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Allotments and gardening 2011

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needsabiggerfuse

Flight Sergeant
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Having grown into a cynical old curmugeon, "You can't show anything new ...". I have confounded myself by this simple gardening gadget; steel spirals to grow your tomatoes up. No tying in, simply let the plant grow and direct it through the spiral - they soon get the idea.

View attachment 10511
 
H

Hot Shoes

Corporal
285
10
18
Hedley Court & Gardening therapy

Hedley Court & Gardening therapy

Slightly diverting from our very own experiences of digging and growing; look what some clever Maj has come up with at Hedley Court.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-13565205


Myself, not injured or infirmed I can see the huge benefit an allotment has done for me, but someone on rehab learning again to use their limbs it must be an immense achievement and a great satisfaction to "grow" something.
 
V

Vagabond

Sergeant
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I've just recently got well into this gardening malarky. I needed to clear my garden of three years of neglect and took a week off work blitzing it. I've got the bug and now spend at least an hour a day on it. I'm not growing veg but have built a small herb plot but I want to cencentrate on planting the borders and containers on the patio. Need to do a bit of hard landscaping as well. I Know feck all about it all, anyone fancy being an on-line mentor.
 
G

grumpyoldb

Guest
Vagabond said:
I've just recently got well into this gardening malarky. I needed to clear my garden of three years of neglect and took a week off work blitzing it. I've got the bug and now spend at least an hour a day on it. I'm not growing veg but have built a small herb plot but I want to cencentrate on planting the borders and containers on the patio. Need to do a bit of hard landscaping as well. I Know feck all about it all, anyone fancy being an on-line mentor.
Click to expand...

I only do fruit and veg but there are others who grow the pretty stuff.
Just ask your questions and someone will probably try to answer for you. Failing that we may be able to point you in the right direction.

You may like to register with the following growers forum. There is a wealth of info on there.
http://chat.allotment.org.uk/

Good luck with it. :pDT_Xtremez_14:
 
Tin basher

Tin basher

Knackered Old ****
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Infested onions and shallots

Infested onions and shallots

First I noticed some of my shallots looking a little sorry for themselves, they looked translucent almost and felt soft when squeezed between finger and thumb. Oddly only my white shallots are like this but the red ones are fine. Sadly today I have noticed my onions, planted last winter and grown from sets, suffering from the same thing. I selected 6 onions and cut into them. Each was brownish in patches and had three or four small black maggot like things crawling around. Each maggot would be about 5 or 6mm long and thin. I also found some brown capsules about the size of a small grain of rice on the bulbs. When I sliced open some shallots same sorry story. The maggots aren’t fat and white nor are they in great number could it still be onion fly larvae and pupae or something else? From reading and googling it seems if it is onion fly there is no cure only the bin.
 
Tin basher

Tin basher

Knackered Old ****
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grumpyoldb said:
It does sound like onion fly. There seems to be a fly for just about everything these days.
Click to expand...

I to reckon onion fly yet the odd thing is though onion fly maggots are described in my books as white and fat and should be found in large numbers inside the onion. What ever is eating mine is black and thin and occuring in low numbers. Strange.
 
F

Fairynuff31

Corporal
406
0
16
Not sure if this is due to the long dry spring, but has anyone seen their garlic yellow and fall over already yet this year?

I harvested mine 2 weeks ago, due to the above.

I pulled a couple up thinking that I'd find undersized bulbs and to expect the rest to spoil in the ground if I left them. But, the testers I pulled were fully formed and just as good as those I lifted last August.

One observation, the central stem thing on ly plants all developed a bulge, which look like they were going to seed - this about a month before I lifted them.

Has anyone else seen this....?

as last year, given the above comments, I had a bumper crop again....:pDT_Xtremez_14:
 
Tin basher

Tin basher

Knackered Old ****
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Following on from the Allium leaf miner infestation I have harvested every single one of my onions and shallots some 100 or so. I spent a quiet few hours one afternoon cutting away the mined areas. Some onions were simply too damaged and therefore were scrapped, others had barely been touched but without exception every single one had some evidence of leaf miner, same sad story with the shallots. So any plans I had for long term storage for both onions and shallots have gone. To salvage something from the mess after peeling down the onions and shallots past any leaf miner damage I now have a few jars of pickled shallots and couple of jars of onions. My freezer has loads of chopped onion in portion sized bags for use in soups, stews etc in the coming months. Whether to grow alliums again is something I have yet to decide. Even the outcome of this year’s leek crop is in the balance having looked on the web at the life cycle of the darn thing. None of the stems, roots or discarded bulbs went on the compost all went to the council for green recycling. All my plot neighbours have checked their respective plots and the darn thing has got them to. But strangely a friend on a nearby site 2 perhaps 3 miles away is clear so not all the midlands has succumbed yet.
Me and the kids dug up some of my first earlies today (Arran pilot) what a result. Best haul ever, nice big spuds, mainly free of any blemish and plenty of them. My 8 year old son used his best sums and counted 325 including every last teeny weenie little one he could find to add on. I’m well chuffed. The empty beds now have carrot, turnip and kale seed in them waiting to spring into life. I planted them as a result of some background reading. On the letters page of one of the popular monthlies was a missive about people having a nicely raked “brown desert” for months on end and how this was a waste of land. Further reading suggested a well organised plot could have some crop or other coming out every month if planned properly, even if it’s only green manure.
 
G

grumpyoldb

Guest
Downsizer said:
What can I plant in the ground now?
Click to expand...

If you can get hold of some outdoor variety tomatoes from a garden centre you can put them in now. I've just put half a dozen in today.
You can sow lettuce, autumn king carrots, as well as winter crops like sprouts, cabbage, cauli's.
 
H

Hot Shoes

Corporal
285
10
18
I put in some Swede (not too late for a Dec/Jan harvest), some turnip seed, the packet promise's 8 weeks to between golf/tennis ball size and of course any time now for some Christmas brassica's.
 
G

grumpyoldb

Guest
Had my first pick of peas today. Around 50 pods.
I've got six x 15' rows of Hirst greenshaft. First time growing them. They look good but have a tendency to fall over after rain so need good strong support.
 
O

Obi Wan

Sergeant
641
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0
Help...... of 8 Tom Plants (money maker) 3 seem to have got "curly leaves" and the leaves have a dried out appearance (although not dry if you see what i mean) plants are watered regulary (in grow bags) and have been fed with tomorite once a week. one of these plants has managed to fruit but only X1 Tom. all my other plants are doing OK any advice gratefully received. :pDT_Xtremez_19:
 
G

grumpyoldb

Guest
Obi Wan said:
Help...... of 8 Tom Plants (money maker) 3 seem to have got "curly leaves" and the leaves have a dried out appearance (although not dry if you see what i mean) plants are watered regulary (in grow bags) and have been fed with tomorite once a week. one of these plants has managed to fruit but only X1 Tom. all my other plants are doing OK any advice gratefully received. :pDT_Xtremez_19:
Click to expand...

Don't worry about the curly leaves, it's normally the larger lower leaves which do this and can be caused by the differential between day time temperatures and night time. It's pretty normal.

The yellowing can be caused by magnesium deficiency. The treatment is epsom salts diluted with water used as either a feed or a foliar spray. You can buy epsom salts from the garden centres or local supermarket and the dilution will be on the pack. I usually put a teaspoon full into the watering can once a month.
 
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