Anyone with an allotment?

How do you cope with frost with these bags?

How do we go about minimising plastic-use on the allotment? So much time has been spent sieving out bits of shattered pot, old compost bags and crumbling woven plastic like those potato sacks.
Obviously growing stuff from seed instead of in pots, buying string not coated twine etc are the obvious ones but is there natural fibre netting etc? Could you grow spuds as above in hessian sacks and just chop them up when they eventually rot?
We’re aiming to reuse all the plastic pots we’ve found on site but hopefully no more.

Those bags were started 8th April and by the time they were showing there were no hard frosts * to burn the tops (thats what knocks them back).
I don't know why people keep planting in March - they always cop a bit of frost damage.

*this is high up in southeast London and we've not had any late frosts recently.

I tell myself those potato bags are 'bags for life' . Apart from the obvious problems with plastic is , in your case littering. I've got loads of those 50/70 lites empty compost bags folded away in the shed. I often use them on the paths to suppress weeds and their unsightliness is covered with wood chips the council are grateful to dispose of on the site.
Plastic pea/bean netting support stuff is horrible. I've been using this - https://marshallsgarden.com/products/jute-netting-10905755?variant=31308730204211&currency=GBP&ds_rl=1278790&ds_rl=1284267&ds_rl=1278790&ds_rl=1284267&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzM_bjJ7a6wIVlYBQBh2DRg80EAQYAiABEgJh3_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

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Thinned out the autumn carrots today. Found an odd white/yellow one. Anyone had this before?

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could be not enough light? usually tasty enough though still.

Maybe some carrots self identify as parsnips?

Yeah, loads of old plastic crap in our allotment too. I reuse pots and old compost from my work and make compost with our food waste rather than buy it in bags. You can use old loo rolls as seed-starter cells. I’ve bought a few mesh covers second hand off gumtree. They’re plastic but second hand at least.

That would make sense. Was at the edge of a raised bed.

Actual lol.

In other allotment news, my sprouts have blown. Had a lot of strong winds recently, but could be nutrients too. Any idea if this is terminal or if the ones that come after will stay tight?

hessian sacks

Just in case others don't know but coffee sacks are cheap and easily obtained if you have transport.

From cafes?

If you are growing spuds in sacks it’s probably worth mentioning that having them light-proof is probably best as ones that poke out will green up and not be so good to eat. Suppose you could use them for seed potatoes though.

After a few years of growing veg in containers around my garden/drive, we finally got the email from our allotment society this morning. Off for a poke around on Saturday!

Nice! Anyone else growing their tomatoes outdoors been glad of the recent sunshine? Mine basically stopped ripening for the second half of august and early september.

We've been cursed with blight 😔

Ah, no good. You in a greenhouse?

One of mine caught blight but I spotted it early and quarantined then ditched it.

^^^ Yeah, I thought I would have to get rid of mine but they have started to ripen up nicley now. Tasty too!

^^ Getting some blossom end rot of a few fruits but have avoided blight this year thankfully.

It's amazing how much more tasty homegrown tomatoes are. We had lunch with some relatives last weekend and they had some supermarket 'best' 'Taste the difference' tomatoes and honestly they tasted really bland by comparison to ours. And ours aren't even noted for flavour particularly, more of a heavy cropper.

Very true! I think we had gardeners delight and some standard cherrys this year. I used to do lots of heirloom varities (green zebra was my absolute favorite) but a couple of cold years and no fruit meant I've stuck with easier varities this year.

on the allotment and in the garden but not yet in the greenhouse, but others have it there. good to have forgotten to leave the door open!
ended up eating A LOT of green tomatoes.
Luckily potatoes were unaffected as the tops has already died back.

Too many radishes.... any novel recipe ideas?

I made radish coleslaw.

You can pickle them.