What have you done on the plot today?

[campagman]

During lockdown I decided to give me g'house some TLC. First I brushed off all the dust and fallen leaves which made a big increase to the brightness inside, the auto window opens earlier too. I then scraped all the rubbish from the gutter. I am now thinking about a water butt and how best to channel the rainwater to it. I do have some unused house guttering and pipes so will be using these.

[SteveC]

We went to Jekka MacVicar's open day on Thursday, which meant I had a load of herbs to pot on. Most of them were pretty root bound. And following that I planted up five big (20": or thereabouts) pots. three with dahlias and two with tuberoses. That necessitated a trip to three garden centres before I found one with compost.
And finally I potted on the last of the the basils I've been growing. I split up one of those going herb pots from the horriblemarket. You get loads of plants out of one of them. A bit of TLC and they look fine.
Now all I have to do is go back outside and water everything.

[Wowbagger]

A bit of hoeing and counting the pea and broad bean plants that are showing. It's raining gently so I shan't do any watering tonight.

[Wobbly John]

Picked broad beans, the last few asparagus spears, and the first few mange tout to go with Sunday lunch.

Yesterday - pea sticks, cut from remains of the fallen plum tree. (I have 7 10 metre rows of mange tout)

A bit of hoeing and counting the pea and broad bean plants that are showing. It's raining gently so I shan't do any watering tonight.

Don't bother counting mine - I have 10 rows of broad beans - the last 2 thickly sown.

[The Family Cyclist]

Loads today

Started by weeding some of the raised beds made from old baths. Gave up on spinach as went straight to seed which is extra annoying as I let the older stuff run over as thogut I'd have fresh again.

Lots of hacking down/pulling up of weeds and nettles. Then moved the gooseberry Bush as has massively overwhelmed the support I had built for it. It's now trained against a wall.

Quick dash with kids to allotment to water it and get some garlic for this week. Really need to build the tool store up there so can cycle without having to strap all the stuff onto bikes

Then home and after dinner took down my neighbours little wall planter the previous owner put up. Changed the soil and put some flowers in as its between our front doors. Did. Make me laugh when I asked her if we could she didn't even know what pot we meant!

[SteveC]

Yesterday. Planted out all the butternut squashes I've been going. 15 seeds in the pack, 14 germinated and all fourteen survived to be planted out. Running out of space!

Today. I tidied and weeded the greenhouse. With the lockdown, it's had more in it than for quite a few years, which is nice.

[hatler]

Yesterday. Finished clearing the 'dumping ground' bed and dug about three quarters of it. Mrs h weeded (a lot) and planted six strawberry plants from our lovely plot neighbour. Harvested some self-sown rocket, some spinach and all the sweet pea flowers. Tidied the shed and watered the courgettes in tyre towers.

[graculus]

Yesterday. Planted out all the butternut squashes I've been going. 15 seeds in the pack, 14 germinated and all fourteen survived to be planted out. Running out of space!

You will run out of space come harvest time! We usually have two plants on our plot and those yield around a dozen squashes of 2-3 kg each.

[Riggers]

Well, Badgers don't like onions I guess, but Wood pigeons certainly like Brussel Sprouts. Chewed every leaf of the 36 plants I'd lovingly grown from seed, into small children, and released into the nursery of our allotment. Initially, could not fathom out what the hell could cause such devastation, then a friend we share the lot with, came up to spot Mr. Bastard Wood Pigeon, finishing off the last leaf of the 20 Kale plants we've got had in the allotment.

Have now, retrospectively netted as much as we can, to see if any will rally. But I'm not hopeful Just disappointed.

Wanna borrow an air rifle?

The Bastard Pigeons have eaten all my early strawberries.

I've got two courgettes in - I've got my first flower today.  Three tomatoes (including a Black Globe) are growing madly and beginning to flower.  The second tranche of pak choi, lettuce and spinach are in.  First and second plantings of French breakfast radishes are coming on well.

Thank you for the offer 'Reg', but I really don't think I could shoot one. Even though they are bastards. Add to the list: Goosegogs. Yep, they've eaten those too.

[Wobbly John]

Picked 3 carrier bags of broad beans, 5 small punnets of redcurrants, and 4 'bunches' of rhubarb to go on my daughter's home veg stall. 

[The Family Cyclist]

Probably more successful then my daughters plan. I cleaned the chickens out on weekend and shoved the straw and poop into a old feed bag to take up the allotment.

Somehow they've got into their head this is worth a fiver abag so apparently the chickens have been cleaned out twice today

[MikeFromLFE]

I splashed out on a 'trailcam' for the allotment to see what was visiting our wildlife pond.
Nothing!   

I put it up on Friday evening and have been excitedly visiting the plot under the pretence of watering stuff.
It's picking up the movement on the next plot, but no wildlife whatsoever.
I did bag a couple of cats on the patio in the dead of night when I first got it and tried it in the garden.
Mrs M says I need to be patient - No! I want wild beasts.

[SteveC]

Yesterday. Planted out all the butternut squashes I've been going. 15 seeds in the pack, 14 germinated and all fourteen survived to be planted out. Running out of space!

