the non-political thread

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Some red cabbage I have coming on.

I think another week or two and they will be big enough for any slugs to not bother. I think it's because the heart contains the best nutrition and once it starts to wrap it in protective layer of leaf the slugs can't get at it as easily and so lose interest in the outer foliage - at least what I've noticed. I have in the past experienced cabbage that have been literally burrowed into by a slug trying to eat it's way to the centre.

Plan next year is to make a schedule for germination/planting out. It's been all over the place this year, with big sections of unoccupied ground after all the winter stuff was pulled mid summer.
 
Your brassicas are looking good! :) and I am impressed with the lack of weeds. Have you grown cauli before? I did on my first year and everyone told me they were the most difficult veggie to grow. Did ok tho, I just didn't like the flavour so not grown them again. Anyway, good stuff, hope they all come up trumps.

No, no raised beds, I just have a couple of frames for the more slug attracting crops where I wire them up to a 9v battery. Just enough to keep the slugs and snails out and it works a charm. I try to do everything on the cheap as it's part the fun for me. Last year someone left the plot and said I could have their shed - well, it was scraps of shed. Patched up the holes, painted it and put new felt - a fab shed for under £40 and a bit of effort.

Anyway, rambling.
Have you thought of those plastic greenhouses? I have one and it's good - certainly good enough for planting most seeds.
Top tip over the slugs, cheers. No, slugs have been fewer in number this year, thankfully. Last year was stupid.. I have a half plot and since I have been there, the plots all around me have been paid for but unused - the slugs and snails all wait in overgrown vegetation and come out at night. I see them when at the allotment at dusk, gits.

Reminds me of this :):

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Your brassicas are looking good! :) and I am impressed with the lack of weeds. Have you grown cauli before? I did on my first year and everyone told me they were the most difficult veggie to grow. Did ok tho, I just didn't like the flavour so not grown them again. Anyway, good stuff, hope they all come up trumps.

No, no raised beds, I just have a couple of frames for the more slug attracting crops where I wire them up to a 9v battery. Just enough to keep the slugs and snails out and it works a charm. I try to do everything on the cheap as it's part the fun for me. Last year someone left the plot and said I could have their shed - well, it was scraps of shed. Patched up the holes, painted it and put new felt - a fab shed for under £40 and a bit of effort.

Anyway, rambling.
Have you thought of those plastic greenhouses? I have one and it's good - certainly good enough for planting most seeds.
Top tip over the slugs, cheers. No, slugs have been fewer in number this year, thankfully. Last year was stupid.. I have a half plot and since I have been there, the plots all around me have been paid for but unused - the slugs and snails all wait in overgrown vegetation and come out at night. I see them when at the allotment at dusk, gits.

Reminds me of this :):

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Been through two plastic greenhouses, I had them up against the shed for wind protection but when the gales really pick up the thing doesn't stand a chance, the last one I had was found at the other end of the site ripped to pieces. Gave up on them. The site is on a slight gradient uphill which may have something to do with it, a lot of fragile fruit cages are uplifted in bad weather. I built my fruit cage from scaffolding to account for this, concreted in the ground.

Isn't it annoying when you have neighbours that never come and do anything?.. the people to the left and right of me are good though fortunately, and good growers.

Definintely recommend a few bags of compost around the bases of your most valuable plants to ward off the slugs, it's worked better than anything else for some reason, they seem to really hate the stuff. It's actually less work overall because there's less time weeding and more time planting out stuff. It also looks much nicer as you say, and neater.

A friend of mine gets woodchop deliveries which he uses for pathways so I do that too, 3-4 inch layer can last 2 years before any sign of a weed, defintely the best stuff I've found for weed control, but not to grow in of course.

I'll get some more pics up soon
 
I never knew that with bags of compost - the slugs all go into my bags at home unless I seal them well. Funny! I did use sharp sand for a couple of years (which is ok as have clay soil) but last year the slugs were having a beach party on them so I gave up!
Those greenhouses I use in my garden, and only up for a few months. So on the occasional windy/gale day, I tie them to the fence and put bricks on the bottom shelf - not lost one yet. I'd not use one at the allotment as so exposed - I lost a compost bin this year, left a lovely pile of compost but the bin I never found after gales!

