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Calling SMB veg growers

  • Thread starter Deleted member 5265
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Some nice updates fellas, I’ve done very little other than buy seeds etc. I’m gonna put more shelves in the old sauna next week so then I can start even more stuff.
I’ll start the usual like tomatoes cucumbers etc then I think I’ll plant a few hundred flowers like marigolds/petunias etc. I need about that many to fill all the planters and stuff we have around the house.
 

Today I have signed for my very own half plot, I’ve inherited:
A shed with no roof.
A shovel.
Some raised planters.
A cracking MLF on the other half plot.
A load of weeds to sort.

Plan for this year is a load of tidying, and get some wild flower seeds into a section for a bloke 3 plots down who’s got bees.

I am extremely excited to get cracking.
 
I feel like I have got properly started. I got some seeds in propagators on the kitchen window sill after work on Wednesday. Aubergine, peppers, leeks and lettuce. While I was out busy, the lettuce has sprouted.

My veg patch was decking boards and bark chipping paths. Over the years the beds have fallen to bits and I have replaced a lot of it with paving and sleeper raised beds. I got out this afternoon and cleared the weeds from all the paths that are still bark, and has long since composted down to soil. I weeded one bed where the decking completely fell apart, have replaced sleepers in a remaining bit of border and two sides of the bed. Lots of digging, sawing and shifting sleepers. I'm knackered, but already the veg patch is looking tidier.

Hopefully get that bed finished off tomorrow before the match and get some tomato seeds into pots. Shame it is a proper 5 day week next week.
 
Hansel said:
Last few years I've grown Alicante and St Marzano toms.
This year I wanted to try something different and gone for F1 Shirley. They are supposed to be an early variety. Anyone had any success with these?
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Hansel said:
Last few years I've grown Alicante and St Marzano toms.
This year I wanted to try something different and gone for F1 Shirley. They are supposed to be an early variety. Anyone had any success with these?
Click to expand...

yes. I grow Shirley every year theyre an excellent tomato. large fruit and beautiful sweet taste.

After planting I cut the lowest truss off. Grow to 4 trusses the cut the top off. Limit each truss to 6 flowers by nipping the rest off.

I only grow 6 plants these days but this gives me loads for myself and lots to give away.
 
Weeds are coming along well :) till I sorted them today, quite dry which helped remove some of the cooch grass and early bindweed shoots dotted about.

Moved my potted new earlies spuds out of the polytunnel protection and outside to fend for themselves.
Put a yellow ball cucumber plant in the polytunnel, might be too early but I have 3 spares just in case.
Tomatoes have been potted on into taller pots and are about 20cm tall now.
Pricked out my bell peppers into individual pots, same with my uchi kuri squashes.
Peas grown in root trainer modules have gone out under netting to keep the pigeons off.
Early carrots didn't germinate so sowed some more.
Loads of blossom on the fruit trees which is pleasing and flowers showing on the strawberries and it's not even May yet.

Lovely to have the sun on your back while messing about at the allotment.
 
High Entropy said:
Weeds are coming along well :) till I sorted them today, quite dry which helped remove some of the cooch grass and early bindweed shoots dotted about.

Moved my potted new earlies spuds out of the polytunnel protection and outside to fend for themselves.
Put a yellow ball cucumber plant in the polytunnel, might be too early but I have 3 spares just in case.
Tomatoes have been potted on into taller pots and are about 20cm tall now.
Pricked out my bell peppers into individual pots, same with my uchi kuri squashes.
Peas grown in root trainer modules have gone out under netting to keep the pigeons off.
Early carrots didn't germinate so sowed some more.
Loads of blossom on the fruit trees which is pleasing and flowers showing on the strawberries and it's not even May yet.

Lovely to have the sun on your back while messing about at the allotment.
Click to expand...

Think I'm going to put a holiday in this Friday if the weather forecast doesn't change. 19 degrees wall to wall sun. Be a good day to get everything sorted.

Made 3 planters about 100cm (L) 40cm(W) 30cm(D) with 2x3 and treated them last week. Going to plant my 15 Albion strawberry crowns in which are about ready to come out of the pots.

