Any allotment or back garden fruit/veg growers here?

I’ve got a plot in Brockley - Barriedale Allotments and I grow lots of stuff in the garden too. Just wondered if there are any other green fingered types on here?

I’m having a good year although there have been several complete failures. Toms are now coming good and I am spending some of today making some chili sauce with this lot

Sweetcorn is late but had the first last night - sooo sweet, chilies are good, cabbages shredded by slugs, aubergines - what aubergines…

Haven’t bought any veg for several months though so something is going right…

Yes I have an allotment on the Hurstbourne Road site. The slugs did a lot of damage earlier in the year so the potato crop not as good as it could have been and they also got some of the bean plants.
We have lots of courgettes though! The sweet corn is just ready for picking now.
The raspberries are good too although not many make it home once the children have finished!
I only grow tomatoes at home as they get blight on the allotment. So I just have a few tomato plants in pots in the garden.
I just wish I could spend more time there!

I’m on a list but desperately want one! Will hopfully use the produce in recipes for the shop.

I have spent the weekend making passata and chili sauce - very hot chili sauce - using all home grown stuff expect for some mangoes for fruitiness.

I’ve had my plot for about 12 years I think - very lucky to get on before the waiting lists went mental and it is ridiculous how much I love my plot. It is a great place to lose yourself and forget about the stresses of daily life and I get to grow lots of veg and feed myself for a large part of the year. It is not easy though, tough London clay, lots of digging and carting bags and bags of manure - lots of black fly, blight, white rot, leak rust, carrot fly, slugs/snails, pigeons, foxes and other wonders of nature trying to destroy all the hard work. I don’t think I could live without my bit of land now.

I grew up with one my dad loved his too & was always working on it! I’m on 3 waiting lists!!

I’ve had a plot at Kent House Leisure Gardens since 1999, and just came back carrying 17.5 kg of potatoes home in a rucksack.

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Last year I did a sort of gardening blog on the Sydenham Town Forum, which was about my garden and allotment equally.

#gardeningSE26

This year beans of all sorts - broad, french & runner - have been much better. Apples are OK, with the Charles Ross looking good,

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although the yield from the Discovery was much less. Soft fruit - gooseberries, red, white & blackcurrants were good, but raspberries a bit disappointing. The strawberry plants are probably getting a bit old, and I didn’t really bother too much about them.

The ground now is incredibly hard - digging up potatoes today I was lifting huge, heavy lumps of earth on the fork.

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The lack of water the last couple of months will have reduced yields, and I don’t have time to water everything. I tend to concentrate just on the runner and french beans, and some butternut squashes, which will be ready in maybe a month.

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Nice blog - I keep promising I will record a season on a blog but I never get round to it.

Are those Pink Fir Apple spuds? One of my favourites - they did ok this year for me this year but slightly disappointed with the yield although most are good sized. Still got my main crop in though.

My ground is basically brick at this time of the year but I have added tons of manure and organic matter. We get Brockley Brewery’s waste hops and grain so we have a nice aroma at times - good for the soil though.

They are indeed Pink Fir Apples! Some plants this year only produced tiny spuds, which I guess was the weather.

I hire a van to to get well rotted horse manure from the RDA stables in Mottingham. It’s free, but they ask for a donation. It’s also fairly strenuous work digging it out, bagging it up, carrying it to the van, unloading, and then getting to my plot!

If you’ve nothing better to do this Sunday, come to our Open Day - I’ll be on the gate.

Got a plot over at Grange Lane allotments on Sydenham Hill. 4.5 years on the waiting list to get it but it’s lovely. Must say though that my Mum-in-law does most of the work, I just help out with some digging/border maintenance etc. Slugs a problem as mentioned in a previous post but not end of the world, we get green beans, rasps, 3 kinds of potatoes, courgettes, toms plus both cherry and apple trees now in fledgling states. We also have a grape vine but no tools for making wine, if anyone does and wants some give me a shout, we can split the booze 50/50

Couple of pics - what a view!

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Kids love it up there.

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These are from back at the springtime - here’s the aforementioned vine. I proceeded to trim the borders after this shot lol.

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My courgettes got devastated by mosaic virus this year. Next year I’m going to go for a resistant strain.

I’d not bother with making wine, although lots of people on our site do. IMHO wine making requires very special skills, attention to hygiene, and is just not worth the bother given what you can get for just over £5 a bottle. Other soft fruit, like black currants, raspberries, are much better value for money

Aye I was thinking the same - it came with the plot so we just trim it back a bit from time to time.

