Hobbit Allotment!

[Sanjo]

Well, you are further ahead than me on the bean supports at any rate. I did prepare the area some weeks ago, digging out a deepish trench, chucking in cardboard and my homemade compost and then backfilling but it's all covered up again now to stop the pesky cats from using it as a toilet. I can't put the strings up until the last minute as the last couple of years the nesting birds have pecked away at them where they tie up over the top wood. As it was hessian style I assume they wanted it for their nests.
It took me ages to figure out why the day after I replaced them they were laying on the ground again.
I thought it was the squirrel at first and then actually saw the birds attacking it.
I solved the problem of the string tying over the wood by using plastic ties looped but hanging slightly and tying the strings to those

[horticultural_hobbit]

I don't think for a moment my pink wool from wilkos is going to last very long. It was tied several times, to keep it together. The whole thing is not very straight, is out about a foot, so you can see it's diagonal fromthe side on! I don't mind, wonky beans are fine. There are no straight lines in nature. And if i got it right, I wouldn't have learned anything!

Dug my trench, about the depth of the hobbit fork. Lined it newspaper, and then threw in various veggie peelings that Ma had collected. The site is very windy, so if it lasts til tomorrow, that's something!

If it wasn't so wet and damp, there is so much I could get done!

[horticultural_hobbit]

Just a quick one.

Witnessed carnage, with the wendy house falling over in the squall that occurred Sunday. Wendy house just keeled over flat and free from guy ropes and things. Also needed repairing with parcel tape. Had to rescue cabbages and chillies. Have no fennel now, or kohl rabi. A handful of caulis. Some sprouts. Some garlic and onions were crushed beneath the wendy house. With any luck, might be okay.

One third of the lotment is under water. Think the carrots might be a write off. But we shall see.

On the plus side, anemones coming up. For one reason or another, the flowers on the lotment make people smile.

[Sanjo]

Ah Hobbit, onwards and upwards eh! A lot of folk are in your situation. It must be heartbreaking to see all your work battered.
Hope it hasn't deterred you all. Good luck

[snohare]

Some garlic and onions were crushed beneath the wendy house. With any luck, might be okay.

Yeah, don'y worry too much. I trample all over mine by accident on a regular basis. These things are designed by Ma Nature to be trampled by herbivores, covered by floods, burned by wildfires... I have generally found that as long as the roots are fine, most plants will recover. Just as long as they are not required to be decorative as well...

As for carrots, a friend of mine had her seeds in Morrison's flower buckets in the coldframe. Said coldframe leaked badly, said pots had no drainage holes. The tops of the buckets were swimming...apparently her carrots have survived, germinated, and are thriving. (Presumably only because a moat is the only thing that has 100% success against slugs !)

[Two_Sheds]

carnage, with the wendy house falling over in the squall

Oh yes, I remember that well

growhouse over | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[horticultural_hobbit]

The view was very similar! Wendy house was disgorged of its contents.

Almost soul destroying, but then yes, onwards and upwards. Would have been crying through, had I not moved the aubs a few days earlier as they looked as though they needed a bit of a love. And I had yet to put the triffids and tomatoes in there.

Haven't been down there in a few days...

[horticultural_hobbit]

Am feeling a bit demoralised today. Have finally got to the onion shallot garlic bed. It has been bugging for a while. Carpeted in weeds and grass. The weeds I don't mind. I can pull those out. The grass however fills me with dismay. Not consigned just to that patch, it is everywhere with purple tentacles.

So that irked me. In addition, I don't have any carrots. I had sown them under horticultural fleece, left them to it. And today, I decided to have a butchers underneath. There's a lot of greenery, but no carrots. I know what they look like. Little spikey things. But nothing. Might take up the weeds, and start again. So so very cross.

Everything needs weeding. I don't mind that so much. It's necessary. But that grass really infuriates me. I don't think I will be able to get rid of it whilst the onions are there. I could jump up and down swear.

And the turnip patch-Pfft, what turnip patch. All of them are gone. That needs digging over and might serve as secondary bit for squashes.

So very very cross(not just about the lotment, but that's another story)

[Two_Sheds]

Am feeling a bit demoralised ... grass

Horrid, isn't it? I've got lawn growing in various areas of my lotty (seed flying in from the houses bordering lotties on both sides). It's really hard to get out, I think I'll mulch it with cardboard or newspapers

I don't have any carrots. I had sown them under horticultural fleece, left them to it.

It's been too cold for carrots to germinate so far: mine have only just appeared in the very sheltered south-facing courtyard bed.

Also, slugs will be waiting to graze off the emerging foliage: make sure you take slug precautions

[snohare]

There's a lot of greenery, but no carrots.

