4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[Couperman]

Lessons learned from my allotment experiences this year.

 

If you sow too many seeds, you get too many plants.

 

Large church type candles make good greenhouse heaters.

 

Two people cannot eat sixty cabbages in one summer.

 

Cauliflowers are not your friend, they taunt you and then run to seed unless you water them every hour on the hour.

 

You cannot plant too many peas

 

You can plant too many Courgettes (i.e. two)

 

6ft wide raised beds are 1ft - 2 wide.

 

If your Courgettes are not quite the right size yet, come back in twenty minutes.

 

If you leave your Asparagus crowns in a carrier bag behind the settee for a month before getting around to planting them out, they don't get off to a very good start.

 

When people refer to 'Firm' ground for planting sprouts what they mean is 'steam roller' firm like concrete. My sprouts all blew.

 

Netting on stawberry beds should only prevent birds getting to your strawberries. If they prevent you getting them too, they are probably over engineered.

 

Don't thin carrots unless you are fond of little cream maggots.

 

Slugs REALLY don't like electricity.

 

If you have room, grow loads of sweetcorn, it's gorgeous fresh and the plants make a pleasant rustly noise in the breeze.

 

If you take all the advice given to you over the fence you will get confused.

 

If you ignore all the advice given to you over the fence you will be confused.

 

Find an older person who has been growing veg longer than you have been alive and take only their advice. (haven't managed this yet, so still confused).

 

Save seed, (start with peas, easy peasy)

 

Big freezers are good.

 

Huge freezers are better.

 

Ripening Pumpkins attract mindless vandals.

 

Onions attract mindless vandals.

 

Mindless vandals are attracted to other peoples hard work not, their own which doesn't exist.

 

Mindless vandals don't like to smell of fermented chicken droppings.

 

Mindless vandals are detered by machete wielding lunatics.

 

Over confidence with machete's should be discouraged.

 

Hitting yourself with your machete instead of the bramble you were aiming at has undesirable results.

 

If you ever feel like your are fighting a losing battle with weeds, you are right.

 

If you call weeds 'green manure' the battle is over and weeds are your friends.

 

 

Disclaimer: The Machete related comments above are very much tongue in cheek and I do not in any way condone the dismembering of mindless vandals although I do endorse booby traps involving fermented chicken droppings

 

Kev.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Brilliant . Oh, I can identify with a few of those .

 

PS How's the ankle ?

[Couperman]

Brilliant . Oh, I can identify with a few of those .

 

PS How's the ankle ?

 

It's on the mend now thanks. I have been wearing my walking boots for the last couple of days which has helped.

 

Kev.

[chickencam]

couldn't agree more

 

I shall add a few of my own.

 

weeds grow faster than plants

don't turn your back on a courgette

one year's success is another year's failure

my freezer is too small

cabage white butterflies are evil

spring is a season of hope, summer is a season of fruitfulness, amd autumn is quite melancholy, because everything is winding down. Winter is for seed catalogues and veg book reading.

[Milly]

Lots of excellent advice here

 

The thing I have learned is that if you raise plants from seed it is very hard not to plant them all out. Even if it means you end up with so many tomato plants no light gets into the greenhouse! I will need someone to remind me of this next year.

 

Milly

[Ain't Nobody Here]

if you raise plants from seed it is very hard not to plant them all out.

 

How true .

 

Thinning out and only choosing the strongest seedlings is NOT plant murder. They don't mind. It's allowed.

[abwsco]

Brilliant

[Snowy]

Very good Kev, and oh so true!

 

If I might add one of my own: Picking caterpillars off the brassicas by hand as an organic method of pest control only works if you then kill them and don't leave them somewhere where they can march straight back onto the brassicas

[Couperwife]

if you raise plants from seed it is very hard not to plant them all out.

 

How true .

 

Thinning out and only choosing the strongest seedlings is NOT plant murder. They don't mind. It's allowed.

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOO, its plant murder

 

if you plant 50 tomato seeds, the law of rightness means that you have to pick them all out and plant them (and then spend weeks running after friends and family trying to give them away

 

I have tried and tried to "not" plant out everything, I cant do it

 

kev has to take the plants off me

 

 

cathy

x

[Ain't Nobody Here]

 

I can't bring myself to "murder" them either . Apart from a couple of tomato plants I hung on to for ages, put in a growbag, then accepted the fact that they weren't going to grow tomatoes . I buried them with some weedy friends in the brown bin .

