Allotment News

Peppers?

Mint. That way it's kept out of the rest of the garden where it can be a smothering weed.

Got mint, in sunken pots in my herb garden. Still tries to escape but I beat it back!

Might do peppers although  had some pepper plants last year and they did about as well as the tomatoes, guess it was that kind of a year.

Thanks for the suggestions, I like Hashettes Dwarf Runners esp as Mr FL has already put in a request for runner beans this year.

a friend recommended a climbing french bean called 'blue lake' which i'm going to try....

what a great thread.

the only thing wrong with it is i have spent ages reading back when i should have been digging out couch grass roots on my allotment.

 My potatoes are chitting, they are leftovers from last years crop that never got eaten. does the assembled wisdom on here think that will be ok?

well done to you all for not giving up after  last years appalling summer weather. optimists all.....

right, going now to fork out those ****** roots!

Depends on the size of the seedlings Haille for potting on.

Last years not eaten should be fine Kate

I grow beetroot in large pots Foxy also try garlic too.

Garlic in pots. Too late now for this year isn't it? When I grew it before it was autumn planting, needs the frost or something.

Now beetroot- I just was given some orange beetroot seeds so that's a plan!

Tomato hanging baskets,anyone tried them???

I am going to give them a go this year,I bought a pack of seeds that contained carrots & tomato's specifically for baskets.

My next door neighbour does a variation on tomatoes in hanging baskets - she's got buckets with holes in the bottom that she hangs on the walls of her house.  The tomatoes are planted upside down so the plants grow through the bottom of the buckets.  Doesn't seem to work particularly better than conventional means, but they do take up a lot less space.

But if you've got varieties specifically aimed at hanging baskets you might get better results.  Never tried them myself though!

I planted all my garlics in early October of last year & they are totally flying now.

The elephant garlics have taken really well & are starting to look like large onions.

The Garlic Farm in the Isle of White provide an excellent mail order service for anyone wanting to get into growing different varieties.

Lady P space certainly is one problem with tomatoes,so I thought I would only do 4 or 5 grow bags this year & then try some hanging baskets.

I've done toms in baskets, worked fine to be fair, until the entire lot went crashing to the floor cos of the weight!!

Last year was a bit of a disaster on tom front with disease.  Fingers crossed this year - I think a lot was down to the weather last year. 

I think I said previously 1 tomato last year from 50 odd plants due to blight,that probably makes me officially the shitest Gardner on RW.

Kinda makes you wonder what Mr Tesco has done to his toms???

Last year was particularly poor for toms where we are. Cool and wet. In fact, I normally compost the lot, but last year decided that it was too risky and they went to the green Local Authority wheelie. I'm not allowed to burn things here.

Our hanging baskets are managed by use of an automatic watering system based on a timer. Fairly easy and saves a lot of effort. Actually, I must re-rig it.

Hello! I've just found this thread and hope you don't mind me joining in.

I bought some land off my next door neighbour last year with the plan of using the bulk of it to grow vegetables. I'm completely new to any of this so I hope it will be ok if I can use and abuse all your knowledge.

After clearing the land completely over the winter, I've now got a greenhouse and 2 fairly large raised beds and I'm hoping I'm ready to now start growing as many different things as possible. At the moment I've planted a lot of different seeds which are just starting to come through in seed trays in the greenhouse and I've got some first early/second early and main crop potatoes chitting in there too.

First quick question (I'll bombard you all with more another tiime), my first earlies don't seem to be doing as well as my second earlies. Have I don't something wrong? and if so, what can I do to 'jig things along a bit'? Also, when should I be thinking about planting them all out?

(ok, so that was 3 questions....told you I would be bombarding you!!)  

Thanks, all hints and tips gratefully accepted!