I would love to get woodchip, looks really neat too - either that or fake grass! No mowing, no weeds, fab! :-) But it all costs a fair bit of money and as said before, I like to do everything on the cheap. And yeah, it's a pain in the bum where folk don't look after their plot. I've got it on both sides and behind me - at the moment the weeds are about waist high. Been like that for 3 years. The council don't care, and the plots are so cheap (£24 a half plot) that folk just keep em on.

Oh, do you grow sweetcorn? YUM!
 
I used to mulch heavily with horse muck using wood shavings bedding. It doesn't stink like straw bedding, and is more absorbent so holds more nutrients. It dries out fairly easily on the surface and suppresses weed growth. Any that do manage to come through are easily plucked out. By next spring, it has rotted down and the worms have taken it underground. No digging needed and the soil texture improved.

The rough, dry texture might discourage slugs, but it encourages ground beetles and hedgehogs, which eat them.

You can walk on it, but it tends to stick to your boots.

You can probably collect as much as you want from stables and riding schools.
 
Some more photos:

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The very last over wintering cabbage. Had about 12 in total, these were planted last september/october if I recall. Really quite astonishing they can live so long in the ground and no sign of rot inside the hearts. I've made sauerkraut with a few of them and some stir fries, as well as steamed veg.

Rescued 2 squash plants from a garden centre on special offer for a quid. All the earlier had growth had yellowed. Once they were planted out they're turned a lush green:

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Same with the runner beans:

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Marked down on special offer as they were all basically dead in the pots when I got them. Very small though, should be at the top by this time of year. It was a panic buy really just to get some runners in.
 
I never knew that with bags of compost - the slugs all go into my bags at home unless I seal them well. Funny! I did use sharp sand for a couple of years (which is ok as have clay soil) but last year the slugs were having a beach party on them so I gave up!
Those greenhouses I use in my garden, and only up for a few months. So on the occasional windy/gale day, I tie them to the fence and put bricks on the bottom shelf - not lost one yet. I'd not use one at the allotment as so exposed - I lost a compost bin this year, left a lovely pile of compost but the bin I never found after gales!

I would love to get woodchip, looks really neat too - either that or fake grass! No mowing, no weeds, fab! :) But it all costs a fair bit of money and as said before, I like to do everything on the cheap. And yeah, it's a pain in the bum where folk don't look after their plot. I've got it on both sides and behind me - at the moment the weeds are about waist high. Been like that for 3 years. The council don't care, and the plots are so cheap (£24 a half plot) that folk just keep em on.

Oh, do you grow sweetcorn? YUM!

It might be they liked the moisture under the bags, but I've not noticed them being especially attracted to open bags of compost. This is my bought-in mushroom compost pile and very little activity above ground in the way of slugs:

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Had a go with corn before but not successful on the whole, although might have another go now I compost so much. Still investigating how best to propagate, given that the shed lacks light for young seedlings.

Will post a bit more shortly, ..
 
Blighty, perhaps you could try phoning around a few tree surgery businesses in your local area. Matey boy on my site gets it from a guy who drops it off in a van once or twice a year in exchange for a bottle of plonk, it's a waste product for most of them I'd think. Round here there's a local farm where I can get free horse manure, takes a while to rot down, 12months at least, but quality stuff. I've been down there a few times this year to bag it up and put it in the back of the car. Smelly job but I like that sort of thing.
 
Beetroot:

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More beetroot (pictured bottom) - different variety to the others.

Top is a combination of turnip (first attempt growing turnip) and some salad (I forget which)
 
Blighty, perhaps you could try phoning around a few tree surgery businesses in your local area. Matey boy on my site gets it from a guy who drops it off in a van once or twice a year in exchange for a bottle of plonk, it's a waste product for most of them I'd think. Round here there's a local farm where I can get free horse manure, takes a while to rot down, 12months at least, but quality stuff. I've been down there a few times this year to bag it up and put it in the back of the car. Smelly job but I like that sort of thing.
Cheers for that! Good idea - I will look into the woodchip as it's about £100 for one of those huge bags - which wouldn't got far on an allotment. We get free manure delivered from local farm a few times a year and I bag it up and leave it for about a year too. My raspberries love it.