Mosaic virus i’ve not heard of that one - unlucky!

One of the downsides of allotments is that you generally have more problem with diseases. I have a garden too, which is where I grow tomatoes - at the plot they are too likely to be affected by blight

I used to have a really productive vine, which I planted against a south facing wall in some neighbours’ garden, but a new tenant arrived, and wanted to take over managing the garden. It’s not been pruned properly since. A couple of years I got really good crops, and one year I gave most of them to a friend to make into wine. It was not a success.

The grapes themselves (Black Hamburgh) were really nice and sweet, but they come all at once, so it’s hard to cope with them all. I have since grown some more vines, in my garden, from cuttings, but I’ve not had as good a location. This year, at last, I have some grapes - but only three bunches. Next year it might be better!

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we’ve grown tomatoes this year, from a mixed box of six from B&Q - they look like the same varieties in that first post.
we’ve got rhubarb (from Tim Lunds plants on his allotment that he split), and some soft fruit, and loads of fennel!
I make my own wine, beer, and mostly cider - I’m more than happy to take any excess apples, to turn into cider, in exchange for a bottle or two of the end product of course.
yes, wine is available cheaply, but if the fruit is free, or foraged, and you already have the equipment, then decent wine isn’t that hard to make, easily comparable to a bottle at around £5-7.
elderflower champagne, elderberry cider, ginger beer, and rhubarb and ginger wine have all been suceses, and plum and damson wine was also drinkable, if a bit sweet.

No allotment for me, just what I can grow in the garden, adn what can not only escape the squirrels, birds, slugs and other delights, but also my two young boys and their various unintentional assaults on the plants!

This year I’ve had my first grapes ever from my 2 grape vines (one in a container in a greenhouse, one in the soil outside (running about a month behind) so I am very pleased about this!

Raspberrys doing well, had loads of runner beans, lots of peas earlier on the year (lots is comparative and probably nowhere near an allotment supply!).

Cucumbers have been reasonable, tomato plants a bit late but quite a few coming through now. Courgettes ok.

Hoped to get some Kiwi fruit but looks like they have stopped growing :-(.

Had a good crop of plums from one tree in a container, but they nearly all ripened when we were away, so out house guests and the squirrels got to enjoy most of them.

We have 2 apple trees (small dwarf type cordon ones) only one with fruit.

No fruit from our pear tree this year, thing it had too many fruit on it last year so hoping for a good crop next year.

Grew some sweetcorn for the first time which was not bad for a first attempt (6 plants).

Have some peppers growing, did not do well initially but now loads on.

I’ve only been doing this for a couple of years and still very much learning from my mistakes!

I try to grow food the kids like to eat, so will need to change some things next year. Plums, peas, cucumber, raspberry, blackberry, tomato and apples to stay, and hopefully some pears coming through. Courgettes, beans and peppers probably out, may try some pumpkins for Halloween, and would like to try some potato and broccoli.

Oh and I forgot lettuce of course - always good to grow.

For anyone thinking I have a massive garden, it’s under 40ft, mainly lawn and children’s toys!

I may start a gardening thread next year for beginners like myself so we can learn together and get some advice from some of the experts on here!

Will try and get some photos up.

Good idea, I think it’s always helpful to speak to other gardeners / allotmenters in the same location, as usually similar plants do well and there are often the same soil issues.

I’d like to add manure to my plot but it’s so expensive in the garden centre so good to get tips like the Mottingham stables too!

There are a number of places for free manure locally (some not so local)

Surrey Docks City Farm has a mountain of it and although technically free I do leave a couple of quid in the donation box.

Dulwich Stables is normally free - esp in Winter but often very fresh and needs to rot down but great for making hot beds.

Shannon Leigh Stables had a huge pile of wonderful rotted manure - black gold!

Lastly Southborough Lane Stables has a pile big enough to see on Google Earth!

I am sure there are other as well - For a while someone used to dump bags and bags of it outside our plot but they seem to have moved on now!

Thanks for the replies everyone - nice to see a few others growing.
I’ll post some pics of my plot and site soon. Some of the sheds are a work of art!

Just brought back the last of this year’s potatoes, from soil still like brick.

Say hello to me on the gate if you come to the Kent House Leisure Gardens Open Day this Sunday!

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So, with thanks to @Foresthillnick a horseshit map of SE London

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Before

and after - I suspect it was a fox

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because when I found them, the stalk was lying on the brickwork, as if pulled back by something.

