Stupid Questions???

[Suzy]

Since I first posted about our new allotment at the beginning of the year, quite a lot has happened. We have spuds and onions in, seeds in for beets, carrots, parsnips, and peas and plants that we started off from seeds in doors for courgette, leeks, broccolli spinach and pumpkins still to go in.

I know this is a really silly question but when you have planted seeds and are weeding, how do you tell the weeds from the stuff you are growing? Is it acceptable to just led everything grow for a month or so when all will be obvious?

Also we are trying to be organic and our neighbour has put down a plastic covering which seems to be loosing its coating all over our allotment - is this something we should be concerned with

We are on a very low budget, what is the cheepest way of making something that will hold a net in place? - the birds keep breaking in and have already demolished half of the broccolli.

All the best and hope you can help

[Lottie]

Well - on the seeds front

Generally if you plant seeds in a straight line you can usually tell which are seedlings and which are weeds as the seedlings should all look the same and be in a straight line. Parsnips are notorious for taking a long time to germinate. You should leave 'weeding' until you are sure which are seedlings and which are weeds. The weeds generally grow more vigorously!

I can't envisage what sort of plastic loses its coating so I can't help you there. You could ask your neighbour in a nice friendly way - kind of broach the subject whilst you are having a general chat about growing things etc , rather mentioning it straight away. They might not realise that it is shedding itself all over your plot and might do somthing about it.

Netting - hmm. I scare the birds off with cd's on string tied onto sticks - it seems to do the trick for me and we get lots of birds and pheasants. The cd's are free ones you get in the post of giveaways in shops. The birds do not like the noise or movement or the flashing in the sunlight.

I use old bits of things to make a net cover for low growing things if I have too. Not very attractive though - bits of plastic water pipe, conduit, bits of metal, sticks, canes, that sort of thing. But my site is in a big field in the countryside so well all 'make do and mend' but I don't know if you can do that in town sites that are all nicely paved etc.

[Muddy Boots]

Well Lottie has told you most of it already regarding recognising seedlings. You could ask other plot holders to show you if they have seedlings already coming up so that you can see what to expect and, secondly, if you have similar "seedlings" coming up other than where you placed your seeds then they are most likely to be weeds.

Incidentaly, I am not the only one to have noticed that parsnips this year are even longer than their normal long time in coming up.

[Geordie]

Suzy,

Hi, hope you enjoying your new allotment, 2 tips to help with the seeds.

fill a pop bottle with dry sand and make a hole in the lid. When you have sown the row of seeds simply run a line of sand over the top of the soil to show you where they are. Or use a line of string between two sticks, one at each end of the row.

If the weeds come up in the line just leave them till you can tell the difference. If you can find a similar looking sedling not on the line where you are sure non of your seeds were planted its probably safe to say that it is a weed.

[Shortie]

Suzy, I saw on our local allotments that people drap their netting over bamboo canes with small drinks bottle's over the end. The drinks bottles not only stop you poking your eyes out but also provide a surface area for the netting to sit on (ie not 'fall' over the bamboo via the holes in the netting - I'm explaining this badly aren't I? )

It's cheap because you already have the netting (I think?) so only need to buy some bamboo (not expensive) and the bottles are a waste product andway so you'll be reusing somehting that would otherwise be recycled..

Then at the bottom, could you hold the netting down (and stop birds getting in underneather ) but pinning down with bricks or metal U pins made out of metal coat hangers?

Is this the kind of thing you were after to hold a net in place? You can make it as tall or shot as needed by adjusting the length of bamboo you use

[Jaxom]

The bamboo sticks topped with pop bottles to hold the net up is a good way of protecting crops. To keep the netting pinned down use more pop bottles filled with water and layed on their sides. Cheeper than bricks.

[Suzy]

Thanks for all the advise. Some really good ideas. Suzy