down at the allotment and in the garden what are you up to

[kiwirach]

i'm pleased as punch...i halled 4 pallets to my allotment today ready to make a much needed compost bin!.
dug up 2 more spud plants.....getting about a 50/50 useable vs slug ruined!. pretty pleased with that as its only me and you can only eat so many spuds!.

[Cheezy]

We've had a couple of frosts so it's done for my closhed melon plant, managed to get 2 melons which is amazing considering this years weather, (about the size of grapefruits), but they're not ripe, anyone know if you can ripen melons?, or if you can eat underripe ones?.

Took the last of the sweetcorn, tidied up the strawberry plants, my brassica's for next year have been badly hit by bloody catapillers (cabbage white I think), so much so a couple of the small plants have no leaves left

Picked borlotti beans and cobra French beans, Cavero nero, cabbage.

Celery hasn't done as well this year, only lightly manured the bed, compared with last years very heavy manuring. Certainly can't lack of water!.

[Karen_D]

Digging up the "odd" spuds we found sprouting around the plot which we stuck in a corner and which seem to have done better than the ones we bought...

Covering bald bits over with newspaper and cardboard and piling comfrey and weeds on top. Our soil is very sandy and if it isn't covered or being used tends to blow away.

[Flo]

Had to take a day out today - housework and such like. Yesterday I took down the runner beans and roughly dug the space which is still horribly wet. But there's some chance of it drying a bit now so that I can do a proper dig later. Isn't it fun untangling runner beans and taking them to the compost heap.

[Chocobed]

There is something completely and deeply satisfying about sliding those dried vines off the cane and into the barrow.
I spent a couple of hours sunday doing just that. Time well spent massaging the soul.

[Millymollymandy]

We've had a couple of frosts so it's done for my closhed melon plant, managed to get 2 melons which is amazing considering this years weather, (about the size of grapefruits), but they're not ripe, anyone know if you can ripen melons?, or if you can eat underripe ones?.

I managed to get about 6 melons from two plants which were about cricket ball size! The plants died of downy mildew along with the cucumbers.....

Anyway yes you can ripen them - I just put them on the kitchen windowsill which isn't sunny and they went yellowish when they were ripe (didn't take long). They weren't sweet but they were juicy and melon-like and I was quite pleased!

[Millymollymandy]

I am still picking runner beans , harvesting lots of veg, watering the garden and doing a lot of caterpillar and blackfly squidging on my brassicas. I haven't seen a single caterpillar or aphid on my many nasturtiums which grow up the veg patch fence though! Isn't that typical!

[Cheezy]

Cheers 3M. When I said grapefruit sized, think small oval grapefruits!

Picked the last borotti beans, re-dug my 2 year old asparagus bed, incorporating more grit and manure, as the wet weather has drowned the bottom half of the bed (on a slope)and rotted the lower asparagus. Just reordered some more so thats another 2 year wait to crop

Marked out the last set of beds which I will start to double dig and build this autumn/winter. They're going to be in a "U" shape in the same dimensions as a 10ftx 14ft poly tunnel.... just incase I either win the lottery, get one cheap second hand or as is more likely fashion one out of bits of stuff I can get my hands on!

[Karen_D]

We get free compostable material courtesy of the local council's cemetary maintenance team. We've been barrowing large amounts of now unwanted annual bedding plants and putting them on top of cardboard and newspaper and then covering the whole lot with plastic to rot down.

Oh, and weeding...

[Millymollymandy]

Cheezy - my last two melons aren't ripening on the north facing windowsill so I'm going to put them on a sunny one now. Might be an idea for yours. I think the first lot had already half ripened in the sun outdoors.

[Chocobed]

We get free compostable material courtesy of the local council's cemetary maintenance team.
Oh, and weeding...

I'm so glad I read that message through to the end....

[Flo]

I've had some very learned discussions with very keen and good gardeners from cultures where they habitually cremate who caught on very quickly to why graveyards are so lush. They get things like dried blood and bone meal free don't they and on slow release as well over a few long years .....

There are times when I'd not object to some of the good things on my allotment that graveyards get but it's not going to happen.

Oh and it was very interesting learning gardening hints and tips from the Asian sub-continent. I think I learned more than I ever passed on even after a lifetime of gardening.

[charlie]

Going down to the allotment today to start work on our raised beds.
Got to make sure next year at the allotment is more productive than this year
Should be good, got lots of plans. Just got to get them out of my head and into the soil!

[Flo]

I'm sorting out compost heaps as if it's a matter of life and death - well that's what it feels like

Having moved one and spread it, built another one out of three piles, discovered that I have one that is almost ready to spread last week, today I purloined a passing bin that would otherwise have been given to the council to compost and added contents to a new pile. I was given a second bin full and some pigeon poo to set it on it's way.

All I want to do is to raise part of the allotment by a couple of inches to the level that it used to be (you can see this from the drop from the edges around the hedges) and top up the fruit beds. So I'm looking for compostable materials from whatever source. I'm going to have to pay for some from a commercial source to help things on their way.

I'd like to think that there will be more things from all sorts of sources but it's the non growing end of the season and most of the people on site now want their own "stuff" for their own compost heaps.

[Chocobed]

A major problem that has come from the enthusiastic growth in home growing, a lack of easily available composting materials. Now everyone is either religiously recycling and sending everything to the municipal centre or digging for victory in their own window boxes.
As a result, us long term originals are having to beg borrow or liberate old teabags and carrot pealings!