Damn I hate that. I have an enormous cherry tree and most years the birds get most of them - there one day and then the tree shredded the next. Oddly though every now and then they leave them along and we get pounds and pounds of them. Our foxes don’t seem to do much damage and they keep mice and rats at bay although the squirrels run riot at times…

A few photos as promised:

a. Grape vine in greenhouse (apologies for the night time photo \ flash)

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b. Sweetcorn

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c. Cucumber (best to chop them down when a bit smaller I think)

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d. Plums on tree in container earlier in the year

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On my site we specialise in DIY sheds. Some of them are so ramshackle they hardly warrant the title of shed but for your delight I present

Crap Sheds of Barridale

1

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Love this sheds, very very pleased to be getting my own one soon. Just a heads up, reading through some of the earlier posts it is apparent that slugs feature for all the wrong reasons. I have used Nemaslug to great effect, cannot be more positive about it.

My new shed. Not been cleaned out but am assured it will be when we move into our new home.

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Shed envy - that looks like a real shed!

Yes Nemaslug can be great and there is no doubt that it works - I have used it in the past myself. On allotments you really need to convince you neighbours to use it too and you need to keep applying it through the season or the slugs just wander in, have a nibble and wander off again. It doesn’t seem to do much against snails but slugs are the great enemy on our site.
Might have to have another crack with it this year but my neighbours plot is all overgrown and riddled with slugs - luckily I am on the committee so we may have to send him a strongly worded letter!

Had the same issue with our neighbours garden being overgrown at one stage, a liberal application and the issue went away. I may have inadvertently sprayed next doors garden as well

Happily next door is now well under control.

There is also another shed, but much smaller and hidden in a corner behind undergrowth. I plan to put a comfy chair and beer fridge in there.

Just to clarify, were those photos taken before or after storm Doris?

Especially shed! 3

Storm Doris actually caused £100s of improvements to our site!

Unfortunately shed three is no longer with us (nor is the owner but his demise wasn’t related to that of the shed)
He “accidentally” burnt it to the ground when he realised he couldn’t actually open the door anymore…

It was quite serious - we had to call the FB. Tom denied everything of course.

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A failed attempt at growing self-roasted courgettes?

Looks like some beautiful plots and produce we have in Forest Hill…

Is anyone interested to “share” an allotment? I’m aware of the waiting list system to sign up for your own, but would quite like to share the work with someone else. I’m committed (financially and in terms of time!) and have done a lot of gardening, though not a huge amount of veg-growing beyond runner beans, salad, potatoes and courgettes…

Please get in touch if you’d be interested

Danny

Welcome to the forum, @Danny_Hubbard - we have shared your request on our official Twitter account, and hope you find a local allotment partner

Good luck with this, but you need to appreciate that sharing allotments often looks like either:

• Someone wanting to jump the waiting list, or
• Someone with a plot, not managing to look after it properly, but trying to avoid facing up to the fact. By rights they should be giving the next person on the waiting list their long anticipated opportunity

I am no longer on an allotment committee, but when I was, these were the reasons we were always sceptical about informal sharing arrangements.

Hi Tim,

I appreciate that it may look like that - but I’m new to the area and due to work commitments don’t want to sign up for an allotment myself to avoid exactly the problem you’ve identified, which is people not being able to manage the work required to have an allotment.

I think sharing an allotment would be a great way to get to know someone else and to share a common interest, and would still encourage anyone who’s looking to share to get in contact.

Thanks for your advice

Danny

The glut starts here…

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And here

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BTW, for those who do not look at the Sydenham Town Forum

GARDENERS! We are looking to organize a plant swap in Sydenham. The idea is simple: on a given day, green-fingered enthusiasts will be invited to bring along seeds / cuttings / plants or edibles they would like to share. These will be presented together; anyone who brings something to the table will be able pick something else.

The gardens in the neighbourhood look amazing: there’s clearly a great pool of local gardening talent here. SPE could be a fantastic opportunity for gardeners in the area (and beyond) to get know each other while exchanging plants, tips and ideas.

We are looking to launch SPE with a “harvest-focus” event in September at a date and venue TBC. However the project only makes sense if residents feel that this is something which could be of interest - and gardeners come along with green goodies.

