Hobbit Allotment!

[taff]

What did people do before the likes of the Vine ? I have a friend up here who is a keen veggie grower, now on her second season - when I talk to her I feel almost Godlike in my omniscience. Yet I deserve no credit - it is all information gleaned from others here, my own experience is generally very scant !

snap!!

Just had a though. If i spread shredded newspaper everywhere that is currently barren; what would that achieve exactly? .

It'll get wet, matt together and act as a mulch The worms will eventually pull it down, but they don't seem to like paper as much as cardboard, or at they dont in my garden. I put some downlast year as a thick sheet mulch, but they've eaten the cardboard from this year first.

[horticultural_hobbit]

Shredded newspaper

Just had a though. If i spread shredded newspaper everywhere that is currently barren; what would that achieve exactly? I'm sorry it's such a question. Just getting up-Ma keeps coming in and telling me she's bored-but I'm just wondering if that's usefull.

Best get up.

[VirginVegGrower]

You can't beat a woman who can

[Two_Sheds]

I love my dad.

I wish I had one. My mum was my dad (as well as being my mum, of course). By that I mean, she was always the one who fixed stuff, because she had to. Now I'm the one who always fixes stuff, because Someone Else would rather watch telly

[horticultural_hobbit]

I wil confess that the omission of these lovelies has been bugging me all day!

Went to the garden centre after school. Came out with a three sided hoe and a raised bed. The latter because ma's 1/8 is boggy and she is protesting that she doesn't want that bit any more. Went home, couldn't find dad or his drill. Tried to assemble it myself, as I didn't realise I needed a drill; just thought it would a lot together.

On finding dad-having a shave:

"Dad," said I. "I need your help putting a bed together."

looking at me as though I had rubbish timing, "Yeah, in a minute," he frowned face half lathered.

Ten minutes later, armed with a drill. Dad found me loitering. Looking at the bits of bed, he asked whose bed it was.

"S'not a bed bed, Dad," I said, "It's a plant bed."

I love my dad.

[snohare]

Don't forget Cousins Taff, Sanjo and Binley ! And all those other First and Second Cousins Cybernetically Removed...
Ach well, on yet anither dreich, snell day when it's too wet to do onything on the lottie, what is more natural to do for growers than to congregate and chew over all the details of how I'd, when I's, and what you'd ?
Crikey though, it makes me think. What did people do before the likes of the Vine ? I have a friend up here who is a keen veggie grower, now on her second season - when I talk to her I feel almost Godlike in my omniscience. Yet I deserve no credit - it is all information gleaned from others here, my own experience is generally very scant ! When all the allotment plots were falling vacant and everyone was buying air-shipped asparagus and Safari beans from the newly fashionable supermarkets, things must have been pretty difficult for many a young wannabe(an), particularly out in the sticks.

[horticultural_hobbit]

I'm very glad for having an uncle Sno, aunties two sheds, VVG and Zazen as well as granny Flo.

[Two_Sheds]

Snohare's hit the nail on the head: don't expect to achieve a fully functioning lotty in your first year, or even your third. I've only just beaten the weeds into some kind of submission, after 4 years.

This year I find myself with even less time, so I planned to grow fewer things, but more of them: lots of ground-covering beans and pumpkins, and more green manures to cover some more ground that I don't have time to till.
Sadly, the weather isn't playing ball, and lots of my beans have rotted in their cold compost.

Instead of hoeing, start mulching: I use layers of newspaper, papier mache style, topped with grass clippings to hold them down. Look out Zazen's excellent photo showing the technique with excellent weed-restraining results.

[snohare]

in amongst all this being a grown up business

Sorry, can't give you any advice on that one ! Never managed it myself, still find myself bemused to own "adult" things like curtains, tools and furniture.
Juggling priorities - well, that is my bugbear, and hence perforce (kind of) my specialty. What I found - by doing things the wrong way - was that the first year on the allotment was very much creating the infrastructure - clearing ground (sound familiar?), making paths, setting up sheds etc - and in consequence the whole production line process of getting seedlings sown and grown suffered. Not least because outside influences - the world outside the gate - interfered endlessly, and randomly, and learning to cope with that is simply a case of adapting personal circumstances, which of course necessitates starting off from a position of inefficiency.
The second year, things were a lot easier, the third year began to rock'n'roll. (Or would have been, if the Monster called Poor Health hadn't been taking big random bites out of my life.)
Do the same thing several times over, and it gets a lot easier, setting up a garden is a known quantity; but nonetheless, on my fourth garden, I am still only really beginning to get into my stride big time in the third summer. I know it's possible to do better - but I can't with my resources.
I think the secret is to decide clear aims, have priorities labelled infrastructure and growing process, and have a list of tasks for each of the two categories which will advance either your short-term or longer-term goals. Every time you achieve in either one or the other, tick it off. (I do this in my head, that's how I think all the time, in logistics, but in the past when I needed motivation I found writing it down helps enormously, the sense of satisfaction is palpable if you look at a ticked off list.)
At the end of the day, we live in luxury; because our lives don't depend on how well the growing goes. (We hope ! Although I am probably closer to it than you given my malnutrition, and it's not a comfortable sensation.) No shaved tree roots soup for our lunch as they are having in the Sahel... so enjoy every little triumph, and remember that weather such as we are currently having is a challenging and at times grim apprenticeship for novice growers, such as may not have been seen in millennia.

[horticultural_hobbit]

Seriously, Sno, that onion hoe was flung everywhere. And I did the mick jagger pouty swagger too. Shaking my head, and feeling a lot like England had once against crashed out of a football tournament after penalties.

Think modularising is key, especially with the clay anyway. Carrots I will still do direct. Might have some early nante somewhere in the see stasher.


Have a stupidly long list of jobs to do. Will be very happy to plant out stuff. Then perhaps I will feel a bit better that I am playing properly. Need to really shoe horn more time in amongst all this being a grown up business. I can't go before school, and after school I try to do a hour or so if I have to fetch Ma from her school. Weekend playing is also done around school work. And as this is my first year of lotmenting, I'm easily annoyed but eager to get a good result.

[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 !

[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.

[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

[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 ..

[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