Well, at least you know it isn't because your soil is duff. I once helped a friend create a garden full of raised beds - to fill them he bought in a lorry load of fresh topsoil, beautifully screened, no stones or roots. Not a single thing ever grew in those elaborately built beds, not even weeds - years later the soil was still sterile.
We never knew why. (Shame really, it would have been very profitable if we could have replicated the effect for "low maintenance" "gardeners". )
If it's any consolation Hobbit, my carrots' germination has been sporadic to say the least, none of my seed tapes seem to have done anything as yet, and as for Hamburg Parsley etc...It doesn't help that I think I may have weeded some of the latter. So between slugs and seeds...
This reminds me very much of a year when early growing at Glen Tanar was very iffy, to put it mildly - I remember potting on lots of seedlings which were then struck by a cold spell and ceased all growth, permanently. In the end, we just had to restart from scratch, and settle for a (even) shorter growing season. (We couldn't buy in plants from down South, it was the same there.)

what turnip patch. All of them are gone

I am the yin to your yang - this may give you hope. I have sown Petrowska, Golden Ball, Early Red Topped and I think Snowball, into Poundland seed module trays filled with molehill soil. Of all the seeds I sowed, the only ones to have germinated so far in any number, are the turnips - obviously they don't mind the cold and damp weather, in fact I think they relish it. That took two weeks. But I have no illusions - the only reason I ever saw those seedlings is that I had the trays sitting in a big gravel tray that of course was swimming in rainwater, so the slugs could not reach all those yummy brassicas for the moat.
Now I have stuck some propogator lids on top of the modules, in the hopes of speeding up growth a bit (we had snow here this morning), and taken the modules out of the swimming hole to allow the soil to drain a bit and maybe help other seeds germinate. (Really keen to get skirret growing.)
So it is a difficult year for growing, so far. You are not alone; it is not you failing, merely the difficult circumstances. And you are blessed with all that purple-tentacled, Hydra-headed monster to take all your existential angst out on !

[horticultural_hobbit]

I think I might weed the carrot patch, and try again. I really wanted some lovely carrots.

So, if I modularise turnips, that might be useful?

Oh, the grass. There are not many garden things that make want to cry. I get angry mostly when bad horticultural hobbitry happens (the wendy house carnage, for example, or the soil is stupidly wet) but the grass with purple tentacles. Cry, or hurl the onion how eighty yards. It infuriates me, as when I first took it over; the lotment secretary (whose plot it used to be years ago) had put weed killer down to get rid of all the grass. I need a strategy now to get rid of it.

I just want it all to look lovely again like it did when it was first cleared. Have my beans, squashes and beetroot just waiting

[binley100]

I grew turnips in modules , 3 or 4 seed each one then once they get going plant them out .......no probs
Carrots seem to take forever to germinate.....weathers not been on your side, don't get downhearted , things will happen ..

[taff]

I just want it all to look lovely again like it did when it was first cleared. Have my beans, squashes and beetroot just waiting

mulch everything
you'll still have to pull the grass up though sorry

[horticultural_hobbit]

Yeah, the bits bit on the onion patch that were mulched are okays. The bits I missed, really not. The grass is everywhere. Little tribble like clumps with purple purple tentacles. It's really quite funny, me standing there having a tug of war with it. Im just waiting for me to go thump backwards and onto my rump.

With the sheer volume of weeds, you'd think I was a right lazy whatsit. I do plan to mulch everything that gets sunk into the ground. Reckon I should do it to the cabbages under their net? I might sink those these weekend. They currently live in the wendy house. If they have lived in there, reckon they will need much hardening off?

I lost my fennel in the Wendy house carnage, and the kohlrabi. So I might re-modularise those.

[snohare]

I think I might weed the carrot patch, and try again

Of course you must ! Think of it as being earlier than the year than it really is. Remember the old mantra - Plant According To Conditions, Not The Calendar. Think about getting some seed of a variety that is recommended for very early sowing - Early Nantes of some sort maybe - hopefully that will do better in lower temperatures.
Don't forget, they will keep growing for long enough, and some (I for one!) would love to have as long a growing season as your latitude has...even your maincrop should give a result, pests allowing.
As for the weeding, well if worse comes to worst, you have created a stale seed bed, which pays off in the long term. (A seed germinated and killed now, is one less plant competing when temperatures rise and your seedlings are fighting against Dragon's Teeth.)
I can't remember which of the old hands it was that gave me the idea (probably zazen or TwoSheds); but when I saw that one of them said that they always grew kohl rabi, turnips and the likes in modules with success, I immediately decided to ignore the "Sow direct" instructions on the packets, which hitherto I had slavishly followed with pitiful results. So far I have germinated - or at least seen - more plants doing this than I have in the last three years !
Methinks they may be like carrots - often eaten the first night they pop their heads up, so never seen unless protected.

Cry, or hurl the onion how eighty yards.

Have you considered Anger Management Classes, young Hobbit ?
Not to go to - to give. I think many would pay to see such onion battering/weepy-eyed seminars on YouTube...it could go viral...pay for a posse of under-gardeners to obey your every whim...or to cure all else that ails or irks you.
Good enough is perfect. Perfection is a fool's paradise, the pursuit of which too often turns to hell.
Hark at me, the Gardener's Philosopher !