Do you have seedlings / cuttings or any garden products you would be ready to share? (It doesn’t have to be many). Would you be interested in coming along to a plant swap? Perhaps even in giving us a hand setting it up? If so please drop us an email at sydplantexchange@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Coline & Alex

About Us

Coline Milliard (Beaulieu Avenue)
I caught the gardening bug as soon as we moved to Beaulieu Avenue. My enthusiasm compensated (somewhat) for my utter lack of knowledge and experience. Four years in, it’s still very early days, but I’m more passionate and keener to learn than ever.

Some of the plants I grow: roses, mini-kiwis, cucamelons, purple haze carrots, raspberries.

Alex Gray (Hyndewood, Dacres Rd)
Similarly it was the novelty of having a garden (and then a small allotment) after having moved to the area from Central London that got me really into the whole growing/eating thing.
I am a keen cook so the chance to cultivate and experiment with vegetables not usually found in the UK has piqued my interest in gardening.

Some of the plants I grow: salsify, summer squash, chard, french beans.

and my comment:

Alex has approached me about this already, and I’m definitely in, and I’m going to see if the Field Study Centre and yard at Daces Wood could be used.

I’ve already done a great trade with Iris at Grow Mayow this year, getting a tray of pelargoniums for some of my spare seedlings. Most years I have grapevine and gooseberry cuttings to go, as well as surplus seedlings in spring, such as, this year, squashes, gherkins, cucumbers and winter savory - a personal favourite.

Oh, this year, I’ve also got gladioli flowering from second year corms, by which I mean at the end of 2015 they were just cormlets next to a main corm, and which last year I just grew on, without any flower appearing, and now this year I am getting flowers.

I have a broad bean question. I have had a lot of good tasty beans lately and some of my later plants still have nice looking flowers on. But, I have a feeling that the season may now be over and nothing will come of these flowers and I should just dig them up and start with something else. Am I right or does anyone here think that if I leave them, they will just keep on going and make bean pods ?

Any ideas/guidance out there ?

Tricky to say really but they are not that keen on the the heat - More than likely you are looking at diminishing returns and if you need the space I would say - take them out. I take it that these were planted this year and not last autumn?

Thats right Nick. This year.

I’d agree with Nick. I’ve grubbed up all mine, and am about to plant out purple sprouting broccoli where they were.

hmm, I have heard that following legumes with brassicas is the right way to go.

It is often said but I don’t follow hard and fast rules with rotation. PSB is of course a brassica and would benefit from any nitrogen deposited by the beans but I am not convinced that there is much N left in the soil once the beans have gone to seed.

http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_a/A129/

When the grain from a grain legume crop is harvested, little nitrogen is returned for the following crop. Most of the nitrogen fixed during the season is removed from the field as grain. The stalks, leaves, and roots of grain legumes, such as soybeans and beans, contain about the same concentration of nitrogen as found in non-legume crop residue.

Interesting. I also dug in my last two bags of rotted horse manure.

My main concern ATM is that the pigeons will attack them, although the cavallo nero is doing OK now, so maybe they have found something else to go after. I’ll net them before winter, because by then some nice tasty PSB will be very attractive to cold and hungry birds.

Yeah I net all my brassicas now - normally the kale is left alone but a lost a whole row that was nibbled to the ground by pigeons…

Does anyone grow garlic, onions or shallots? I decided to try this year and have planted some of each from sets at the start of October. They are growing more than I expected already and I guess it’s been pretty mild. Has anyone done this before - do I need to do anything when winter comes?

Garlic

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The raised bed with everything

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I planted mine out a couple of weeks ago (onions and garlic) and they have shot up. No need to do anything over winter really, just let them be until Spring when a bit of general fertiliser will help them on.
I have had really bad garlic crops recently - rust and white rot seem to do for them but I am persevering!

Thanks Nick. I’m hoping I’m ok re disease as these are in the garden and I don’t think anyone near me grows any - I guess on the allotment disease is more prevalent. I got a small allotment on a plot I am steadily clearing however the raised bed I did and planted as above (without cover or grills) got completely turned over and ransacked by the foxes. …

It does tend to go that way - carrot fly, white rot, alium leaf miner, rust, blight etc - but with good rotation and hygiene it can be alleviated to a certain extent.
Good luck with he garlic.
Here is what can be achieved - a mate in France grew this lot…

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I have a roof terrace so everything I grow is in pots. Please to report my best year this year. At least 100 tomatoes from 2 plants in a Butler’s sink, sugar snaps, carrots, strawberries, raddishes, lots of herbs, bay leaf trees too. I’m growinfbgarlic this year for the first time, any tips grateful received and any recommendations for other winter crops that can be grown in pots would be great too!