Beets are looking good! I've a ton of them too. Mind you, made 17 jars of pickled beets last year and we've eaten just 3. Just had a go at making our first pickled wallies, playing around with flav's. Put chilli's in some so be interesting to see which is best.

Shame about your corn, I find it really easy to grow, they just need a lot of water, lots! I hope you have success next year because if it's eaten as soon after picking as possible, it's very tasty indeed. Can plant seeds straight in the ground if you've no room to germinate. I suggest putting a plastic bottle over them as it protects them from slugs and birds as well as warms em up. They seem to like having a mini greenhouse to start off with if that helps?
 
I'd probably manure the whole plot and not have paths at all if the stuff is readily available on site. You could start in August when the weathers still good and do it over a few weeks?

You'll have to tell me your beet pickling recipe. I picked up some pickling vinegar today so going to have a go with either some of the smaller onions or the beets.

Loads of people on site are doing corn, but not many. The main issue I had was hairy small cobs, and last year I wasn't mulching at all so it was near impossible to keep moisture in the ground. Today I planted a few hundred boltardy beetroot and some golden burpees beetroot under cloches. Loads of lettuce seeds planted into trays as well. Not sure if it's too late for beets but did it anyway as the seeds expired this year.

I do think the mini green house idea is worth revisiting, perhaps if I built something attached to the shed with timber that would give it more rigidity. At the moment my trays are outside in the shade of the shed under some net, but the slugs and mice can get at them.
 
nice to see you are both keen gardener's .

slugs ?? heard some where that a sprinkle of soot keeps em away ????

hedge hog would also help :)
 
nice to see you are both keen gardener's .

slugs ?? heard some where that a sprinkle of soot keeps em away ????

hedge hog would also help :)
Have two hedgehogs in our garden and the rotters don't seem to keep the slug population down at all :-) Never heard of soot - coffee grounds, sharp sand, crushed eggshells but not soot :-)
 
Hawk, beet recipe - about a 3rd of each of the main ingredients we work from. 1/3 vinegar, 1/3 water, 1/3 sugar. I prefer less sugar so we make some with less. Some folk use pickling spice in them, cheap as chips if you fancy trying a jar of those too - prob work better with onions imo.

Manure is good **** (lol), but not for all veggies. There's some vegetables that actively don't like too much manure. But no, I don't use it as much as I should esp as easy to get. I tend to forget about it and then it's all been taken by others.

Sorry about your corn, weird stuff. I get small ears of corn on the same plant as the main cob, but these are just offshoots, kind of thing, and not really to be used. I can't think what would cause that? I don't mulch anything, but water a lot and every day over my whole allotment.

Anyway, so this year as well as a lot of weeds I've grown wallies, corn, carrots, mini cucumber, radishes, beetroots, king Edward spuds, charlottes, too many tomatoes, runner beans, French beans, marrow, melon (didn't work, no fruit), leeks, peas, onions (pulled up onions with rot), a strange red, leafy veg that someone else gave me on the plot (used in Indian cooking, yum) and extra flowers for the bees :) Oh and of course fruit, but that looks after itself. Raspberries, strawberries, loganberries and black currants.

The last pic is how not to do veg growing, a crime to allotment dwellers! This spring it all kicked off at home with partners dad's illness so I had little time to get to the allotment to plant my plants. It was a case in the end of running over in a spare 30 mins, digging a patch and planting seedlings out, not caring about planning, just wanting stuff in.
So even tho the plot is scruffy this year, I am pleased to say that it's growing very well - eaten too many beans already and have so many courgettes/marrows that I now leave em outside with a note for neighbours to help themselves. They do go tho!

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nice to see you are both keen gardener's .

slugs ?? heard some where that a sprinkle of soot keeps em away ????

hedge hog would also help :)

And eggshells but the amount of the stuff required around each plant is a bit prohibitive and not really suitable when you are growing on a larger scale. I suppose it really depends on whether you like pottering here and there without a fixed outcome or whether you want to grow almost everything you eat, which is the ideal for me, although clearly I'm along way off :)
 
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