Allotment

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Fox3WheresMyBanana
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Re: Allotment

#61 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Mon Jul 16, 2018 10:53 pm

om15 - mum advises that the best way to dry alliums is individually on a wire or wood rack, not touching. If greenery still attached, put this through the grid so bulbs are uppermost. Complete dryness is the key to long storage, and they may last till even next April if dried well enough.

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Re: Allotment

#62 Post by om15 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 7:49 am

Yes, the shallots and onions are laid out in the sun for a week or so before lying in the box, when the shoots have died back I will make onions "ropes" and hang them up for storage.
Incorporating manure is the best way to start, not raw manure as this will actually take nitrogen out of the soil, but 1 or 2 year old manure. If you have access to the coast seaweed is great stuff, dig in straight from the sea it feeds the soil and also helps to break up the soil.
I have used companion planting, but can't really say for sure that this has had an effect, however be careful not to grow the same family of crops in the same place in consecutive years, follow the old crop rotation system including fallow every fourth year.

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Re: Allotment

#63 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:51 am

Ta muchly.
I have put a seaweed compost in. I can go pick up seaweed off the beach down the road - there is a rather large limit below which a licence is not required. I've just calculated that it comes out to be exactly 1 pickup truck box-full.
I am companion-planting, including marigolds. I remember my agricultural revolution lessons, but we plant a groundcrop here in the 'fallow' years or the soil blows off.

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Re: Allotment

#64 Post by Ex-Ascot » Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:35 pm

Om15 the answer to your question is 3-30°C in the winter. Anyway found out the problem today. Gardener has washed out all the seeds with aggressive watering with a hose. Told him to only use a sprinkler. As mentioned in trabb, house sitters didn't supervise. He thought a hose with a spray attachment delivering something along the power of a fire hose was a sprinkler. We will have to start again. Squashes planted deeper are OK as are the sweet and ordinary pots also fine. Tom's, carrots, peppers and rape not. Well it is his family that will lose out. Which of course the house sitters didn't give a stuff about.
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Re: Allotment

#65 Post by om15 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 6:22 pm

Fox, one of the ancients that has an adjoining plot is trying mustard cress on his fallow plot, this acts as a weed suppressant and is simply dug in as mulch/feed after several months, I'll monitor and report as this could be a way for you to prevent soil erosion when not using a plot.
Ex-A, your house sitters seem a complete nightmare, at 3-30 degrees could you not plant as an English summer, spuds, cabbage and so on.

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Re: Allotment

#66 Post by Ex-Ascot » Wed Jul 18, 2018 10:13 am

om15 wrote:
Tue Jul 17, 2018 6:22 pm
Fox, one of the ancients that has an adjoining plot is trying mustard cress on his fallow plot, this acts as a weed suppressant and is simply dug in as mulch/feed after several months, I'll monitor and report as this could be a way for you to prevent soil erosion when not using a plot.
Ex-A, your house sitters seem a complete nightmare, at 3-30 degrees could you not plant as an English summer, spuds, cabbage and so on.
Tried a few brassicas they all bolted. If the seeds hadn't been washed out the rape should of worked. The cool mornings keep the bugs away which is the problem we had growing in the summer. Our government agricultural consultant here say the winter is the best for many things for this reason.

Purchase more seeds tomorrow and try yet again. Luckily not expensive. Also got some seeds smuggled in from Greece to plant.
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Re: Allotment

#67 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Wed Jul 18, 2018 2:17 pm

Mustard cress sounds interesting, thanks om - I'll await your report.
Had a good chat with the farmer who owns the fields around me a few weeks ago. He had mainly potatoes last year. Those fields have a mix of barley and rye grass this year. Apparently the rye grass develops properly after the barley is harvested, and then acts as groundcover to prevent erosion. For the subsequent year or two he is newly planning on sorghum. He expects this to be effective at suppressing the bugs that attack the potatoes. Then it's back to spuds.

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Re: Allotment

#68 Post by om15 » Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:17 pm

Sweetcorn and cucumbers coming along,
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Re: Allotment

#69 Post by om15 » Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:17 pm

and the brussels are sprouting.
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Re: Allotment

#70 Post by Ex-Ascot » Sat Jul 21, 2018 1:48 pm

It is looking really good OM. Strictly supervised seed planting happening Monday. The tomato seeds we have from Greece are inbred. They have been taking the seeds from previous years for 20 years. They grow all deformed slightly grey but huge and very tasty. We will see. Under EU rules they are not allowed to sell them. But they do.
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Re: Allotment

#71 Post by om15 » Mon Jul 23, 2018 4:26 pm

Hot as an oven up at the allotment today, peppers are starting to flower, winter cabbages and broccoli are being munched by white butterflies, watering everything around the roots, the cucumbers are doing well, half a dozen already picked with plenty more coming through.
We seriously do need rain, things are starting to wilt, but none forecast for at least two weeks. I have put plenty of mulch around the base of the sweet corn to try to retain moisture, hope to be trying some at the end of the week.

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Re: Allotment

#72 Post by Ex-Ascot » Tue Jul 24, 2018 9:29 am

You may have said OM but where do you get your water from? Do you have to pay?