Got some blossom starting to fruit on my bing cherry and probably too much blossom to leaves on the William red pear dwarf trees.
 
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Stubbs ftm said:
Planted 3 different seed packets in the greenhouse a couple of weeks ago and forgot to mark them up. Now I have no idea what they are 😂. I think they're Spring onion, leeks and cucumber but not sure which is which
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Cucumber will be easy to identify. Leeks and onions will look identical for a long while. You might be able to bruise a spare and see which has the strongest onion smell.
 
I love this time of year.

A warm weekend and spent much of it out in the garden. Got all but one bed of my veg garden weeded now and trimmed back a load of bushes making everything seem brighter and more open. Got the auto-vent installed back in the greenhouse (I take it out for the winter). A bit of general tidying around the garden, everything taken to the tip and a load more seeds started. My lunch break was sat planning where I am going to plant everything this year.

I found some carrots that I missed last year and had survived the winter, so had them for tea. Some onions that didn't really take, have grown through the winter to be giant spring onions, so I'm looking at making some spring onion and tomato relish with those (recipe ideas gratefully accepted!). And to top off a good weekend, I have a rhubarb crumble made from the first produce of the season.

But not everything is perfect. When I did my plan, the best place to do parsnips this year are the one bed I have not weeded, so they didn't go in. And I had moved my leeks from the kitchen window to the greenhouse, put them on a shelf with a load of pots that need sorting out, forgot to water them when I did other stuff and all but a couple look dead. Only 2-3 weeks of growth, so I have started more and not really lost anything. But annoying non the less.

More annoying is work tomorrow. I want to keep going. If I had the week off, the garden would look amazing by Friday.
 
Busy few weeks.
PTR said:
KNACKERED.
Been a busy time in the PTR garden of late. Last weekend, I dug 2 feet down and 3 feet wide into my horrific clay to create a decent bed for a M26 Red Falstaff - daughter asked for an apple tree, so needed one that wouldn't grow too big, self pollinates, and gives good eating apples. Fingers crossed for 2-3 years time!
Also cleared out the strawberries from the front patch, and the raspberries from a poorly lit corner in the back, as part of a bigger plan.

Now have a early (Honeoye), mid (Cambridge) and late (Florence) strawberry run in my back garden - rather than a massive glut all at once in August.
And a summer raspberry (Glen Ample) run alongside the autumn (Bliss) ones in another short run in the back garden - all these have decent sun, its the spot I've grown tomatoes over the past few years.

Took delivery of a 8'x3'x18" open bottomed, lined raised bed yesterday. Stained the outside and dug out the mound where the old 3-section compost used to be (about 1' of compacted compost in situ.
Put the new bed in place, put as many logs and sticks as I could find round the back of the house at the bottom, then a lining of shredded cardboard - then emptied my unfinished compost bin onto that, covered with another layer of shredded card - then the recently-removed compost was put back in, then 4 large bags of half rotted wood chip that have been sitting for 18months. And a few inches of what finished compost I had left to top it off (gone from 2 completely full bins + other containers I could find, to absolutely nothing left. I'm going to have to buy a ton bag to level the lawn now!)

I'm bloody knackered now! My right arm is ferked.

Going to plant 2 lines of peas along the back, then the left side is getting an early and a late Asparagus (Gijnlim & Backlim crowns) and the right side tomatoes (Red Alert)

Also, in the spot the raspberries came out, I'm planning 2 Loch Ness blackberry bushes - apparently they grow like a normal shrub bush with shape, not like a rambling mess as most blackberries do! And they will be happy with just an hour or so of direct sun each day.

New plastic cover has arrived for the greenhouse, so I'll also start off some basil, coriander and lettuce, maybe tomorrow afternoon after the match. Basil will go in front of the toms, coriander in a little spot that's still free out the back - the lettuce will go in a run that gets no direct light at all, where it grew nice and slowly last year.

Never been this organised before - and I'll admit that I went through all this with an AI Chatbot (Gemini) to test ideas and get recommendations.
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That's almost everything in now. Tomato seeds are in pots on the kitchen windowsill to germinate, then they'll go in the greenhouse for a month or so.
2 types of lettuce seeds are down in a new shady patch with some fresh compost, put a load of carrot seeds into an unused bed just for the sake of it, and half the bed for the coriander is sowed, will put more in once those are half way finished to keep up the supply.

