Allotments 4 All

As I say to OH everytime I'm in a Garden Centre.... "you can't have too many seeds!"

Quote from: saddad on April 16, 2021, 09:10:49
As I say to OH everytime I'm in a Garden Centre.... "you can't have too many seeds!"

Especially when they are reduced at the end of the season and you see all the varieties that might be good to try - just in case.

Is anyone monitoring the potato blight reports? It has seemed ominously humid to me in the past few days.

Not that I know, but I was thinking that watching the Weather Report last night... high humidity and overnight 14/15C...

Don't grow potatoes myself any more but I di grow tomatoes and keep them in the polytunnel to avoid blight.

Yesterday, for the first time, I got to visit my farmer neighbour's veg plot - very agricultural system with the soil clearly having been ploughed and then harrowed/riddled by tractor.   We'd gone to pick baby artichoke heads for a visiting friend.   There were also five long rows of potatoes and 3 of shallots, all looking strong and healthy but all a very strange bright blue.

I asked and it's a product they apply liberally to control pests and diseases.    Now I know how they get perfect cauliflowers but I no longer want to eat one.

You only need to put your first home-grown cauli into salt water to realise why pesticides were adapted so readily!

I know, and I don't get decent firm curds either so clearly need to improve my techniques - or just keep buying the organic ones.  Don't eat many anyway.

QuoteI don't get decent firm curds

In general terms, there are two things that I found to be essential:

1)The Variety

2) The firmness of the soil they are being planted in!

I never dug the soil just prior to planting, I preferred to do my soil preparation in the autumn, this way I found my light soil firmed up nicely over the winter months, and I only needed to form a hole where each plant was planted.

I usually used a bulb planter to do this.

If I were planting out late plantings eg Autumn & Spring cropping varieties as a follow-on crop, I would just tidy up the surface of the bed rake in a fertiliser and plant out as described before!




oops! I used more than one line for my answer....Sorry!

Quote from: Obelixx on June 08, 2021, 13:20:28
There were also five long rows of potatoes and 3 of shallots, all looking strong and healthy but all a very strange bright blue.

Sounds like Bordeaux mixture.  There was a recent topic where it was discussed at some length.  Effective against fungal diseases.  It is not a product I use myself, but there were good arguments that used with care and in moderation it was not nearly as harmful as many modern agro chemicals.

Nothing moderate about the intensity of blue powder on these plants!   Something I've seen sold here is a concoction of horsetail to dilute and use as a fungicide.

Bordeaux mixture is also an approved organic fungicide, so buying green won't necessarily avoid it!

I imagine its major use historically was to counter mildew in vineyards.

I know Bordeaux mixture is accepted organically but I don't use anything on my crops and was shocked to see these plants more blue than green.  They looked like a doctored pic for blue roses or tomatoes from a dodgy Chinese seed selling site.

Would someone kindly remind me of the best site to identify wild flowers? I have several in my wild flower / meadow flower area that I don't recognize and would like to identify. Cheers.

Sorry Beersmith, I'm too old fashioned, but have a wonderful book that I use!

Quote from: saddad on July 09, 2021, 07:21:14
Sorry Beersmith, I'm too old fashioned, but have a wonderful book that I use!

Yes I still refer to my parents old copy of the AA Book of the  British countryside for that sort of thing!

Quote from: Beersmith on July 08, 2021, 22:18:17
Would someone kindly remind me of the best site to identify wild flowers? I have several in my wild flower / meadow flower area that I don't recognize and would like to identify. Cheers.

I use plantsnap for Android

Quote from: BarriedaleNick on July 10, 2021, 09:41:22

Quote from: Beersmith on July 08, 2021, 22:18:17
Would someone kindly remind me of the best site to identify wild flowers? I have several in my wild flower / meadow flower area that I don't recognize and would like to identify. Cheers.

I use plantsnap for Android

Many thanks!

Davholla posed a question about missing gooseberries.  Why it is locked so no-one can reply??

I have unlocked it.
I dont have access to see how that happened but I figure it was related to a database error that Dan had to fix around that time - the site was down for a while..

What do moles do in winter?  I assumed they would rather inactive, perhaps not hibernating but more or less dormant.  But a new mole hill appeared under one of my apple trees just yesterday so I was clearly wrong about that, despite it being very cold here lately.  Any talpa experts out there?