Special Amorgian tomatoes in. Rape out of a packet in. The gardener's black eye seems to have healed and he is watering with a sprinkler now. Hopefully third time lucky. So much for our winter crop. Only things growing are the squash because the seeds were bigger so planted deeper so didn't blast them out with the hose. Two bunches of plantains and one of diddy finger bananas almost ready. Just hoping for some blossom on the oranges this year. Tried to find some sweet potatoes the other day but they are still recovering from the treatment by last year's house sitters. Francolins have dug up some new pots so they are obviously getting there. Did a staggered planting to hope to get a few months supply.
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Re: Allotment

#73 Post by Ex-Ascot » Fri Aug 03, 2018 12:07 pm

It is amazing. Now the gardener is not blasting seeds out of the ground but putting the sprinkler on them we have seedlings. Stupid malaka house sitters not supervising. We should have a winter crop by now. Put some more squash seeds in. As they were planted deeper half survived the fire hose onslaught. We will now have a staggered crop which is not undesirable.

Dug up a couple of sweet potatoes - not good full of bugs. Dug up our first new potatoes - too early far too small. All in all not a good morning on the farming front.
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Re: Allotment

#74 Post by om15 » Fri Aug 03, 2018 8:53 pm

First and second earlies are up, decent crop and taste fine, two rows of King Edwards still growing. Bags of cucumbers and squash growing, still loads of cabbages.
I have been rather enthusiastic with greens, missus om is toiling in sweltering kitchens to cook all this winter veg, I have been rebuked.
We walked up to the plot today, picked a dish of raspberries and then found a nearby blackberry bush absolutely laden, so we had these for tea with ice cream.

Sweetcorn is looking good, peppers are coming up nicely, celery is forming well and we have TONS of butternut squash to give to friends, relatives, passing holiday makers.

Beginners luck so far, probably won't grow a sprout next year, heavy manuring and watering seems to have paid off.

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Re: Allotment

#75 Post by om15 » Wed Aug 08, 2018 3:33 pm

Just been to collect a few bits and pieces to take to one of my former workplaces tomorrow, small presentation gifts of a shallot, a garlic, a cucumber, an onion and a butternut squash each for the ladies in stores, in exchange for a few cardboard boxes.
I have had visitors, during the night the badgers scoffed most of the sweetcorn, very cleaver animals, they bite through the base of the plant, topple it and then have the cobs, there were 15 cobs neatly eaten with the cores laid out in a small circle, they did this without disturbing anything else. I feigned outrage to my fellow allotmenteers, but actually I don't mind, it isn't vandalism as such and pleased to provide them with a midnight snack. I retrieved a few for tonight, left some which may or may not be there in the morning.

The weather has made me lose the plot (forgive the pun) and I have no idea what to plant for the winter, the stuff which should be ready in November is already completed growing, I will just dig in a load of manure and put winter onions in I think.

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Re: Allotment

#76 Post by Ex-Ascot » Fri Aug 10, 2018 9:51 am

Cropped a bunch of plantains today. You get to a point where the load bends the plant over and it is in danger of breaking and damaging the plant alongside. These were fully grown anyway and will ripen in a couple of weeks in the veggie rack. Half to the gardener's large family 1/4 to a friend and 1/4 for us. As I may have mentioned before you treat them as you would a potato and can do all the same things with then. Just a very slight banana taste.

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Re: Allotment

#77 Post by om15 » Fri Aug 10, 2018 6:18 pm

Nice production Ex A, I haven't tried those, but if summers continue as this one has I might even be able to grow those here.
Badgers came back last night and finished off the sweet corn, they are very considerate in that they managed to get access without trampling over the adjacent leeks and kale, we have had several meals from them so don't actually begrudge them their evening meal.
Everything else is now starting to go over, will have a good clear up next week, lift two rows of King Edwards and dig over the vacant areas of the plot ready for autumn sowing of spinach, onions, shallots, garlic and onions.

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Re: Allotment

#78 Post by Pontius Navigator » Fri Aug 10, 2018 8:37 pm

New potatoes for Christmas

Learnt this trick years ago. Put new potatoes into a tight fitting biscuit tin. Seal the lid and bury. Dug up at Christmas, slightly nutty taste and very good.

Another tip was the Geoffrey Smith way with compost. Spread it on the surface, let the worms do the digging.

We have a new garden this year. Digging is not an option. I have to use a hammer and chisel.

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Re: Allotment

#79 Post by om15 » Sat Aug 11, 2018 7:49 am

The soil should soften up with some rain PN, or possibly hire a small rotavator if you have access, initially I doubled dug the plot incorporating manure, but will simply spread seaweed over the fallow bit of the plot this winter, then turn in before the spring sowing.
I hadn't heard of this tip with new potatoes, my advisors on the allotment recon that it is ok to just leave spuds buried and dig up as you need them, don't know if that works for new potatoes though.

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Re: Allotment

#80 Post by Ex-Ascot » Sat Aug 11, 2018 10:30 am

To get a long season of new pots you have to stagger the planting. If you delay digging them up they get too big. Just had a hunt for sweet pots for lunch. We have 3 large beds. Managed to find 4. Not good. And, I put the fork through 2 of those. The beds are a mess. Every week I give orders for them to be sorted out. It is going to happen this week. Just noticed that he has planted beans again. That wasn't in my planting plan. No probs.

OM, re. your comment about growing plantains (or bananas) you may very well be able to down there especially as you say with the climate change. Goodness knows where you would get the plants from though. We have loads spare but that isn't much help to you.

I use this site a lot given our location but this is the banana page: https://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/gr ... nanas.html
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