You will run out of space come harvest time! We usually have two plants on our plot and those yield around a dozen squashes of 2-3 kg each.

Last time we grew any the two packs of seeds produced three viable plants, one of which produced on reasonable sized squash, one two small squashes and one nothing at all, so I wanted to be sure. If we get too many we have plenty of friends locally!

[Wobbly John]

Yesterday. Planted out all the butternut squashes I've been going. 15 seeds in the pack, 14 germinated and all fourteen survived to be planted out. Running out of space!

You will run out of space come harvest time! We usually have two plants on our plot and those yield around a dozen squashes of 2-3 kg each.

Last time we grew any the two packs of seeds produced three viable plants, one of which produced on reasonable sized squash, one two small squashes and one nothing at all, so I wanted to be sure. If we get too many we have plenty of friends locally!

Previously I've got 3-4 butternut squashes per plant - last year I put 5 plants in and got 15-20 per plant! 

[ElyDave]

I've had no sucess with butternut squash, but last year got 6 football sized pumpkins from 2 plants.

[The Family Cyclist]

A few years ago a BNS grew out of where my compost bin had been. Had loads of little squash on it. One ripened off so gave it away. The rest all died so didn't get any

On my plot today I went and watered it as the storms they keep threatening keep not happening so is bone dry again.

[Wowbagger]

I harvested my first taters today. I had a feeling it was too soon, but since the first row I put in (on April 20th) were a "bonus" row from sprouters in the Riverford box, they don't really owe me anything.

As it happens, we had just enough from one plant to feed 4 of us. I have read conflicting reports concerning when you should harvest 1st earlies - some say when the plants are flowering (ours are), others say after 70 days in the ground. 20th April is 64 days ago, but of course May was very sunny and I gave every plant a drenching pretty well every night. Two nights ago we had 32mm rain, so a few more days in the ground will quite probably make a significant difference. The above-ground bit of the plants has grown very vigorously over the past couple of weeks.

[Wobbly John]

Flowering is normally taken as a sign that first early potatoes are ready. Many people carefully move some earth from around one to see if the tubers are large enough. Some varieties are said to be ready in as little as 6 weeks from planting, in ideal conditions.

On my plot, I lifted elephant garlic yesrerday, and planted kale in it's place. today I put a few pepper and tomato plants into bigger pots, as moving the kale out, gave me a bit more room.

I picked a handfull of cherries and raspberries to snack on while I was down there.

Tomorrow morning I will be picking broad beans, redcurrants and rhubarb again for daughter's veg stall. even with ten 10 metre rows of broad beans (although the two later planed ones are only just on flower) , and a dozen redcurrant bushes, I can't keep up with requests!

[The Family Cyclist]

Yesterday morning to the allotment to water on way to work but had forgotten needed to get diesel on way to workso didn't have too long up there but soaked the spuds.

Last night at home tied up my toms. Dug out the spinach that had bolted and cut back some of the chard and sowed new chard to replace. Then sowed some more lettuce in the salad bed and some carrots where the spinach had been. Note to self grow perpetual spinach next time

Then back to allotment this morning to finish watering and weed a bit. It's mostly just to get some out doors before being stuck in office all day.

Picked some raspberries for snack and have a lunch of salad from garden today.

[hatler]

Watered yesterday evening. Looks like that's going to become a bit of a routine over the next couple of weeks.

[ElyDave]

out this morning to water, and moved the second sewing pak-choi into the main bed from the seed-bed, will use the thinnings for salads for now.  Same with the lettuce, only planted a half row initially, and thinned those, now supplementing the other half of that row and harvesting the now very decent looking big letuces.  A bit of infill on the red chard and beetroot from the left over seedlings that I planted amongst the courgettes for salad leaves.   It gets a bit tricky when you only have 3 8ftx6ft beds for the veg

[The Family Cyclist]

Up the plot last night. Planted out two pumpkin and two squash plants with a bit of chicken manure buried to hopefully give them a boost. Two large tub trugs of weeding with a few onion tops accidentally hoed off.

Harvested some more chard which some of was delivered to mum on way home and a few raspberries. Then gave it all a good soak which took ages as the trough I usually use wasn't refilling quick enough and the next nearest one was being used by someone else so had to explore the allotment for other troughs. Don't normally have this problem as in the mornings I only ever have passing dog walkers or joggers for company

[Wobbly John]

Yesterday we had new potatoes, lettuce and the first of the beetroot with dinner. The beetroot was a bit hard as it needed cooking for linger than I anticipated.

Yesterday, I dug a few sq metres I had used as a temporary home for cloche materials, old timber etc. and rotovated this and a couple of other areas crops had been cleared from to plant more beetroot and lettuce.

[rafletcher]

Not a great deal tbh, too bloody hot!  Watered last night, tied a few tomatoes in tonight. And admired our garden arch, coming in to its own after 3 years.  There are sweet peas, a clematis, and a climbing rose, Creme de la Creme.

Arch by Richard Fletcher, on Flickr

[Wowbagger]

Watering.