Topic: annis horribilis

[Deb P]

You are right TeeGee, it has been a really odd year, with it's fair share of successes and failures. It is my first year with an allotment, and although I have grown fruit and veg at home for many years, this is the first time I've had the opportunity to do it on any scale. I expected to have failures because of my ignorance, and also successes because of beginners luck! Growing on a plot that has not been worked for a while was always going to be a bit of an experiment...

 I can appreciate that when you have built up a such a wealth of experience that you share so readily with others having any failures must be harder to bear, but it also gives us all a reminder that sometimes it may be just down to weather and climate.

The pest issue is something else, I know what it is like to have a neighbour who does little than strim his plot every so often so the dandelions all flower and seed downhill on my plot................how I would love to get hold of that plot and look after it!! Again, I'm sure the odd weather conditions are contributing to conditions that favour pests and diseases of all sorts, I just hope that is not something we will have to get used to.

I find this forum so valuable because when things go a bit pear shaped or I don't know how to tackle something I can come on here and ask .........well just about anything without feeling belittled. I have found your site (in particular the comprehensive photographs)  very helpful and insightful this past year. I hope you will  feel able to continue, mild winter or not........you may not realise what a valuable resource you are!

[antipodes]

oh dear, I have just posted a garden catstrophe thread, without seeing this one. Yes, for first years it is disheartening to see everything rotting where it stands, I don't know if I'll get any decent spuds and they are usually something you can depend on.
Don't think I will get any toms at this rate.
Still, my parsnips are doing great guns!!!! and so are the beets. I too planted many things late and they seem to be doing better, as are my flowers that struggled in the Hot April.
But please don't give up TeeGee! I may resemble those organic allotmenteers next to you! As I haven't treated anything chemically, but I have tried not to let the weeds flower at least. Maybe our autumn crops will be better????

[Kea]

I felt like that yesterday. I looked over at the neighbouring plot....they've got two started the same time as me 18 months ago. Both their plots are a wall of weeds mainly prickly lettuce (i think) It's the one I'm fighting as well as their plot seeded all over mine last summer. Any way I've seen these people twice. The weeds are taller than me (5' 8") and they are just starting to seed (seed like dandelion floats everywhere). I know where they're going to land!
The council has 'contacted 'them and suggested they strim the plot, the reply was they would spray it.......you can't spray weeds that tall and not kill everyone elses stuff as well. I wrote a letter to the council pointing that out! Anyway it's too late to spray as they are dying back now.
They've got an allotment somewhere else and they are shifting here and it's taking them a long time to do it. Meanwhile I believe we have a waiting list, just not fair on the waiting list either.
Hopefully our newly formed allotment association will make waves.

Good luck Tee Gee and please don't give up.

[Kea]

Cambourne 7
Just looked at your pics.....you've got that weed, don't let it flower. It actually pulls out easily when the soil is wet but not when it gets older.
When you hit it with a strimmer it sends a big 'gob' of sap into your face (i do wear a face mask but it's mesh the sap goes thru').

[cambourne7]

HI Kea,

Which pic had the weeds??

Not to worry i had the full face mask etc on !

I have to say I have had enough of weeding and i cant wait for my wood to turn up so that i can start putting more beds in and the smaller paths.

I have lost my get up and go in fact i have slept though my alarm clock 2 days running got up 2.45 today and 1.15 yesterday!! I am driving my hubbie and mate to a local beer festival then popping up to plot for more spuds for dinner tomorrow while its not raining.

Heres to a better day tomorrow for everyone!!

Cambourne7

[mc55]

Hi Tee Gee, hope your season improves.  I love reading your website - the tips, advice and pictures are invaluable to people like me who do not have your experience.  I have learnt so much from the accumulated wisdom and experience of all of the great people on this site.

I will keep my fingers crossed that you get better neighbours - we met a couple at the w/e who are trying to get a plot on our site, but have been told there is a waiting list and yet the plot next to me has not been worked in the year and a half that I've had mine.  It is very frustrating.

[Chubby George]

It's all a bit of a mess, and when this years commercial harvest is in and spuds retail at £2 each and cauliflowers £5 each, we'll all be back on our allotments.
 :(

[cambourne7]

There was something on the news today about crops being ruined here in east anglia. God knows what crops are like elsewhere.

[mc55]

Cambourne, I watched the news this evening and they implied that crops will be devastated by the floods in quite a few areas and therefore veg in the shops will be scarcer and more expensive.  Makes me very glad to have my lottie (sorry to those of you who have lost yours to the floods xx)

[emmy1978]

Tee Gee. I be t you don't give up, I'm sure you're made of sterner stuff than that!! If you do, you are under no circumstances to leave us or abandon the almanac. I'd be lost without it. When i got my plot and googled allotments and veg growing it was one of the first sites I saw and the crop rotation thing made sense for the first time. Doooooon't go!

[Raisedbed]

Give it some time Tee Gee and perhaps the next good cropping of a vegetable will trigger those old feelings of satisfaction at having produced something good, fresh and full of vitamins and only you know what's been on it.   It has been a very intensive year this year.  I've had to spend more time getting rid of aphids, removing wind broken stems from plants, cleaning debris away to avoid mould, slug hunting in the dead of night, re-sowing carrots, worrying if my runner beans are going to rot in the rain etc but it's worth it just to get that one veggie on the plate and say "I grew that".  Who needs a gym membership when you can get a good work-out growing veggies.       

[zoro]

I have to say i have just looked at your website for the first time ...WOW.!!! :o

I now see why everyone says you have far too much knowledge to stop allotmenting. Please reconsider ....

As others have said, i as a newbie was disappointed with my results this year compared to my first season last year ....if you had problems with all your experience i know it is not just me or something i did wrong ..i need to learn the lesson ...the challenge of gardening is to take the good with the bad and fight back...

Thank you for sharing your years and years of experience ...i intend to send link to your site to my sister who is retiring to France and as a newbie gardener start growing fruit + veg from scratch..i am sure she will find all the advise she needs on your site ...
Thanks
Zoro

[Kea]

HI Kea,

Which pic had the weeds??

Not to worry i had the full face mask etc on !


Cambourne7

Photo Weeds1 and Weeds2 It's the tall weed with the yellow flowers to the left of the front plot with potatoes? in it. That's all over my neighbours double plot and well over 5 foot tall. It's the one I've been fighting (with strimmer now!) on my plot. If your soil is wet and the plant is fairly young it just pulls out. I made the mistake of not worrying too much about it as it's an annual, well it sort of is but if you take the top off it grows back as a monster weed!