[henny penny]

I also have a problem with sowing too many seeds- and ending up with too many plants- I find it really difficult to consign them to the compost bin. I try very hard to give them away!

[chickencam]

I too find it so hard to pull up a healthy little seedling that has just burst through the soil

[Olly]

Another one here - once they've made it to become plants, it seems wicked to throw them away! I freecycled quite a few this year. I just cannot bring myself to do the 'thinning' out thing even though I know it makes sense.

 

If your Courgettes are not quite the right size yet, come back in twenty minutes

 

Oh Kev - how true, how true! I've had more marrows this year than courgettes.

[Lesley]

All so true!

 

Can I add......

 

It is not clever to leave the tomato seedlings which were imported in the council compost - especially if they are in the middle of other crops......and late......unless you like green tomatoes!

 

...and, it's also not clever to leave the potatoes from last year which sprout up all over the place - they very rarely have a good crop, just take up space and digging the plant up causes distress to the squash plants which are supposed to be growing there!

[Egluntyne]

Very funny Kev

 

spring is a season of hope, summer is a season of fruitfulness, and autumn is quite melancholy, because everything is winding down. Winter is for seed catalogues and veg book reading.

 

I love this..... I might pinch this and make it the quote in my signature.....if there is room.

[Cinnamon]

I also have a problem with sowing too many seeds- and ending up with too many plants- I find it really difficult to consign them to the compost bin. I try very hard to give them away!

 

 

And you can guarantee that when you have binned them, the very next day the local Scouts will come knocking on your door looking for plant donations for the summer fete

[Happy chickens!]

Thank you - how true!

[bluekarin]

Thats brilliant

 

edited to remove a non relevant bit for this topic and add it to a more relevant topic I've just found - if that makes sense

[missuscluck]

Brilliant. Love it. Glad to hear you have survived a year of allotmenting and still retain a GSOH about it

[Valkyrie]

That's great Kev (and I find it hard to discard little seedlings - in fact it's infuriating because I know I can't do it and feel guilty when I do).

 

Tomatoes are sneaky in greenhouses because they drop and hide and then plants appear the following June/July or even August (where the tomatoes were never situated).

I never put tomatoes in the compost now (because of surprise plants - and why is it that the seeds you collected are so fussy in comparison to those neglected ones outdoors?).

I also don't put onion peeled bits in the compost after adding some nasty thing from a shop bought one that now attacks my home grown plants - something like white rot.

Potato peelings are bad news in compost - spot the potato plant amongst everything else.

Why is it that when you sow some seeds they do not appear and when you have left a nice long time to decide that they are not going to surface, they appear along with the new ones - then you have even more blooming seedlings to try and find homes for?

Why do the chickens ignore the stuff you grow for them but happily guzzle everything that you grow for your own use?

Oh and wasps are now my best friends - they eat the caterpillars on the brassicas.

Why is one of my sprout plants producing huge sprouts now when it is supposed to be for Christmas - the other sprout plants are behaving and they are the same variety too?

[Chicken Licken]

chickens can be trained to eat cabbage whites.

If you plant jerusalem artichokes once - you will have them forever!!

Who needs a tidy plot???

[chickencam]

If you plant jerusalem artichokes once - you will have them forever!!

 

I can agree with that one. We didn't like them they taste like melted plastic

[Valkyrie]

I thought they tasted a bit like a cross between sweetcorn and a potato - although it's the after effects that are a little more worrying.

[Olly]

I love Jerusalem Artichokes, but yes, it's the after-effects that put me off.

 

I do agree about the 'volunteer' tomatoes and potatoes though. I had no end of tomatoes springing up in my greenhouse this year, where some of last year's crop had fallen, and that is in spite of having allowed the hens in to clean up the greenhouse bed after I'd removed all the plants.

 

I never have any potato peelings for the compost, though - I cook them and give them to the chookies.

[Christian]

I love Jerusalem artichokes and had lots at my last house. I will never forget the first time I harvested some. A huge bowl were peeled, chopped and steamed. Covered in butter and I ate the whole bowl in a matter of minutes. One word of advice. Don't.

 

I was ill for two days with serious stomach cramps

 

Little and often is the key I don't have any at this house, but must get some more. I think Fuseau (sp) are the best as they are quite smooth skinned and you waste less when peeling.

 

Glad you have enjoyed your lessons from the plot Kev