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Hi all
I confess I didn’t actually intend to join today. I just started browsing around in the idle hope of finding some thoughts on what to do with young sweetcorn plants (can’t plant them out yet - curses on this unreasonable cold snap! - but the plants are already a foot high, bursting out of their roottrainers in the greenhouse and getting desperate to be moved on). Then I started reading various threads, and then more of the threads.... my coffee went cold and I found I was hooked. So here I am.
I’ve had an allotment for about 6 years now, though I’ve been gardening for about 15 years. Mine is a double plot in an an old walled kitchen garden in Windsor. There are only about 15 plots total here, so I’m pretty lucky with having a sheltered and protected spot plus deep top soil enriched by the diligent efforts of generations of Victorian gardeners (gentlemen - I salute you!). One side of the plot is devoted to fruit and veg, and I’ve turned the other into a bit of a garden.
Sounds idyllic, but people on the estate here are prone to letting their dogs roam around unsupervised, so I do get some dog-related disasters like trampled seedlings, stolen sandwiches and big holes dug in my beds (stopped using fish blood and bone for that reason, as the smell seems to draw excitable mutts in from miles around!). The plot is also only a mile from the Thames, so prone to flooding in wet winters.
I’m no-dig and mostly organic; my one exception to the rule is bindweed, which frustrates me enough that I’ll use just about anything to try to get rid of it. I grow a fairly wide range of stuff and I was lucky enough to inherit a couple of mature apple and plum trees. My challenge to myself this year is celery. I gave up on celeriac after four years as I’ve never been able to produce anything better than miserable little golf balls. I also can’t seem to grow caulis which don’t look like horrible stunted yellow brains, so I’ve given up on those too. Last year’s personal challenge was melons, and to my surprise I [I]did[I] manage to grow a couple of reasonable fruits.
So far the little celery seedlings are coming on well in the g/h. Now I just need to work out what to do with that sweetcorn.
I confess I didn’t actually intend to join today. I just started browsing around in the idle hope of finding some thoughts on what to do with young sweetcorn plants (can’t plant them out yet - curses on this unreasonable cold snap! - but the plants are already a foot high, bursting out of their roottrainers in the greenhouse and getting desperate to be moved on). Then I started reading various threads, and then more of the threads.... my coffee went cold and I found I was hooked. So here I am.
I’ve had an allotment for about 6 years now, though I’ve been gardening for about 15 years. Mine is a double plot in an an old walled kitchen garden in Windsor. There are only about 15 plots total here, so I’m pretty lucky with having a sheltered and protected spot plus deep top soil enriched by the diligent efforts of generations of Victorian gardeners (gentlemen - I salute you!). One side of the plot is devoted to fruit and veg, and I’ve turned the other into a bit of a garden.
Sounds idyllic, but people on the estate here are prone to letting their dogs roam around unsupervised, so I do get some dog-related disasters like trampled seedlings, stolen sandwiches and big holes dug in my beds (stopped using fish blood and bone for that reason, as the smell seems to draw excitable mutts in from miles around!). The plot is also only a mile from the Thames, so prone to flooding in wet winters.
I’m no-dig and mostly organic; my one exception to the rule is bindweed, which frustrates me enough that I’ll use just about anything to try to get rid of it. I grow a fairly wide range of stuff and I was lucky enough to inherit a couple of mature apple and plum trees. My challenge to myself this year is celery. I gave up on celeriac after four years as I’ve never been able to produce anything better than miserable little golf balls. I also can’t seem to grow caulis which don’t look like horrible stunted yellow brains, so I’ve given up on those too. Last year’s personal challenge was melons, and to my surprise I [I]did[I] manage to grow a couple of reasonable fruits.
So far the little celery seedlings are coming on well in the g/h. Now I just need to work out what to do with that sweetcorn.
.
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