead for 2 years successfully until all the rain forced the bugs to attack them this year, bug holes allowed the water in and you can imagine the waste, so will not work all the time and worth the risk, as I would only store hoards of them, and then you have spuds that taste like shop bought ones,(months old).
Hope this has been of some help, as not everyone gets the same advice, posted a link here before to a forum (great help too), Forum contains a blog and is great to see what a guy can do with a roof garden as he awaits the allocation of a plot.

http://www.seedparade.co.uk/forum/

Tough = though

I will give loads away no doubt, thought of just leaving some in the kitchen at work, freshly picked on the way in, and saying please take it give donations to the sick childrens charity that share our office.  Unfortunately i dont know any pensioners round here.  Culd give some to the working family downstairs, not the feckless family opposite, they wouldnt know what to do with a vegetable unless it is ovenchips.

Great posts, cloughandtaylor.

Re leaving potatoes in the ground over winter: a nearby field next to the River Tone was planted with spuds last summer, then flooded in the autumn. The farmer couldn't access the field to harvest them and gave up. I collected quite a lot which had been washed to the surface and they were excellent.

This spring the same field was ploughed up to plant corn and in the process loads of huge, tasty potatoes were brought to the surface. And that was in a field next to a river which had flooded.

As I mentioned in previous posts, the same farmer has planted potatoes in other fields this spring and they look to be the same, apparently bug-resistant variety. I salvaged 7 or 8 seeds from the footpath and planted them in my garden. I think I'll be patient and leave most of them in the ground over the winter and see what the results are come February.

cloughandtaylor

good post


tar

Stop it.

Went yesterday and pulled the carpet off the top of the compost to put some weeds in, ffs attenborough would be holed up for a month in a ditchtrying to get footage of as much animal activity as was in there.  Two quite big snakes, a massive toad, worms, snails and tons of assorted insects.

I'm enjoying Rob's wildlife posts as much as I am the gardening ones!

Great stuff Rob. I'd liked to see the photos of the snakes in particular - along with your ever increasing sprouting veg.

Good work there Screaming.

Nothing like finding a few goodies in good condition, a little like missing one or two of the smaller spuds when harvesting, and despite digging over during winter, having them peep through in spring and giving free earlies.

Asked a mate on the next plot how he thought his peas were doing so well compared with mine (same variety).
The addition of Potash and Sulphate was the advice he was given some months ago, I am now on the case.

On the point of potato again, one guy on a plot near me grows nothing other that spuds.
Asked him how he gets away with not rotating the crop and causing a lack of neutrients, answer was plenty of lime.
Personally use lime when planting cabbage but aware that it causes scab in spuds, as the guy says, if you don't mind the appearance, it is possible to fill the plot with them as long as manure and lime are used annually.

Was a little doubtful about that myself, after asking around a few other allotment keepers, they all verify that he has never grown anything else.

It was a sheer joy to work in my garden today, what with the wonderful weather. And like Jack Hacksaw, I myself witnessed a flurry of activity in the skies above with 3 Seagulls flying after a Heron. They seemed to be very angry with it and they were kind of driving it off. I found the whole affair very amusing.

I shallread that when i get a minute clough, cheers.

Just thinking out loud, has anyone tried seaweed as a kind of compost.  I can quite easily get a lot of this being on the coast.  I often walk to/from work along the coast.  Often think i could fill a plastic bag on the way, more likely on the way home than on the way in else i would have to store it at work going all mouldy.  It is supposed to be very good.

Probably me, i am prone to repeating myself.

Page 3, Rob (seaweed).

Will be planting soon in a block, plants 2 feet apart.
Read in various books about spreading growmore and such, have had good results before without adding anything.

You can plant at 18" if short of space Delta, I have enough space and tend to plant many things 2 feet apart, have a marked length of timber to make it quick and easy.

I did sweetcorn last weekend, 18 inches iirc.  Did about ten of them, you only get about 2/3 per plant i think, theyve gone from about 2 inches to 6 inches in a week.  Just watered it all, all spuds are clearly up now, isecond earlies, main crop, the lot.  Everything looking good basically.  Loved ambling around with the watering can in the lovely wearther down here.  Some pretty sizeable toms showing too, green of course.

What crops are the priority for watering?   Suds dont need any right?  I am concentrating on the toms, sweetcorn and brassicas.  Do roots need much?  Or asparagus?

Cheers in advance.

They were planted out last week, my parents raised them (presumaby in their green house) and were average of two foot high when they went in.  Dont know when they seed planted them.

Just thinking 1 x 10l watering can on a 8ft x 4ft raised bed is equivalent to 3mm of rainfall.   Average rainfall down here is 1.5mm/ day.  So is it fair to say that 1 watering can per raised bed every two days should do the job in the absence of natural rain?

cheers rob and clough

12" it will have to be then!

I really really will try to take some pics this weekend and post them.  Some of it looks cracking, but the raspberries I inherited which were reasonably well maintained are now an overgrown mess.  Think that will be next winters job to somehow cut it, cover it, compost it and then dig it over and get something else in.  I want the whole plot covered in raised beds in time,perhaps do 4 a year.  Makes it easier to organise especially with a four year rotation policy.