Looks like a small amount of rain in the 2nd half of the week too, which is handy.

Really hopeful for some good crops this year. First time I've been really organised in, well, ever really :lol:
 
Well all was going well, cleaned the greenhouse and myself and the boy planted all the potatoes, about 10/12 tubs. Had a load of veggie and flower seeds to plant today.

however, Ten mins after doing that I rolled my ankle and nearly broke the bastard thing( went down like a bag of shit and nearly killed myself tbh :lol: ) , it’s out an end to my gardening this week, I’m laid up with my ankle all swollen and bruised, thought was a hospital jobbie but I resisted like the tough northern bastard I am :lol:

The stroke I had a couple of years ago has fucked my leg/ankle, it sits off center now and constantly rolls, not sure how I did t snap it tbh, sick as fuck since the weather is great and I could, and should be getting lots done stm.

I really need a groundsman to help me :lol:
 
Where is the best place for bags of compost these days? Cannot be bothered to go far but aldi's 3.99 for 40lt doesn't seem great. Especially when I need about 10 bags
 
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Wild Card said:
Where is the best place for bags of compost these days? Cannot be bothered to go far but aldi's 3.99 for 40lt doesn't seem great. Especially when I need about 10 bags
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The quality is highly variable as well. I got some last year from home bargains and despite it being branded levingtons it was shit.
 
Wild Card said:
Where is the best place for bags of compost these days? Cannot be bothered to go far but aldi's 3.99 for 40lt doesn't seem great. Especially when I need about 10 bags
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10p/litre is the going rate, aye.
I got a half ton bag delivered the other day, along with a ton of top soil. Soil was ok in general, but full of woody bits which made it a bit crap for the top dressing on the lawn that I'd wanted it for.
But the compost is usually really decent stuff.

Facebook marketplace usually covers things.
 
Canny weekend, Sunday was productive and warm

New sowing of carrots in (amsterdam 2)
Beetroot sowed too (detroit2 & bordo)
Tomatoes and Cucumbers in the polytunnel now with marigolds, sweet alyssum planted out inbetween, chucked some basil seeds in too for good measure, also put two spare tomato plants outside with a bit of protection (tigerrella)
Beans sowed in late winter are flowering and so are my early peas (onward)
Another uchi kuri planted out and pricked out my courgettes (black beauty) into individual pots.

Made comfrey tea last year and used it to feed my potted early potatoes, I spilt some on my shoes - f*kin stinks, I've had to chuck them in the wash :lol:
 
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PTR said:
Careful folks, down to 3C overnight this week
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One day I think I am well behind. I didn't manage to get my taties in this weekend and all my seedlings are only a few cm tall.

Then I think to other years when I have started early, lost stuff to the cold or seeds did not germinate because it was a bit on the chilly side.
 
High Entropy said:
Made comfrey tea last year and used it to feed my potted early potatoes, I spilt some on my shoes - f*kin stinks, I've had to chuck them in the wash :lol:
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Made a comfrey still today.
It's 5ft of 4" soil pipe attached to the wall/fence/shed which you pack with comfrey leaves. There's a container and funnel arrangement at the bottom and as the leaves rot down the liquid feed drips out the bottom into the collecting container. My former neighbour who used to do show veg swore by this method. Next job off to harvest some leaves.
 
Hansel said:
Made a comfrey still today.
It's 5ft of 4" soil pipe attached to the wall/fence/shed which you pack with comfrey leaves. There's a container and funnel arrangement at the bottom and as the leaves rot down the liquid feed drips out the bottom into the collecting container. My former neighbour who used to do show veg swore by this method. Next job off to harvest some leaves.
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I normally chop all my comfrey up and put it all in a string bag with a house brick in it to weigh it down.
Then it goes in a 100 litre water butt, fill with water and let it stand. Normally takes around a month or so to ferment & break down.
I draw off what I need in a watering can and dilute it with water.
The brassica's love it.
 
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