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Were they in bags or in the ground N ?
In the ground. It's a common problem around here it seems but only on one side of the road bizarrely. It's the third time in four years it's happened (and the fourth year I didn't plant them outside).
Hello all!
Gutted for you about the tomatoes, Happychap. Fingers crossed for the greenhouse ones! ((( )))
Just a small point, though - hope your municipal composting system (using the green refuse bins) is high temperature. If not, the blight spores might survive and be passed on...
Well, right now I'm sitting at my desk eating a damn fine lunch. A kind of bastardised salad nicoise with tuna, egg, capers, olives and garlic, and new pots, chives and french beans from the garden. I've also added in some chargrilled courgette slices as we have so many of the buggers. Anyway, it's bloody delicious.
Yesterday I experienced another example of the warm fuzzy glow brought by growing your own - we get a lot of people commenting on our garden and how impressive it is. That's included chuggers, Jehovah's Witnesses, meter readers, postmen, delivery men and people visiting our neighbours. I guess it's because it's quite unusual to see the garden of a small urban terraced house completely given over to growing food.
Anyway, I was out picking stuff for lunch yesterday evening, and got chatting to a neighbour over the wall from us - their garden backs onto ours from the next road along. He was building a raised bed, and told me he and his missus had been so inspired by seeing the stuff growing in our garden that they wanted to give it a go.
We ended up having a very nice long chat about it.
That's what so great about this gardening lark - not only is it satisfying to grow your own food, an enjoyable excuse to be out in the fresh air, better for the environment and so on, but it's a really nice conversation starter. I have far more interaction with my neighbours because I'm out in the garden a lot than I expect many other people do these days...
And I always get this really happy feeling when I see other people getting involved.
I've eyed up quite a few sources of free blackberries recently. Need to get out and grab 'em before they go to waste! Might do so this evening...
Another way thats sposed to work is corn meal spread over the affected area.
My dad used to dig his leek trench over and water with a mix of jeyes fluid. I'm guessing it must be the same mix thats used to wash fruit trees at the end of the season to kill fungus on them.
sneaks in for a look and announce myself and mrs gb are now proud owners of allotment plot after sitting on waiting list for nearly 3 years.
will be taking notes and trying to bluff natural knowledge to impress mrs gb!!
never used Jeyes on the soil. Always sluice the greenhouse out with it... great stuff.
Sounds like a top tip!
Thank you :0)
*bursts in, excitedly*
I've actually managed to grow a melon. Yes, really! A whole round green skinned melon. Currently sitting on the kitchen worktop looking impresive.
Ok, not actually all that impressive, it is only a melon after all, but I've tried growing a melon plant for 4/5 years now and this is the first time I've come close to having an edible fruit. Mind you, I haven't tried it yet, it may not be edible after all...
I'm on tomato picking & souping duty this weekend. My favourite is yellow tomato soup, looks as strange as a very strange thing, but tastes really good!
So it appears I like to pull and tell. Look at this beauty I pulled today...
So happy as usually the parsnips are rubbish in my garden
Well, I apear to have made a gallon of elderberry vinegar some years back.
Smells wonderful though - as vinegar goes. 
Also the cider vinegar is maturing well, should be ready by christmas - we've started giving each other home produce at christmas now. i'm worried about what I'm getting from my lil sis, she's been asking some strange qs.Still, if she keeps winning prizes at the local produce shows whatever it is it will be good. 
More slug and snail woes, I've lost all my squashes, the rain brings hem out in droves. Still next year I'll have more sharp shingle down and less patio so that will keep them at bay. May make a few more dough dolls for the path.
Nice parsnip - that's one more than I managed to grow.
Will also be investing in some Jayes for the flowerpots at the end of the month.
Mr.Gloryboy try growing a green manure as your first crop over half your allotment. Has it been well used or has it been dormant for a while? When we had an allotment it had been dormant for a season so was well rested.
Imelda, hi yes it was cleared and covered about 18months ago we have sown some green manure in parts and some japanese onions as its too late to get anything really going. we have some cauliflower seedlings that were going to go in the garden but will now be 'promoted' to allotment!
Morning all!
Nice parsnip, Happychap!
Great news re: melon, HL!
Vinegar sounds good, Imelda. Shame about the slithery pests, though.
As for us...the courgette glut is upon us, our spuds are still plentiful, the french beans are steady, the onions are surprisingly impressive (well the white ones are; the red ones are bit pathetic), and the rhubarb is bounteous.
Also, we had a small number of broad bean plants given to us by a friend, and have been pleasantly surprised to get a second crop off them - we picked the first lot of pods and practically cut down the plants thinking not much more was going to happen, and they've just regrown more vigorously than before with a healthy supply of pods - I didn't even realise this happened.
I'm also seriously addicted to blackberry foraging.
We made a wonderful rhubarb and blackberry crumble at the weekend. Truly and utterly scrumptious.
Autumn raspberries are a little slow at ripening
(I think it's the cold weather), but absolutely huge and delicious when they do. 
I've also got a load of seeds for green manure ready to sow on the potato patch once we've dug up the last bit of the crop, Gloryboy.
Although our plot is reasonably established, I rarely do much with some of it during the autumn/winter months, and I really feel the need to do something useful with that bit of ground over the winter rather than let it accumulate weeds and cat shit - after all, there's only so much winter salad one can sow, harvest and eat, and we already have plenty of room elsewhere on the plot for that.
Anyway, we're away for a few days after today, so I'll bid you all adieu for now. Happy gardening (and harvesting!).
Lovely parsnip HC!
Good work on the melon too HL. I hope you enjoy it.
