Yes, I'm a relative newcomer to lotties but there's a few things that puzzle me...
1. It's now late July and I'm still having to buy tomatoes and aubergines from the shops. I started both really early in the propagator and had envisaged they'd be ready by now but no chance.
2. How I spent all year working on my lottie and the guy next to mine pops down for a day early summer, gets all his stuff in and it looks just a good as mine!
3. How some lotties are free form weeds despite me never seeing their owners (and I am down there a lot)
.. ;D..saying 'grass is greener on other side the fence' come to my mind.. ;D
1. Yes..I think we all have to buy some if wanting toms in quantity.. ::)..but don't forget we did have cold weather untill quite late..and propagator don't help you with that..until your plants get their feet firmly into ground/containers..
2. Oh..we all have neighbours like that... ::)..but if your ground does grow all the weeds it shows that your ground is more fertile than his..and I rather have that than plot neat and tidy..I bet your veg taste better.. ;)
3. Now those plot owners have sold their souls for devil to get easy life..
End of the day, I rather go to the heaven...so weeding it will be or learn live with the mother nature.. ;D
and the people you give spare plants to have ripe tomatoes on theirs before you ;D
Quote from: manicscousers on July 24, 2010, 09:17:28
and the people you give spare plants to have ripe tomatoes on theirs before you ;D
How very true!
Hmmm..one of my neighbours has an allotment and he is bringing back lovely long carrots while mine are still only small........his beetroot was huge mine only tennis ball
his lettuce's huge and perfectly formed while mine look like they have had a night on the town............................... ;D
And my toms are still very Green.
Although we've had a few Tigerella's off the vine, we are still buying tommies, as said the cold snap never helped, but before you know it they'll be coming out of your ears and you'll be giving them away. :D
I have neighbours who let the weeds grow around their crops, spuds, onions etc and they look no different to my weedish free crop. :'(
I work during the day so never see most people on our plot.
;D ;D ;D
Very few people see me working my lottie. I am often there at 6 am and almost never go at weekends.
Quoteand the people you give spare plants to have ripe tomatoes on theirs before you
Even worse went yours don't fruit at all and theirs are brilliant. I gave someone a couple of butternut squash last year and they did much better then mine, and I had the pick of the batch. The runts did best!!!
Hanging a banana near the tomatoes can pursuade them to ripen up.
Sometimes those really good looking sites don't necessarily have the nicest things to eat.
I grew some Tundra last year and OMG the compliments from passers-by on my fab looking cabbages :D but truth is they had no more flavour than a Tesco's one.
Some sites look great because they grow one variety of one vegetable in long, military style precision lines - but after my Tundra experience I'm wise to it. I may have a raggle, taggle of open-pollinated crops all maturing at different speeds and in a whole range of messy varieties, but heck they taste good.
Also, those one day in spring planters tend to get a shorter eating season because their brassicas for example either bolt or are cropped early, whereas they'll run and run if they planted over a longer period.
as for the weeds - the ones who have cracked it on our plots seem to spend a fortune buying in tons of manure or spent mushroom compost and mulching very heavily in spring and they do pay contractors to clear and dig initially too.
And some people put a lot of work into their plots over the winter and reap the rewards in the summer ;)
I was told by my dad years ago if you can grow weeds your soil is good and fertile !
Plus you can eat some weeds if you get desperate! ;D
It's not just you spudcounter - it varies from plot to plot so much. On our site one had beans reaching the top of the frame and flowering, while everyone else's were stunted little things, others have fantastic looking onions, but rubbish squash.
Home grown tomatoes - some people say they can't eat them all, freezer full etc... I have no idea what they do. I usually have to ripen them off indoors in Autumn. Why do I even grow them? ::)
I think that these days tomatoes in this country are mostly grown under glass - although they used to be grown outdoors, so I don't know when they used to ripen. Did people use to just eat them at the end of summer? (Anyone here got a long memory?)
So far my outdoor toms are miles ahead of my greenhouse ones, so I'm hoping for some great tomatoes from them, but at the moment, they're ALL green. My French climbers are off the top of the wigwam and still no flowers and my marble size beetroot have so much leaf they look like red cabbage ::). Despite keeping my carrots under wire netting, they've ALL disappeared (again). On the plus side, I usually have no luck growing radish, but this year, they've all decided to grow properly (what did I do different?) and now I'm up to my ears in the things.
It's usually the beginning of august that my toms get blight...i usually lose approx half of my toms.
This year i am thinking of removing the green ones and ripening them at home under my plastic coldframes, in the hope of avoiding the dreaded blight.
I am growing 'outdoor girl' and i have loads of decent sized green toms already
I'd heard but ignored for years the advice about how important soil improvement is also thinking mine grew great weeds so it was probably good enouggh soil. Eventually after growing many spindly plants that often died early I decided to try hard to improve the clay and began adding more compost and manure, sand to loosen it up, minerals, seaweed extract etc. and mulching everything to try to keep the moisture levels from swinging wildly from sopping wet to bone dry. New beds I try to begin with lasagne layer gardening.
Crops have improved steadily the better the soil is. No doubt about it in my mind.
There are some things I've given up on though: green peppers, carrots and the cole family (due to bugs).