I'm a bit disappointed with my tatties. I've grown loads and got a good crop (pentland javelin) but they're not great, they boil away into the water
Even when they were 'new' they weren't holding their shape in cooking. OK for mashing but quite disappointed overall. I think next year I'll try a different variety. It said in my book they were a good potato for salad. Hmmm.... yes, if you want a big watery blob of it. Grrrrr. I guess we'll just be living on mash for a while. Wonder if they'll bake or roast okay? 
I agree with the blackberry picking. Why don't folks pick blackberries any more? It used to be a family affair when I was kid, out for a nice walk in the autumn sunshine picking blackberries that dad could make wine with and mum could make crumble/jam with. Don't people do that sort of thing any more? We've got tons round by us that stay on the bushes until the devil p!sses on them, and nobody else seems to pick them.
Top parsnip that - woohoo!....and the melon sounds fab too
Had a stocktake today and divided the crops into very successful, middling-to-decent, and rubbish
Rubbish = carrots, salsify, most of the radishes, pak choi, squash, garlic
Very successful = beetroot, chard, perpetual spinach, kale, onions, + the sprouts/leeks/savoys look promising
Anyone else care to rate?
Question - I have one scallop squash which has flowered well but not fruited - is this simply pollination problems? Does one need to grow 2 or more to increase the chances? Thoughts welcome, I know there are lots of experts here
Rubbish = onions (although they are coming through now but not sure if it's too late), potatoes (lots of them but as I said earlier, they boil into the water so not happy with the variety)
Good = garlic, beets, beans, raddish. Sprouts coming along nicely.
Patch is starting to look a bit bare. It says to dig up all the potatoes now! I'll have to find some sacks to store them in. Just pulled the last of the beets and raddish. Still picking plenty of beans though
Will be planting in the next week or so - rocket & lambs lettuce, spring onions. Think that's about it. Still got some garlic to plant in the winter. I might invest in a couple of cloches to protect the lettuces so they last a bit longer.
I must make a list of what I want to grow next year, including purple sprouting as I love it!
Rubbish - celery, onions, spring onions, garden strawbs (probably as I didn't water them very much), cauliflower - purple variety most definately a mistake!
OK - carrots (but I should have thinned them) beans (stringy), greenhouse strawbs, lettuces (should have sown sucessionally)
Sucesses - Melon! It was only one but it was magical!!
Cucumber, tomatos (as ever - don't seem to have a problem with these)
I'm going to try and grow things we'll eat next year, rather than things I think it might be nice to eat. If the difference makes sense. So that'll be melon, cucumber, tomato, lettuce, carrots, possibly radish. thinking of potatoes, but are they as difficult as they sound?
Also wondering about winter vege, so cabbage, late cauli, parsnips and so on. I don't feel in the mood for cauliflower or casserole vege in the middle of summer. But that all requires organisation and that's not necessarily my strong point...
My garden is looking a little windswet today.
Do I pick up the unstable plastic greenhouse or do I dissasemble it and hide it in the shed? I was hoping to overwinter my ginger. It doesn't like the cold. Last year I wrapped it in fleece and bubble and it still died. I may keep it indoors this year, there's room on the bathroom floor.
IM - I'd hide your greenhouse in the shed if I were you! My friend bought a plastic one, got it mega cheap from poundstretchers. It lasted 5 minutes. I told her it's far too windy round here!
I'm about to order some daffs and some rocket, and might try some curly kale.
HL I don't think potatoes are hard to grow at all! After all, I grow them!!
My gardening chum at work has advised me to try swift/charlotte/desiree next year. My pentland javelins gave a good crop but boil away to nothing in the water, so not very pleased with those.
Gooseberries ------ anybody know anything about them? My best friend has a very well established, and very huge, gooseberry bush in her garden (farm). She's about to move house and said i can take some cuttings or dig some of it up or something. Any suggestions? Does it work? How/what do I do?
So, a leek question for any lurking xcperts...
The leaves on my leeks are going rather yellow and dying away - does this mean I need to harvest and use very soon or is this normal (like onion foliage) and won't stop the leeks sitting patiently in the ground for a while yet. (BTW they're Musselburgh).
Any thoughts welcome...
Hi Poacher, apart from saying "Me too" I'm not going to be much help. I've had a look round at other plots on the allotment site and many look the same.
We've just used a couple for today's dinner and they seem fine.
I'd say don't panic.
How are we all doing? I'm guessing it's wrapping up for winter now? Cleaned my greenhouse up yesterday and moved the Blueberries into their winter home. Just got to clear out the pots and beds now.
And I'm making plans to extend the raised bed section so I can plant more next year
Just need some scaffolding planks now...
all starting to wrap up now HC although I put some salad leaves in (mizuno, rocket, red mustard etc) a week or so ago to see if I can get anything to crop up before Xmas as they don't mind the cooler weather. they've started to sprout up but we'll see.
this year's chilli crop is probably my worst ever outdoors due to the cool crap windy summer. very disappointing and I can see I'll have to buy some before next year's comes - that's how poor it's been.
I still have toms on the vines although they're coming to an end now - I'm kind of hoping to still have fresh ones come Xmas.
other than that, pots need emptying and cleaning before winter so a few trips to the recycling centre is forthcoming as I have no space to use all the spent compost in them.
my winter potatoes have really taken off - probably got have a foot of growth in the last week
im hoping they survive the early part of winter so that they will be ready for around the 25th december..
Which variety of spud is that?
Leek question answered - sadly, they had tried to flower and developed that hard stalky bit up the middle so need to harvest now. Shame, but they are tasty.
FB - xmas toms would be great, good luck
Best value crop - perpetual spinach, slow to bolt, just keeps coming, been eating it for months. The hybrid true spinach bolted like a scared horse.
Good growing all.